PRIDE (Leona x Reader) [Twisted Wonderland]

Chapter 7

The warm water of the bath made it almost impossible to get out in less than half an hour, but you didn't want to take up too much of Leona's time. You wondered how they managed to alter the temperature as such. Perhaps that was magic as well. Your hair and skin was shinier after using the soaps, and you smelled like nature; a scent that was not quite floral, but definitely some sort of greenery.

Leona had left you a change of clothes just outside the door, and he wasn't in the bedroom anymore when you peeked outside to look for him. You got dressed, finding that this uniform didn't fit quite as well as the fake one had. Speaking of which, your old clothes had returned to normal by the time you got out of the tub, and you weren't sure what to do with them, so you just folded them up and set them outside the tub.

Things seemed... calm, for now. You didn't know where Leona had gone, or when Crowley would come looking for you again, but remembering Leona's words from earlier kept you from falling into another bout of panic. He had some kind of plan. He hadn't told you what it was yet, but it had to be better than what you'd been doing.

Perhaps he could find a key for you to use, or search for another way out off the campus. You wanted to ask him, but even a small cracking of the door told you that making your way outside of this room would get you noticed by several of the other Savanaclaw house members. They were between classes now, and some of them had returned to the dorm to goof off or skip class.

Since you had time to spare anyway, you made your way over to the trio of books stacked on Leona's desk. Hopefully, he wouldn't mind you reading them. You scooped one up and took it to the bed, where you sat down cross legged and began to read.

The story was a simple one; a tale of a lion prince who fell second in line for the crown, and proceeded to help a neglected group of hyenas that sought food and equality in their country. How creative. You were a slow reader, since you had only received a limited education from the village schoolhouse back home. Still, you were a quarter of the way through it when the door opened, and you looked up from the tale.

Leona looked unhappy. He didn't enter the room. He only said, "He's here," and tossed you a pen.

You held your hands out and caught it, though it slipped through your fingers a few times first. "What?"

"Hide." He shut the door, not even entering the room.

You sat there in shock, until you heard Crowley's voice on the other side of the wall. Your heart sped up in sudden understanding, and you tossed the book back onto the stack.

Hide. Hide. Hide where?

You didn't have many options. The bed was too low to the ground to fit under, the closet was too full, and you thought about slipping out the window but it wasn't very big and it was too high up for you to climb anyway. The architecture of the dorm, which you had admired for its uniqueness before, suddenly felt like an awful hassle. You slipped decidedly into the bathroom, pulling the door closed, but not all the way. The doors made sounds when they closed, you didn't know if that would be enough to alert him.

Their voices were muffled and sounded far away. They must've been at the other end of the hall. Perhaps Crowley wouldn't come to Leona's room at all. You put your ear against the door to listen a little better.

"Professor Trein was telling me about a troublesome new transfer student that you'd acquired," Crowley said. You could hear the click of his heels moving closer, and then stopping. "Which I thought was odd, since we don't get any new students outside of the beginning of the year. And I at least think I would have heard about it."

"I didn't say they were any newer than the freshman," Leona refuted in a halfhearted tone. "They just haven't adjusted to classes yet."

"A student that Trein doesn't know, despite them having been here the whole year? Well, that is odd. Perhaps I should have a talk with them about their history attendance, then. I can't just have students skipping class willy nilly."