Chapter 2: Chapter Two
Silence looked around. Was he far from home yet? Were his parents searching for him? He breathed heavily and wiped the sweat from off of his forehead, the morning was coming. The sun was finally rising, soon he would be able to see things much better, but that only mean't that his parents would too.
As tired and out of breath as he was, Silence stood from the prickly branch and began to run. The night before he had taken a break, hoping that his parents would be sound asleep, but now that they were possibly up they could've been sounding alarms, sending dogs to sniff him out. They could've been watching him from the trees for all he knew.
As he ran he watched something come into view.
And then he saw it. Suddenly there were less trees and more grass and dirt. He saw the first ever village he would ever encounter. Honestly, he expected it to look different.
There were a lot of people outside. Way more than he had ever seen in his entire life, they were all doing different things. Most were running around and opening doors to places, while others were chatting about different things that he knew little about.
Silence's eyes widened as he slowly began to walk into the village. The smell of delicious food being cooked entered his nose and lingered in the air. Silence felt his body being pushed and he stumbled forward deeper into the village.
The kids who had accidentally shoved him ran by laughing and skipping while holding onto white sheets. They were all in line, and their faces were all filled with joy and delight. Children. He had bumped into children.
"Everyone out of the way!" The sound of someone yelling made Silence turn his head.
Everyone screamed and began to part ways allowing whoever it was to come through. Some people stumbled back and hit the ground while others yelled at the boy that was on the huge animal.
Silence screamed and backed away. He fell back and ended up bumping into a stand making a pitcher of juice fall over and hit the ground. Silence looked up at the boy who was on the top of the animal and his lips parted.
The boy had a huge smile on his face. He fell back purposely and landed on his back on the ground. Some people yelled at him as if already used to this behavior, unfazed though the boy leaned on the animal making it kick its feet high up in the air and run off.
The owner of the stand grumbled as they stared at the boy and began to pick up the shattered glass. Silence turned and began to help grab the glass as well. He turned to the man working and handed him the glass.
"Sorry." Silence's voice was shaky as he wondered of what the man would do to him. He had broken a perfectly fine glass, and he had never been in a village before. People could think he was an enemy or worse they would think he was purposely breaking things.
The stand worker smiled and took the glass. He shook his head and placed the glass down.
"No worries, you see that kid?" The man pointed at the boy "He's the one who owes me an apology."
Silence looked back at the boy who was now coming in his direction. Silence jumped back and forced his hand in his pocket to touch his knife. The boy smiled warmly, so calmly and leaned on the stand.
"Hey sorry about that. You know my mom right? She'll buy you a new glass I promise." He said.
"Sure." The man threw the glass away.
The boy turned to look at Silence and looked him up and down. Silence observed his face closely. He had emerald green eyes and neck length orange hair. A large smile was on his face as he stared at Silence.
"Sorry bout knocking you over," he said and extended his hand out "my names Leo." His voice was filled with so much enthusiasm.
Leo.
Silence stared at his hand for a long time then hesitantly took his out and placed it into Leo's. Leo giggled as he looked at Silence.
"Well aren't you gonna tell me your name?" He asked.
"Uh… right," Silence was so used to everyone knowing his name, it was weird to have to introduce himself "my names Silence."
"Whoa sick name. Your not from here are you?"
Silence slowly shook his head not sure how to answer that. Did he really look that much different? Would they catch on that he was mean't to be an assassin? During the night Silence was wondering on if he could trust anyone, trust anyone enough to tell them about his parents.
They were very well-known so if he did tell someone they'd probably do something crazy like turning him in. Plus, he didn't know these people, they could hurt him for what his parents did to their family members. It was best if he kept his life of assassination as a secret.
"Really!? So your like a traveler?! That so cool! Come on, you've gotta see this place!" Leo took his hand and began to force him to walk-no run.
Silence looked down at his wrist. It was being held on tightly, should he have done something? Perhaps rip his hand away? Or stop running? Though, if he did react that way it would probably cause too much attention, but it seemed that Leo didn't care about having attention on him.
The wind continued to push Silence's hair against his face and into his eyes. As Silence tried to keep up with Leo he looked up at the sky. It was way different down in the villages.
There were a few birds flying high up ahead, and the sky was a bright blue. There were very little puffy clouds that seemed more like wisps. Silence stumbled and almost fell, but Leo continued to run making him quickly try to keep up.
Leo had led him into the woods again, although these woods were not like the other woods. It was brighter, more vibrant. A few leaves shook in the wind and pollen dropped down on the ground.
Leo stopped running and panted clearly out of breath. He turned to look at Silence and continued to smile.
"Are you oka-"
"Man all of the best travelers love this place! Come on, we're almost there!" He exclaimed and turned to a wall of leaves.
Slowly he moved the green vines out of the way to reveal a large creek. The water splashed against the rocks and soaked the dirt. Silence 'entered' the creek in awe.
Leo screamed happily and jumped into the air. He ran over to a rock and sat down on it, he seemed to know this place very well.
