Disclaimer – ½ Prince and all of the characters—aside from my OC's—belong to Yu Wo

I watched in silence as Dib peeked over the edge of the tree branch, staring at the bears ambling about on the dimly-lit, mossy ground below us. He'd been like that for quite some time and I wasn't sure what he was doing. With how excited he'd been about continuing on his bear-hunt after I'd rescued him a little while ago, his current behavior was very unexpected. Maybe he needed to plan out a strategy in his mind or something, but in the time he'd spent thus far observing the bears, I could have killed who knew how many.

Whatever he was doing, I was getting extremely bored after having idly sat on that branch for so long, so he could do whatever all by himself.

Giving the boy one last incurious glance, I quickly stood and pulled my bow out. He looked up at me in surprise as I tugged lightly on the bowstring, leaning over the edge of the branch to search for a target. "What are you doing?" His high voice came out as a cautious whisper.

Wasn't it obvious?

"Training," I answered at once, raising an eyebrow as he also scrambled to his feet. Jumping off the branch, I landed on a lower one to get a clear shot at the ground. I let my knees relax as Dib clumsily fell beside me, almost tipping off the bough as it swayed up and down.

He tightly wrapped his arms around my leg to steady himself. "Don't leave me here!" he exclaimed indignantly.

Removing an arrow from my quiver, my eyes narrowed slightly at his words. What was I supposed to do when all he did was stare at the ground? I came here to train, not to waste my time watching potential prey wander about.

"I do not understand why you are in the tree in the first place," I said quietly, pushing him away from myself in annoyance.

"B-because you're up here, duh!" he grumbled, reluctantly letting my leg go and instead grabbing the branch.

Not seeing what that had to do with anything, I wordlessly slipped onto the branch below us and strung my arrow as I walked away from the trunk and closer to one of the bears. I was an archer, of course I'd be on a perch somewhere. But since he was a warrior, how in the world was he supposed to fight from all the way up here? I doubted he was planning on throwing his swords at whatever he was going to fight.

I shot a glare over my shoulder when he suddenly jumped onto my branch again, breaking my concentration and aim. "Wait for me!" he yelled, completely ruining our cover. He had been so quiet when we were further away from the monsters, yet now that we were close enough to engage in battle, it seemed that he had decided to throw away all of his previous caution.

With a tired sigh, I watched as the bear I was aiming for looked up at us and snarled, loping over to the tree trunk. Dib suddenly yelled in fright and grabbed me again as the bear began to climb. I quickly shot my arrow into the bear's shoulder in an attempt to hinder its climbing abilities, but it didn't work very well.

"Let go of me!" I snapped, briefly glowering down at Dib while I pulled out another arrow and drew it back. It buried itself into the tree trunk as Dib threw me off balance, nearly making me fall.

"But the bear is coming!" he wailed, holding on all the tighter when the bear let out another growl. For the second time that night, my abused leg was starting to go numb in his grip.

"Go and kill it, then! You have swords! Two of them!" I yelled, yanking on the back of his top in an effort to detach him. He wildly shook his head, wrapping his legs around mine as well in a complete and utter refusal to cooperate.

For the moment, I gave up on trying to pry him off and instead focused on the bear.

Drawing back a third arrow, I shot at the monster's head. I swore silently as the arrow planted itself in the tree like the second had. The bear clambered up the last meter and grabbed the branch we were on. Its angry roaring as it hefted itself upward was soon joined with Dib's ear-splitting screams of terror.

Starting to feel somewhat afraid, I awkwardly stepped backward and reached for a fourth arrow. My eyes widened as a loud crack snapped through the close air and I suddenly found myself falling to the ground with Dib, the broken tree branch and the bear. Pulling out my wings, I flapped them as hard as I could to keep Dib and I from joining the bear's descent. The branch and the bear landed on the ground with heavy thuds and crashes. After it had recovered slightly from the fall, the monster slowly got to its feet, staring at us as I lifted us safely to another tree nearby.

Feeling extremely angry over the stupid situation, I shot several arrows at the bear's scruffy, upturned face, mostly missing in my heated attacks, but a few did deeply bury themselves in the bear itself, and it roared in pain as it finally collapsed, its skull not unlike a pincushion at that point.

