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You’re especially dead on your feet today. The bright morning light practically blinds you after being in complete darkness for hours, trying to get even a wink of sleep.
You think back to last night. Okay, maybe you’ve should’ve wind down for bed earlier, like 2 AM instead of 3:30 AM. Perhaps a mistake on your part. And yet, hours later you still found yourself just on the brink of finally getting rest, but not yet crossing the boundary of consciousness and unconsciousness, the dreadful ring of your alarm blares in your ears. You definitely should’ve skipped the day but what’s a couple hours at school? There’s always the library if you feel yourself falling asleep standing up. And you really didn’t want your parents yelling at you for missing school for as something as dumb as this.
You catch the glances you got from your friends, a little worried if not curious about how strange you were acting this morning. You seemed so alert at a passing glance but could barely get a whole sentence out without slurring your words together.
Cater nudges you slightly. “Hellooo? You okay?” That immediately snaps you out of it. You rub your eyes as Cater was looking a little blurry, and also seeing doubles of him. Though you were pretty sure he wasn’t using his Unique Magic at the moment.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m a little tired.” You try to sound as normal as possible for someone who’s been awake for 28 hours. Cater doesn’t buy whatever you just said for a second. He teases you for a moment but seeing that you couldn’t even keep up with his usual quips, switches to comforting you a little.
✦ · ──────
Leona is in a particularly bad mood this afternoon. One annoyance leads to another and he’s just about to sand this whole place down. He just wants a moment of peace and quiet in this god-forsaken school.
In the array of hiding and/or napping spots he’s found over the years the library is one place he doesn’t go to often. Too many studious and uptight herbivores that lecture him about using the library as a napping area, not worth the trouble, but desperate times call for desperate measures. As NRC is a prestigious arcane school, the library accommodates hundreds of books for student use, and the size of place is nothing to sneeze at. So, when Leona finds an herbivore in the hidden corner behind a shelf of Magic History books he staked a claim on, he’s unsure on what to do.
His first instinct was to kick you out until he realized it was you. The herbivore that’s been stumbling all over the place half-asleep. He’d be a real bad guy if he’d throw you out, huh. He takes a chair and rests his back on the wall, putting his feet up in the second chair on his side.
✦ · ──────
Lunch break was over in the blink of an eye. In the silent library you decided to trade a whole lunch for 45 minutes of respite. It wasn’t that big of a deal since skipping lunch was easy, you could just eat right after classes end, and the snack you ate just before knocking out should be enough to prevent your stomach from growling for a few hours.
Those 45 minutes didn’t quite help you bounce back to normal but it at the very least helped you to not tip over the moment you relaxed.
You were at your wits end during the last class of the day before you could finally go back to your room and sleep until the next day. Potionology that day had a new lecture you couldn’t miss if you didn’t wanna risk falling behind, with a demonstration towards the end of the class that’s counted for in participation points. Every few seconds you could feel your head droop along with your eyes and you’d have to force them open. Now, Crewel isn’t a cruel teacher, but you still might get a stern lecture if you let him catch you nodding off in his class even with a reasonable excuse.
“Class is dismissed. Be sure to prepare for next week’s mock practical.” Crewel probably said something around those lines. You were just trying to get out of there.
“You. I need to speak with you for a moment.” You quietly sigh in defeat. So much for pretending you were totally paying attention to the lecture. You might as well have dozed off without a care in the world if you were still going to get lectured like this.
You obediently walk to Crewel writing down something in the corner of the chalkboard. “Yes, professor?”
Crewel looks at you sternly and slaps the whip against his hand. Sleeping at any point during his class is strictly forbidden and he couldn’t make an exception for anyone for any reason, that much is obvious, but it’d be nice to be cut some slack once in a while. You nod along with his scolding, hopefully if you look miserable enough he would let you off without any punishment. Once he finished he takes out two pieces of paper stapled together and hands it to you. You look over the contents to see introductory questions of the lecture of this afternoon.
“Give this back to me next Monday and I’ll look over your behavior from today.”
