Some time had passed as he sat on the edge of his bed after a cold shower. Sitting in his unbuttoned shirt and black slacks, he stared off to nowhere while deep in thought.
'Thirteen notes. Within a day.'
His expression remained blank as his unblinking eyes remained stagnant. There was no way to make it.
His dry, tired eyes slowly moved to his belt that laid off the side of the bed.
Taking the belt into his hands, he examined its texture for moments.
An almost cathartic feeling washed over him, imagining something. Something that he deemed illogical before, but only now made sense.
Unfortunately for him, Maria always found her way into his head.
Gritting his teeth, he dropped the belt.
He still had work to do.
Leo rested his head against his pillow and drifted off to sleep. No dreams or visions flooded his mind that night, as if whatever dream deity above had finally shed him mercy. For the first time in weeks, he slept well.
Waking up rested and a few minutes before his alarm went off, Leo stretched. The morning routine went as usual, now making his way down to the train station and towards the academy.
Walking through the halls, he had noticed that Rachel wasn't there to give him usual morning greeting. He then realized that he had failed to notice any of his fellow professors.
'Where is everyone? I'm not that early, am I?'
He brushed this off and continued down the hall.
Stepping into his classroom earlier than usual, he searched through documents. He imagined that he could have been missing several notes from overtime. Possibly over thirteen.
Finding a paper that held his hours, he read it carefully. He had definitely worked far harder than any professor, so Leo felt confident in requesting a raise or at least a bonus.
Slipping past students and eyes that clung to him, he made his way upstairs and to the Headmaster's office. He breathed in and out for a moment, shaking off any nervousness.
Straightening his coat, he put the mask of Prof. Morwyn on before knocking a few times.
"Enter," the voice of an older man echoed from the other side.
Leo stepped inside with an awkward smile, meeting Alden's eyes. The older man was well built with broad shoulders, his chiseled features softened by age, short brown hair neatly combed to the side.
"Good morning, Headmaster Alden. I wanted to…"
His voice dying down as he noticed his colleagues around the room. They all turned to him with mixtures of guilt and worry written over their faces.
Rachel was the first to speak.
"Leo, I…"
She was promptly cut off by Alden.
"Take a seat, Morwyn."
In that moment he could feel the thick fog of tension that filled the room. Leo sat on a chair cushioned in pristine, brown leather.
Alden sighed, folding his glasses and setting them aside.
"Listen, Morwyn…" he sighed once more, as if the words were hard to say.
Leo's stomach began to drop further as he noticed his colleagues failed to keep eye contact or even look in his direction.
"You work hard. You're a great teacher… to the students."
That last bit of clarification answered the question lingering in his mind. This was more or less about his performance.
"To the students?" he probed.
The Headmaster nodded.
"Your reputation with the students is unmatched. They all love you, really. But… that doesn't excuse your faults.
Morwyn, this is the Augustine Reveur Academy. Professors are strict, their assignments grueling. It doesn't matter if students are comfortable. They're prepared when they graduate."
Leo listened to the critique. He admittedly wasn't taking his position too seriously. How could he, with a work schedule like this?
The older man continued after a pause, "Students work day and night to uphold their grades in other classes. Yours, ultimately, is the most important.
I hired you because of your experience… but when even the usually unmotivated students are passing with flying colors, one must beg the question: Is the course too easy, or is the professor?"
His pause brought the room to a suffocating silence. So quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Leo had begun to worry that perhaps this wasn't just a regular scolding.
"I've overlooked this for years now, but you've forced me to acknowledge this with your recent tardiness issue. I don't want to do anything too rash, but I need you here when I do. Are you getting enough sleep? Do I need to take away some hours?"
The recommendation had seared Leo's heart with anxiety and disbelief.
After some moments, he responded with a stutter, "No sir. I… I actually came to request a pay raise or bonus of some sort.
I understand that perhaps I haven't been harsh enough with my grading, and I will definitely fix that, but… I need the money.
If you cut my hours, I need a pay raise to accommodate for such."
Alden's eyes widened as he slammed a hand on the table, standing up.
"Professor Morwyn! Do you have no shame? Any professor here, let alone one of higher priority such as yourself, should have more than enough funds to feed themselves and an entire family! In an exceptionally high-end house, at that!"
A palpable feeling of guilt surged through Leo's chest as he swallowed his pride, finally accepting the pity he would receive with his situation being known.
After moments of silence, he finally admitted, "In truth… My daughter is ill. Dangerously, so. She's been in a hospital bed ever since she was three. If Empress sees fit, she'll be turning eight this year. Her treatment alone is over one hundred notes a month."
The Headmaster held his chin as his brows furrowed in thought for moments.
"And of your child's mother? Does she not contribute?"
"No, She… She died while giving birth."
He paused for another moment before continuing, "I go home to a small, broken apartment every night, lucky to have eaten a couple meals throughout the week.
She'll be thrown out if I don't pay by tonight. So please, Alden… Help me."
He felt his pride crack and tear by his confession. His mask breaking before his colleagues, several with their eyes wide with pity and disbelief. Feeling his stomach turn in shame, he kept his eyes down.
The most hurt by this revelation of Professor Morwyn's life outside of school grounds was easily Rachel.
She thought back to every moment he felt as though to hide himself from the outside world. Every time he's shut himself off from others.
