Running Red

Chapter 4 - Time Under the Bushes

Hey, so I know this chapter is shorter than normal, but don't worry! I'm not losing my grip or anything. It's just a set up for the next couple chapters, which is good because they shouldn't take as long to post now.

Same rules apply. Editing tips, plot tips, and comments are my absolute favorite things. Please tell me what you think! I want to hear from everyone who reads this far into my story. Makes me sure of who my true fans are. ;)

-FO97

Leof is a . . . lively boy. Seldom does he stop moving. He just has too much energy and too short of an attention span. Even as a child, as soon as he was able to walk, he taught himself to climb up and over objects. Chairs, tables, shelves. Even animals, sometimes. Although I was much the same way, he still is far more sociable than I am. More frivolous. More audacious.

It was no surprise then when I discovered him rather interlocked with a brunette girl in the plants next to the castle. It had been pure accident that I had happened to see the pair split off from a youthful group of friends and run behind the castle and into the gardens, but now that I had seen it, I had a brotherly urge to go and put a stop to his antics, which I quickly surrendered to.

I entered under the ivy enshrouded arch and emerged in the castle gardens. A modest number of people crowded the walkways between bushes, but it was easy enough to see Leof’s orange hair as he and the unnamed girl rounded a corner. I trotted after them, rounding the corner as well and found them sprawled under a squat fir tree.

I made it in time to see the girl giggling at something Leof had whispered in her ear, and then their lips met in a sloppy and wet kiss, which they probably would have repeated had I not planted my feet right next to their heads. The girl was the first to notice my presence, with Leof’s back was to me. She separated and gestured with her eyes. Leof turned with a silly grin on his face, his hair in wild tangles where the girl had run her fingers through it, and looked up at me. His grin turned into something of a dejected grimace. He turned back to the girl.

“I am truly sorry about this,” he said. He tried to pull off a few more kisses before I lifted his tiny body off the girl and slung him over my shoulder. The girl was laughing hysterically at the sight, but Leof seemed content to accept the inevitable and let me take him. There was complete silence between us for the next ten yards or so. Then Leof, almost in a conversational tone, spoke.

“Are you aware,” he started, “that you are the most boring person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing?”

It took me a few more steps before I said anything back. “Are you capable of walking on your own now? Or must I find you a bottle and blanket to carry you the rest of the way?”

“I was capable of walking a long time ago. It was the leaving that would have given me pause.”

I ignored his quip and dropped him unceremoniously just before the entrance of the gardens.

“Leof. . .” I said rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand. He was standing up now and patting down his hair down. "I. . .I am-"

"Very angry?" he guessed. "Very disappointed? Very frustrated? I suppose you will say next that I should be more responsible. I should be more careful. I need to stop acting like a child."