"AEOLUS HAS DEFEATED FOREST BEAR! EXPERIENCE +150! NEW SKILL LEARNED: FURIOUS VOLLEY!"

Breathing heavily, I unstrung my bow and put it in my quiver. Dib was still hanging on, not seeming to realize the fight was over. "Let me go," I ordered quietly, forcing my voice to remain steady. When Dib didn't respond, I roughly grabbed both of his arms and yanked them off my leg, having to use all of my strength to do so. "I said LET ME GO!" I bellowed in his face as I bent down to try to remove the rest of him as well.

He blinked slowly, looking shocked at my anger, but finally obeyed.

Without another glance at him, I jumped off the branch and lowered myself to the mossy ground to pick up the loot. I tugged my arrows out of the bear's head and clenched my jaw to bite back the rest of the anger that was threatening to leak out. Why in the world had Dib done that? Looking for teammates, my ass. More like looking for a shield. I'd almost died because he'd acted so stupidly. It was just a NPC. It wasn't a real bear. There was nothing at all to be afraid of if he just attacked the damn thing. He was a complete hindrance.

Cramming the loot into my pouch, I watched impatiently as Dib slowly climbed down from the high perch until he was low enough to jump to the ground. He landed lightly in the sparse grass and I walked past him toward the edge of the wood rather than going to look for another bear.

Small footsteps crunching over the fallen leaves and sticks told me he was still following, regardless of my outburst. I glanced at him over my shoulder. He silently wiped the tear tracks off his face, though new ones appeared, and sniffed slightly as he stumbled along, trying to match my much longer stride.

As we left the forest, I halted and knelt down in front of him. Rummaging around in my pouch for a moment, I pulled out a handkerchief and tugged his hands away from his reddening eyes. Feeling guilty for losing my temper—he was just a child, I reminded myself—I carefully wiped the cloth over his face and brushed his curly hair away from his forehead. "We should find something easier to train on," I suggested quietly, patting his flushed cheek.

He stared at me for a moment, and then suddenly hugged me, crying even harder. My eyebrows lowered in bewilderment and I glanced at the side of his head, wishing yet again that he would let me go. "I'm sorry," he sobbed, nearly choking me with the death grip he had on my neck.

Leaning backward in an attempt to get away from him, I glanced around awkwardly, feeling glad that no other players were in the near vicinity. Rather than releasing me, Dib simply leaned forward to continue the hug, ignoring my escape efforts.

Starting to get annoyed again, I tugged on the back of his armor to make him let me go, but he wouldn't budge. Why did he feel the need to stick to me all of the time? Were all children so clingy? I certainly never had been. I didn't want to think about what would have happened to me if I'd dared to act childish around my father or the numerous house staff who had attended to me every day. They definitely would have given me a sound beating for behaving in such an improper manner.

Dib gave me a soggy smile when he finally let me go after several minutes of crying all over the place. "Thanks."

"For what?" I asked, wiping his tears off my hair and shoulder with the damp handkerchief while quickly standing up to avoid getting strangle-hugged again.

"I thought you were going to leave," he answered, sniffing one last time and beaming up at me.

I gave him a blank look before putting my handkerchief back in my pouch and turning away. Leaving him did seem like it would be less of a bother to me, but I wasn't going to just go. I'd already agreed to train with him, after all. I wasn't going to go back on my word.

"And why would I do that?"

He hurried forward and fell into step beside me. "'Cause you were so mad!"

Of course I was mad. I doubted anyone else would have had a different reaction to getting grabbed by some strange, screaming kid, and then almost getting killed by a puny bear as a result of said kid's refusal to cooperate.

Why would he even play Second Life if he was so terrified of fighting? He could have at least picked a different class. One that kept him out of harm's way, like a priest or something. But, since he seemed so young, perhaps he had simply made the choice of warrior because it sounded like it would be exciting. I supposed not many children had much foresight.

"Where are we going?" Dib inquired, glancing around the field.

"Nowhere in particular," I said vaguely, wondering what else there was around to kill. I didn't want to take him to those slugs I'd been training on. Simple bears were bad enough, so who knew what would happen if poison was put into the situation. He'd probably get melted.

