Troubled personality

(LEO POV)

'W-What's happening? We were just talking and Elias suddenly snapped!'

His shadow loomed over me, and his piercing hazel eyes dug holes into my skull.

All of a sudden I was not faced with a boy two years younger than me, but a beast. A wild and rabid beast.

###

A giant staff reflected in the frightened boy' pupils, inching closer and closer, a spell of doom. His breathing quickened and his small chest heaved up and down with craze, Leo was lost in Elias's bloodlust, illusions taking over his mind.

The boy was getting closer to losing his sanity amid frantic Nystagmus. Only a splinter of wood drawing blood from the flesh of his palm returned him to the present.

The pain gave him respite from his hallucinations allowing him to view reality from the reflection of the crimson blood.

From the surface of the leaking fluid, he could only see a tall silhouette towering over him. Yet it was still frightening, especially knowing that the silhouette could fell ferocious wolves with a thought.

Leo refused to turn his head back to Elias and crawled to the door, his palm smearing a blood all over the wooden tiles.

His knees scraped against the ground as Leo grunted in panic afraid that Elias might not allow his escape. Once Leo was out the door, he galloped away devouring the distance between his house and the isolated meadow with long strides.

He crossed the blanch meadow and the pass bridging over the frozen river. He passed many houses blanketed in thin clumps of snow, and the town plaza buzzing with activity despite the cold temperature.

With sore legs and a heart thumping crazily, he opened the door to a mundane looking house, a house just like the others, except it was his.

The minute he entered the house, he slammed the door shut and leaned his back on it, a hand clutching the heart looking to jump out of his chest.

He wanted to walk off whatever happened in that cabin. He wanted to be courageous and steadfast, a pillar for his family to lean on. But his brave façade crumbled the minute his mother's gentle voice graced his ears.

"Leo, is that you dear?"

Like a moth driven to flame, Leo ventured the small house in search of his beacon of light, his mother.

The red haired boy took off his sweat leaden coat, throwing it by the door and rushed to his mother's bedside, throwing his head upon her warm lap.

"M-Mom. Elias, h-he, We were talking and then he got mad. And then I-I fell, and -and"

Leo whimpered in his mother's embrace; a stuttering mess. He failed to form simple sentences as he spilled his heart out while digging his face into her stomach.

Even though Drea was not able to completely understand her son, she knew it was more important to calm him down.

"Hush now my little Leo. Calm down now, there's now one here to hurt you."

Drea caressed her son's head gently as her dainty fingers ran through the forest of flame atop his scalp. Her thumb would circle the back of his head with a motherly touch, licking the strands of fire with overflowing love.

Leo's body quivered in his mother's hold, he whimpered and cried his hands squeezing her soft waste occasionally.

To calm her son down, Drea sang a soft tune into her son's ear. Long waves of Golden Ocean fell to Leo's head like a satin curtain, protecting him from the cruelty of the world.

Leo's body finally relaxed, his breathing rhythmic and soft; how a child's should be.

###

The child hiding from the world woke up kneeling on the ground and burying his face in his mother's arms. The sun had long since set, and the curtain of the night covered the world with its starry fabric.

The red haired boy lifted his head and rubbed his blue eyes innocently, his clumped hands passing over the redness of the crying marbles of azure.

"Good morning sunshine. Or should I say goodnight?" A loving voice chuckled, the words dripping honey into his ears.

Still not completely woken up, all Leo could do was nod listlessly to his mother's playfulness.

However, sleep could only help one cope so much, eventually they would remember their woes, and such is the case of Leo.

His eyes were unfocused for the brief moments of bliss after waking up, but soon small tears glinted with the candle light as they threatened to fall once again.

Leo turned to his mother, his lips quivering and his voice a squeaking mess

"M-Mom, Elias, h-he-"

"Hush now my baby boy. Gather your thoughts and speak once you are ready."

Leo nodded his head softly, took a deep breath and recounted the story.

After he was done, Leo looked at his mother for support, sputtering a few last words of plea

"Why did he act like that? Why did he try to hurt me? I did not do anything did I?"

Drea was surprised at her son's kind and accepting heart, looking for fault in himself before others, a virtuous trait.

She shook her head at her son's question and decided to shed light on the situation.

"Elias is without father or mother, he has no one to guide him. Is that not what you told me before?" Drea consoled, her hand brushed his red hair, an action Leo always found soothing.

"From what you spoke, Elias is quick to anger and afraid of trust. These are all signs of a broken boy. Tell me Leo how did you feel after we lost your father? Hmm? Were you not angry at everyone? Were you not hurt?"

Leo listened to his mother somberly, finding each word of her's sage in nature, allowing him to understand more and more about the motive of Elias's actions. He strangely felt close to him, he was someone who might know of his pain... someone who might understand the loss of a loved one.

'I had mother and little Lily to help me through it. Even my friends and their families helped, but who does he have? … No one.'

Drea watched as her kind little cub come to terms with his fears and realize that the 'bogeyman' was in fact just another hurt child.

"Mom can we invite him for dinner someday? You know with Aunty Teresa and everyone?"

The proud mother was once again taken by her son's kindness and nodded tenderly. She moved her eyes to the shining night sky, strangely in the exact location of the young shepherd's cabin, her eyes carrying a mysterious glint in them.

'Soon, soon everything will be unveiled'