"Okay," Leon said, though his words felt hollow. It was good advice, but would it really make that much of a difference? He knew that he was already working on what Tasha had suggested. It wasn't that hard too. He had been working on it for the past year, even before the whole mess with Kane.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
When no one seemed to object to hearing about his reasoning, he continued speaking. His palms felt sweaty as he opened his mouth, which suddenly felt very dry. Was it because he had never told anyone this before?
"I'm not a full human," he started. That was the root of it all. If it wasn't for that, he might have had a normal childhood. "My mom was a faery, but she left the Fae Realm for the most part after she met my dad. That's why I can change my form. She left to visit a sick relative when I was only seven. When she was gone, my dad and I got into a car crash..."
His voice caught in his throat.
"He didn't survive. I was scared and went back home, but, after nearly a week passed, my mom still didn't come back. So I've been trying to figure out how to get to the Fae Realm ever since then she's all that I have left. But it's hard finding that type of thing out. So I pretended to be Loki A. Lias and joined an organization that had information on it. It's called Perseus, and they want to kill anything that isn't human..."
"Seems like a dangerous situation for a fae-born like you," she observes.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Amy listened carefully, trying not to say anything stupid as she was in denial of the existence of magic, and faeries, or whatever it was they were all talking about. Sure, she'd just witnessed a 20 something dude turn into a teenaged boy. That she couldn't deny. But this was a lot to process and she didn't know how to make sense of it all. Essentially, she just had to tell herself that she was living in a fairytale book, or some movie or something to cope.
She found herself frowning at Leon's story, and how sad it was.
"Whoever these Perseus guys are they's not layin' a finger on you. They sound like some kind of racist sonsabutts and that pisses me off. Do they know you're uh, half fae?" Fae... fae? Did she say that right?
"I don't think it's racism if it refers to species," Tasha points out. "Not even sure of the right word, honestly..."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
He smiled a little at hearing Amy and Tasha's thoughts on Perseus. He hadn't liked them much either. "They didn't know I was part Fae," he admitted. "They just thought I was a human could shapeshift when I was still working there." But then his smile grew into a grin because it was hard not to be at least a little proud of what he had managed to pull off. "I actually helped a lot of people while I was there, too. Every time I would go to capture a person, 'someone' would go and tell them beforehand. Then I would pretend to get super mad and Perseus never caught on!...But that meant that my old partner didn't like me much."
Tasha nods in approval. "Something like that is hard to pull off."
((That's as close as she'll get to a compliment lol))
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Leon blushed at the compliments and stared down at the ground, though this time it was because he was embarrassed by their praise. His gaze drifted back over to Darian. "How is he doing?" Leon questioned.
"Not well, but he'll live unless it gets infected or something. He just needs time."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Amy looked over at Darian, who was still out. Her brows furrowed and she frowned.
"Do you think we have time, or will those birds be back? I mean, it's not like you uh, know that or anything but, dang, man, them's birds are feisty as heck. You think there are other animals out here with that kinda temper?"
Leon glanced up at the sky, trying to ignore the shiver that had just ran up his spine. "I hope they don't come back," he said. "I don't have anything that I can use to fight them."
