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Twilight returned to the inn they were currently staying at. His face hurt quiet badly and, when he saw it mirrored in the inns window, he saw how the bigger part of the left half of his face was covered in black and blue bruises.
“Shit, what happened?” Legend was there, oh great…
Twilight: “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
Legend: “Nothing?”
Wind: “A whole lot of nothing?”
Warriors: “A whole lot of nothing to the face?”
Twilight was glad there was no one else to add to this. He grumbled: “Yes a whole lot of nothing to my face.” He sat on a chair and hung his head back, closing his eyes. He tried his best to deal with the pain but his head hurt a lot.
Legend: “A whole lot of nothing left some spectacular bruising.”
Twilight huffed and felt someone looming over him. He opened one eye to take a look.
“So?” Warriors stood with his hands on his hip and eyebrows raised.
“No.” Twilight answered flatly and tried to glare at him. But the pounding pain in his facial muscles made him grimace instead. He sighted and closed his eyes again, hoping they’d leave him alone.
Someone grabbed his arm. “Come on, you can tell us.” Wind was slightly shaking his arm.
“No.”
Legend: ”Seriously, who do we need to beat up for this?”
“No!” Twilight sighted. Coming back here was a mistake. He removed Winds hand from his arm. “I’m fine.”
He stood up and marched out of the inn. He heard yelling and could make out his name being shouted. On the street he rushed straight to a small sideroad and disappeared into the maze of the town. Twilight knew the others were going to tell everyone else about this and they all will worry. But right now he didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with overprotective and overly concerned brothers and a mentor.
He carefully touched his face and hissed when the pain flared up again. He should have taken a potion with him. Twilight gritted his teeth and went further into to maze of sideroads and alleys. He also knew he couldn’t avoid it forever. They would pester him with questions as soon as he returned. … Or was found, hopefully they wouldn’t come looking for him right away.
He really couldn’t put up with that right now.
Though Legend and Warriors hopefully opted to leave him be until he calmed down.
He was too tired… just so tired. Which is also the reason his face looked like this. He couldn’t sleep more than a handful hours in the last week, nightmares kept him up, his own or Wilds. Mostly his own. It wasn’t always this bad, a nightmare once in a while yes, sometimes one, ONE sleepless night, but never an entire week. But admitting that felt like a huge defeat, he saw no reason why it was suddenly so bad. And then todays embarrassing event happened, all because he couldn’t sleep due to some stupid and nonsensical dreams.
There is no way he was going to tell the others that he was so very tired he couldn’t properly react, when he almost stepped on a gray and black kittens’ tail but barely managed to avoid it only to trip down the stairs, he was too tired to notice they were there, and crashing face first into a wall. All because his reflexes suffered from the lack of sleep but he was not going to admit that. Never. Not to anyone. He was the supposedly Hero of Twilight and the big brother of the group. ... He had to be strong…
He gently buried his head in his hands and sat down, resting against a wall. Thankful that there was no one around.
His mind was too muddled to come up with an excuse. Too tired to explain things.
He groaned and thoroughly scanned the alley with the remaining energy he managed to muster. It was still afternoon but it was completely deserted.
The next moment not a single person remained in the ally, just a single wolf stood there. Twilight went to the next alley and found a comfortable spot in a corner to lay down, away from all noise and eyes. He’d take a nap and go back before sunset. By then he ought to have recovered enough to think of a believable story to tell.
When he woke up he felt the presence of someone else. The kitten, that he had avoided stepping on, laid next to him, curled up against his head. In fact, there were eight cats sleeping next and on top of him. He hadn’t notice any of them approaching or even climbing on top of him. But here they were. If the wolf could flash a smile he certainly would have done so. Twilight closed his eyes again and enjoyed the company, content with the soft and warm felling around him. It was still bright outside.
…
But the sun was kind of in the other direction. Looks like it was sometime in the morning.
MORNING!
Guilt washed through Twilight. The others would be terribly worried. They were definitively looking for him. Knowing them, probably throughout the entire night. And now he was the reason the others couldn’t get any sleep, just because he had been too tired.
Twilight gently shook of the cats. They loudly protested at the rude awakening but left right away. The kitten was the last one to leave his side, as if it was worried about him as well. It looked back at him from the end of the small alley the others had disappeared in, before running of itself.
Hm, since when did it have an orange spot on its forehead?
After his little long nap Twilight was completely refreshed although felling guilty and slightly angry with himself. But he hadn’t felt this rested in a long time. Maybe it was thanks to the kitten and its friends that he had had a peaceful sleep. After another moment to make sure no one was there he transformed back to human form and carefully felt his face once again. It still hurt quiet a bit and it looked probably worse than yesterday. He took a deep breath and then quickly made his way back to the inn. Thankfully he had now more than enough energy to come up with an excuse. Hylia, he would need one!
Needless to say, he was greeted with anger, worry, yelling, concern, curses and a tackle hug. But no one will ever know what actually happened.