"Here it is! My special stream." He smiled.
"It's a creek." Silence told him.
Leo shrugged.
"Tomato, temato."
Silence stared at him confused and raised an eyebrow. Leo laughed and looked up at the sky. His eyes closed and as crazy as it seemed, it almost looked like the sun was shining directly on him. Giving him the spotlight.
He looked so happy… was he exposed to killing? Silence thought as he felt the heavy knife in his hand.
"So tell me about your travels! Oh wait, sorry I haven't introduced myself properly." Leo sat up and quickly looked over at Silence "My names Leo."
"Uh… you told me that already."
"Really?" Leo asked "Sorry, I forget stuff easily. So what's it like being a traveler?"
Silence looked around, trying to focus on something else.
"I don't know. I'm kinda new to this traveling stuff." He admitted.
"That's fine! Here come sit." Leo moved out of the way giving him space.
Silence slowly walked over to him. Leo seemed, so nice. So nice for a villager. So nice for a kid, still Silence was skeptical about trusting him. He had just met him, and he just seemed off. At least he did in Silence's eyes. Silence sat down on the smooth rock and crossed his legs exactly like how Leo's were.
"So where are you from?" Leo asked.
Silence swallowed and began to think of a lie that he could use.
"Uh-"
"Near mountains right?"
"How did you-"
"Just a lucky guess. Man your eyes are super dark." Leo leaned in forward and moved his hands up to Silence's eyes.
He opened them with his fingers and stared deep into them. Silence scrambled away and pulled out his knife. He pointed it out at Leo who's face became filled with shock. Leo looked down at his knife and a smile creeped up his lips.
"I knew you had a knife!" He said "and you've got something light like paper, and there's more knives right?"
Silence looked down at his knife then up at Leo. Normally his butlers and maids would be terrified to see him holding such a sharp object at them, then again, they knew he was an assassin. Leo on the other hand, didn't.
"How did you know that?" Silence asked "Is it something all village kids know?"
Leo burst into laughter and leaned back. He rested his head against the tree stump as he looked up at the sky.
"Oh man your really, REALLY not from here." He laughed in between words "There aren't many 'village kids' that are as observant as I am." Leo looked back at Silence.
"So not everyone can tell?" Silence looked back at his hand.
"No way Jose, but I bet my dad could."
"He could?"
Leo shrugged.
"I don't know, probably, but he's dead." Leo stood up making Silence back away more and become stiffer.
Silence continued to hold out the knife.
Dead? Did that mean he WAS exposed to killing? But if he was then that didn't explain how he was so happy… it all truly didn't make since to Silence.
"Dead?" Silence allowed his thoughts into the air.
"Yeah. Wanna hear how? It's a super cool story." Leo grabbed onto a tree branch and pulled his body up. He sat down on the branch and looked down at Silence, then unexpectedly, he extended his hand out.
Silence slightly jumped and looked at his hand. He slowly placed his in Leo's and felt Leo pull his body up and made him sit on the branch next to him.
"Umm… sure." He said and gripped on tighter to his blade.
"He got mauled by a bear! Not just a normal bear either, a super large, humungous bear! And my mom was super scared and was all like 'no don't go towards it' but my dad, he's a- he was a traveler by the way, anyway he pulled out a dagger and pointed it at the bear. Wanna know how I knew it was a dagger?" Leo began to swing his feet.
"Um, if you wanna tell me-"
"When I was little, like younger than now, obviously, my dad and mom used to work at this really cool workshop…" Leo continued to talk, but his words began to fade out in Silence's mind.
Silence stared at him confused. He had just been pointed at by a weapon and yet he wasn't scared or shocked at all. Did all village kids act like that? Did they grow up around knives too?
Something about Leo, told Silence that he wasn't like other village kids… at least not the ones he read about in books. Leo smacked his head.
"Shoot, I'm getting off topic, anyways my dad had the dagger at the bear and then he stabbed it! A bunch a blood came out! But my mom made me cover my eyes. She always says that I'm- dang it, sorry off topic again. Basically the bear roared and ran away, then at night when my mom was making dinner my dad ended up picking flowers for her. I was there with him it was really cool! They had green ones and orange ones, orange is my favorite color did you know that?"
"Um… what was this story about again?" Silence asked.
Leo stopped talking for a minute as he looked at Silence. He blinked a few times then began to swing his legs again.
"Dang it, sorry, I kinda forgot." Leo mumbled "Anyways, you look tired, you wanna go to my house? I'm pretty sure my mom would let you stay! Come on let's go ask!" Leo jumped down.
Silence looked down and then let go of the rough branch as well. Instead of landing smoothly like Leo did, Silence landed on his back and groaned. It didn't necessarily hurt, but for some reason he felt the need to react.
Leo laughed and helped him stand. He began to walk- well more like jog to the wall of leaves again clearly trying to get out. Silence followed, and found himself picking up his pace as Leo began to run. He did need a place to stay after all.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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