She felt bad for him, guilty for trying to make her way behind those walls, and somewhat bittersweet knowing just how much her homemade meal must have meant to him.
The room fell under another silence.
The professors looked at one another and nodded, seeming to collectively agree that even if it meant their own wages were affected, they would give Leo another chance.
Leo could feel the understanding and pity from their eyes. Besides the shame, he felt a sense of relief.
He thought back to what Charlotte had told him years before…
' It's never too late to fix things, Leo. You just have to keep getting up. '
The hopeful dream in Leo's head was suddenly crushed and shattered as the Headmaster spoke,
"I'm sorry, but… No. You're fired."
He froze.
The soft smiles of the professors disappeared as they turned to Alden.
The sheer collective disbelief filling the room, eyes darting from Leo to the Headmaster and back.
The rise and fall of Leo's chest halted for moments before he jaggedly began to breathe.
His eyes remained unblinking as darkness consumed his peripheral vision.
"I… I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. What did you-"
"You're fired," Alden repeated.
Tears filled Rachel's eyes as she covered her mouth.
That familiar dizziness filled Leo's head as he stood up, nearly swaying for a moment as he found his balance.
The unmoving, statue state of the room was abruptly shattered as Leo had flashed past them, now holding Alden by his collar against the brick wall.
The Headmaster stared up at him in shock, Leo's cold gaze piercing him.
The fellow professors ran to Leo, pulling on his unmovable, thick arms.
"You… You bastard! You're going to let my daughter die? You're just gonna sit there and watch her die?!" Leo barked in Alden's face, seeing his reflection in the man's eyes. Perhaps that's truly who Leo was yelling at.
"Leo! Please!" Rachel pleaded as she pulled on his arm with all her strength.
Using her weight, she managed to move his arm slightly. This caused Leo's eyes to shoot towards her, throwing her off with a swing.
"Get the hell off me!"
Rachel roughly rolled to the floor, leaning on an arm and looking up in betrayal.
His eyes went from a twisted anger to regret as he began to see clearer, recognizing the blonde woman.
"Rachel, I didn't mean to-" Leo began to plead before being cut off by Alden who he had now let go of.
"That is enough, Leo! Leave these grounds at once before I'm forced to call in Reveurs!"
Leo looked at him for a moment, his eyes wandering back to Rachel.
His heart ached in regret as he began to rush out of the room, Rachel reaching out to him but not fast enough.
He swayed through the streets, his entire world shifting and seeming to move around him. His eyes drew increasingly dry as he forgot to blink, his mouth growing parched from the cold air.
A while later he had made it back into his apartment, locking the door behind himself.
Taking his coat off, he let it drop to the floor as he stumbled to his bed, sitting down upon reaching it.
Taking his belt into his hands, he sent one end through the buckle, making a circle big enough for a neck.
His eyes wandered to a wooden chair tucked under a desk.
He then looked up at a metal pipe going through the top of his ceiling, debating whether or not it could support his weight.
As the plan came together in his head, a realization came across him.
His lightless eyes drifted to a black case beside his nightstand. Reaching over, he pulled the case onto his lap.
Clicking the case open, he stared at a neatly folded uniform. The same badge that Caspian wore was placed on top of the folded uniform.
Charlotte had died while giving birth to Maria. Years before this, Charlotte had made Leo promise to never touch a sword again, effectively retiring his position as Royal Reveur.
In Augustine—and most cities on Terra—retiring from the military without proper discharge was frowned down upon.
This made work incredibly difficult to find. Most had turned from Leo, except the Headmaster of the Academy. For some reason Headmaster Alden held pity for him, so he had landed a job as a combat professor.
But now… that was gone. His only hope to save Maria had escaped his clutches.
Gripping the suitcase, Leo contemplated with himself.
'She would understand, wouldn't she? I mean, would she even know? She's dead.'
This line of thought creeped its way into his head for the sole sake of excusing himself. His consciousness caught up with him, shaking off this lie.
He felt hatred for himself for even thinking that way, but what could he really do now? He had to pick between Charlotte and Maria.
Could he really break the only thing holding him to Charlotte?
But if he didn't…
Would he just sit by and watch Maria die?
The storm of confliction ran through his mind, distorting his view of everything he thought he knew. The image he had of himself and his morals now crumbling.
Back when he wore that uniform it didn't take much thinking to sacrifice millions of souls for what he cared for. It would have been easier to think of the two as mere numbers, but that was impossible.
It should have been obvious to prioritize his daughter's health, but…
Breaking that promise was breaking the last connection to Charlotte.
He bargained with himself and the options the world faced him with, thinking deeper about her word's intentions.
'She had always been a pacifist. Perhaps she only wanted to prevent bloodshed to the best of her abilities? Slaying a Cryptid was a very different thing than killing a man who held his own memories, his own dreams, and his own family to protect…'
Leo continued to think through what Charlotte could have meant with those words, fabricating a truth to himself built from nothing.
A sense of guilt creeped up, as if a hand from the other side of the bed. Standing up, he moved out of the hand's range. He walked to a tall mirror, holding the uniform in front of himself.
Unbuttoning his shirt and throwing it to the side, he put the uniform on. The process of putting each part on was bitterly familiar. Disgustingly nostalgic.
After zipping up the last bits and fastening the badge, he looked up.
A sight that he was convinced he would die before witnessing again.
But perhaps he was still right.
Perhaps he was already dead.