68 An Impossible Choice (1/2)

The feeling was so... alien. Not only the emotion itself, but the feeling of being certain of it. Wasn't HE the one experiencing the sensation? It was frustrating how there seemed to be a tiny voice inside his head that was bent on asking, are you sure you're sure? Are you really, REALLY sure?

If he acknowledges the existence of that voice, Leal did know one thing for certain: once the doubting starts, it would snowball, it would spiral, it would never, ever end -- not until he puts an emphatic stop to it, and maybe not even then.

'Best not start,' he decided coolly as he also reached the foot of the hill and climbed. The information was coming from no one but himself, after all. Why doubt what his very own body was telling him?

Despite this bit of clarity, the feeling of newness and unfamiliarity persisted. It made him fit as strangely in his own skin as he did in his borrowed armor, yet it also made him aware of a few things.

For instance, that he'd been so rude all this while, staring so fixedly at Hilde whenever and wherever he wished, even before feelings other than curiosity and amusement had manifested themselves.

He himself abhored being stared at. It was so hypocritical of him to have the expectation, no matter how unconscious, that she'd hate such a treatment any less. Of course she would feel at turns distressed and angry over it. She was a fighter too. If a man had done that to him, he'd probably be raging to throw the first punch as well.

'All this while, I have been setting myself up for rejection, haven't I?'

Keeping a huff to himself, he pushed on up the inclined path. Alas, he still couldn't help but do that bad habit this time either.

Hilde had stopped short of entering the gate to the fortified Royal Palace. She was waiting to one side, ostensibly so the others who'd been behind her the entire way could pass first this time, but if he wasn't wrong, she was also waiting for...

He stopped himself before he could complete the assumption. He might be turning out to be a fool when it came to certain matters, but he would put his foot down at becoming deluded as well.

It was while he was thinking this that Hilde felt his gaze once again only to do a double-take at what she was looking at.

'Ah, hell...' Leal maintained a neutral expression even though he wanted to curse up a storm. 'I forgot. I didn't want her to see me like this.'

He watched as she raised a hand to her mouth. She appeared horrified, at first -- because of the huge risk he'd obviously taken; because she had been trailing a lit dynamite in her wake and had known absolutely nothing of it.

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For a moment, it then appeared like she would blow up in an explosive rage. She turned her face away, mouth pressed tight under her white-knuckled hand.

As he drew nearer until he was almost level to her, Leal managed to note the strange way her ”anger” was making her shoulders shake.

Because it wasn't shaking, he soon realized, it was convulsing. And that wasn't anger she was failing to keep leashed, it was pure hilarity.

Before he could decide how he should take that reaction, the unexpected moment of release was cut short by the raised voices of excitement below, so reminiscent of recent events. It was followed by the sound of running footsteps approaching them where he and others at the tail end of the column had stopped.

***

Hilde thought she was way past feeling alarmed at that point. Not only did it seem like she should have used it all up by now, she was also just beginning to dare believe the day's problems would end at last, that everything else could safely be relegated to the following morning, which should come soon enough, much to her lament.

She had celebrated too soon, enjoying the sight of Leal hiding right under everyone's noses without anyone suspecting -- their own biases would hardly permit that from entering their minds, and the man himself...

His beauty would put other women's except her cousin's to shame. It was a wonder it didn't draw attention to the point of getting seen through.

Before the footsteps' owner reached them, she'd taken the chance to look at the other men around her. Hilde saw that Captain Judda was only just realizing Leal was back among them -- and this only after noting the presence of the female soldiers.