A wave of relief washes over you. While it is technically punishment, it’s definitely better than make up classes or detention.
“Now be a good pup and run along now!”
“Thank you, professor Crewel!” You wave your hand while heading out of the classroom, eager to finally finish the day.
✦ · ──────
One last thing before you could finally, finally get some sleep is to tend to your plants growing in the botanical garden before the actual practical that’ll be due in a few weeks. It’ll be one dangerous trek, as the garden is the perfect condition for sleeping. It’s not to warm that you’ll need a fan and not to cold that you’ll need a blanket over yourself. It’s also very quiet as very little students actually stay there unless they’re growing plants like you are.
Leona could hear you fiddling with your things from a couple feet away. Once everything became quiet he thought you’d left until he heard your soft breathing. He sits up quietly and looks over the hedge to see you laying on grass, sleeping with a pitiful look on your face. Huge, dark circles under your eyes and your bag still on your person. He figures you accidentally fell asleep after sitting down on the soft grass.
He kneels down beside you, taking your shoulders by his arm and hooking the other arm under your knees, lifting you up and carrying you bridal-style. Lucky for him, no one was in the botanical garden at the moment, especially a certain someone that would never let him live this down if he saw it happen.
His best bet is to take you back to your dorm where he’ll hopefully meet your housewarden or friends to take you to your dorm room. Taking you to the infirmary is way too far and you’ll likely sleep into the night anyways.
Leona’s thoughts wander. Do you perhaps trust him? Letting yourself be in such a vulnerable position like restfulness is like showing your belly to someone. No, it’s probably nothing like that. You were already pushed past your limit when he found you is all. You’re just an herbivore who’s too trusting. But, even when knowing you were being carried off to somewhere, you were still completely relaxed, with quiet snores escaping you while you slept soundly.
Leona still remembers how casually you treated him when you first met. He almost thought you were dismissive or looking down on him by doing so, but he later realized you were speaking to him like a friend, even if you two weren’t really, at least in his perspective. Then he later thought you were trying to get something out of him, but no, that’s how you genuinely thought of him. Unlike a certain housewarden, you could clearly catch his sarcasm, and yet you didn’t care and laughed at it, even. It was so strange to him.
A little voice in his head points out how fond he’s grown of you. He looks down at your sleeping figure and perishes the thought. He doesn’t care, really. He was just in a generous mood, that’s all.
You start shifting in Leona’s arms, struggling to wake up to full consciousness. Though, he stays silent and continues carrying you back to your dorm.
The height and the soft dark hair tickling your face was enough clues to point out that it was Leona holding you in his arms. “When did I fall asleep?” You ask, barely above a whisper.
“In the botanical garden. Almost like you dropped dead.” A faint laugh escapes you.
“I think I can walk by myself now.”
He gently sets you down on your feet and watches as your body slightly sways. Clearly, he needed to walk you back to your dorm lest you fall asleep in the middle of the campus at night. You tried to convince him you were fine and the Hall of Mirrors was just a few minutes away.
He looks away from you. “I’m going back to my dorm room, so it’s whatever.”
Always finding a way to remain coolheaded, this guy. If you were just a tad more oblivious maybe you would think that, and forget the last 20 minutes of the Savanaclaw housewarden carrying you back to your room, because he was concerned about you falling asleep on hard ground. If you ignore whatever comes out of him mouth, his actions are far more clearer to what he really feels.
The two of you reach the Hall of Mirrors and he waits in front of the magic mirror that takes him directly to Savanaclaw, seemingly waiting for you to hop into your mirror first.
Before you do that, you close the gap between the two of you, and place a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for taking care of me today.” you say, miling brightly, and Leona just lets out a grunt.
“Okay, just go back to your dorm already.”
“I will! You too, okay?”
Leona hums in response and gestures you to leave, still standing before the mirror. It feels pretty great to be favored by a housewarden, a prince even. It wouldn’t hurt to brag a little, would it? Once you tuck yourself into bed when you get to your room, you make a mental note to be extra nice to Leona the next time you see him, since he’s putting in such effort to be considerate. You’ll definitely return the favor to him.