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Although he wouldn’t be caught dead admitting it, Leona felt guilt for what he had done. It was stupid and irrational- he had practically thrown a temper tantrum over a smug lizard and a sports game that is meant to be all in good, fair fun.
Maybe the thing that hurt the most was Ruggie’s increased docile behavior. He almost never made eye contact with Leona anymore, only muttering a ‘yes, sir’ before scurrying away to fulfill whatever work that was assigned.
But that shouldn’t be a problem for Leona. Ruggie had always been loud and bugging him about classes, and now all of that had disappeared. He would never dip his hand into Leona’s wallet anymore, and his constant nagging had ceased as well. He had become the picture of a loyal lapdog, the Pavlovian conditioning to heel and avert his eyes had been set.
Ruggie didn’t play Spelldrive anymore. He couldn’t, not with his arm the way it was. It was practically dead weight, the nerve endings flayed under Leona’s killing fist preventing it from moving. A dog with a lame leg wouldn’t last long in the real world, and it was his fault for damning Ruggie with a lost future. People were polite enough not to comment on the limp limb when he slunk into the cafeteria or his afternoon classes. He’d had to transfer Alchemy classes to be paired with Jack, who offered to carry more of the fine tuning workload that Ruggie couldn’t perform with one hand.
Jack was probably trying to do Ruggie a favor- the freshman always looked up to Ruggie. But what little pride the hyena had left to his name was kicked again and again when Jack rushed to hold the beakers that were slipping out from under Ruggie’s working arm, or when Mr. Vargas gave him a smile full of pity when he had him stretch or jog instead of flying.
Nothing could fix the damage Leona had done, and Leona never had intentions of apologizing. But when he saw the light flicker out of Ruggie’s eyes, and he knew it was his fault, his gut twisted in a foreign way. He wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He wasn’t supposed to have friends, they would get in his way of trying to be the king with their words. But when he saw the hyena hiding away from other people staring at his arm like he was a zoo animal, all Leona could see was a small kid sleeping on the edge of a dirt road in the Sunset Savanna.
He hadn’t interacted much with Ruggie back home before they went to school, but he was no stranger to the sights of the younger boy working himself down to nothing just to pay off the house loan for the month. Without the house, he and his family would have nowhere to stay- and with how expensive rent was, they almost never had any money left to buy food. Ruggie had been forced to pickpocket and haggle his way to a scrap of meat for dinner, and that would never be enough to fill a growing boy’s stomach.
One afternoon, Leona found himself in the cafeteria. This was quite the rare occasion, his food was usually delivered to him- but today, he needed to go himself so he could get what he wanted without it being screwed up. Opening a small brown paper bag, he packed away an assortment of colorful donuts. Once he was satisfied, he loped out of the dining hall, shooting withering glares at people talking about him as he passed.
Why was he doing this again? This was stupid.
But not stupid enough to stop him from opening Ruggie’s dorm room door.
Ruggie was dead asleep on his bed, curled into a small ball with his back facing the wall. Leona observed him for a while, eyes tracing the scars where they ended on the hyena’s shoulder. They were ugly, cracked and broken. If Leona held on for much longer, Ruggie might be…
Leona’s tail flicked and he left the room.
—
Ruggie stretched himself out on his bed, cracking his neck gently from side to side as he rose to attend his afternoon Alchemy class. No doubt Jack would be outside of the dorms, waiting to accompany him to class. What a pain.
He didn’t wear his tie anymore, and often not all of his uniform buttons were done up most times. At least having a limp sack of meat attached to your shoulder means you can get lazy with dress code without teachers scolding you for it.
The boy looked over his desk to find his lab report for the day, but did a double take. That bag wasn’t there before. Ruggie stood and sniffed the air around it. The bag was plain and unlabeled, but it smelled sweet and sugary. He poked a finger into the top of the bag and pulled it open. There were a few of each of his favorite donuts inside, as well as a small envelope. When Ruggie pulled it out gingerly, he looked inside the unsealed paper. There were a handful of credits in there, at least 300.
The bag smelled like lions fur.
With a barely there smile, he tucked the credits under his pillow before going to meet with Jack.