I quickly directed my steps toward one of the sparser sections of the forest where I remembered there were hawks and hoped those would be easy enough, since they were rather small and low leveled.

"Your name is hard to remember," Dib suddenly announced, tapping his chin with one finger. He glanced up at me, but I stayed silent, not knowing what to say to him, since I saw nothing difficult about it at all. "Do you have a nickname or something?"

"No."

"May I give you one? I promise it won't be weird! I'll think up a good one!" His blue eyes were shining with hope and eagerness as he skipped sideways through the grass to be able to face me while we walked.

"I do not care," I conceded in exasperation, making him look somewhat annoyed at my lack of enthusiasm.

"Okay, then…" he muttered cautiously, looking away and falling silent, much to my relief. Several minutes passed and we finally entered into the hawk territory in the more open and airy section of the forest. The trees here were much thinner and scraggly than the immense sizes of the full, leafy ones near the bears.

"Why are you so quiet?" Dib asked, drawing out a twinge of irritation in me. I'd been getting comfortable with the lack of conversation.

"There is nothing to say," I explained at once, pointlessly hoping that he would read between the lines and stop talking, though I knew he definitely wouldn't.

Surprise popped onto his face and he quirked a golden eyebrow. "Yes, there is! There's plenty to say! Lots and lots!" he retorted. I questioningly glanced at him and kept my mouth tightly shut. No response came to mind, proving my point.

He waved a hand at the sky. "You could say what a nice day it is. It's so sunny and warm."

"That is obvious. There is no need to point it out," I digressed flatly, scanning the trees for any nearby hawk nests we could attack. A moment hadn't gone by that the weather wasn't nice in Second Life. I saw no worth in talking about the weather unless it had something to do with training. Like if it was windy in some area or another, I'd need to have more reserve stamina potions to make up for getting blown off course or something along those lines. Why would I compliment the weather if it had nothing to do with anything?

Anyway, we were near Sun City. What was he expecting of the weather? Blizzards?

Dib shrugged. "You could say whatever you're thinking, then. That's what I always do. It gives lots of topics for conversation, saying things that randomly pop into your head. What're you thinking about right now?"

"My thoughts are not interesting enough to talk about," I answered with finality, stopping under a nested tree and tilting my head back to watch the adult hawks swooping around.

"You won't know 'til you say them," he insisted. "Go ahead!"

Sighing, I pulled out my bow and an arrow. Why was he being so annoying? I didn't want to talk and that was that. If he felt the need to blabber about things, he could go right ahead, so long as it didn't hinder my training any further than it was already being hindered.

Ignoring his continued questions, I shot a hawk through the wing and it fell to the dusty ground with a squawk. Dib shrieked in surprise and quickly hid behind my leg, finally ceasing in his non-stop chatter. I stepped away from him and waved a hand at the struggling bird. "I will bring a few down for you," I offered before taking off and landing on a tree branch high above the ground.

"No, come back! COME BA-A-A-ACK! NOW!" he screamed, grabbing the tree and shaking it as if he was trying to make me fall out.

Glaring down at him, I wrapped my free arm around the thin trunk as the tree and I wildly swayed back and forth through the air. "Stop that!"

"DON'T LEAVE ME DOWN HERE!" he yelled, glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the hawk, which was sitting on the ground and looking confused after its long fall, not even facing him, much less attempting to attack him. "TAKE ME WITH YOU!"

I lifted myself off the branch and settled in a different tree instead, only to fly off again as Dib ran after me. "Just kill the bird!" I snapped down at him.

"NO! IT'S TOO SCARY!" he cried, shaking his head and leaving the fallen hawk by itself as he tore through the trees.

Turning myself around, I quickly flew back to the poor hawk and dropped to the ground beside it. It may have only been a NPC, but I didn't like the thought of leaving it there to suffer with my arrow poking out of its wing.

It clicked its beak together angrily and shuffled toward me, dragging its wounded wing across the sporadic patches of prickly grass. Pulling out an arrow, I shot it through the chest at close range as it lunged forward, and then swung my bow at it, knocking it to one side. It fell to the ground in a daze and I stomped on its head, easily squishing it underfoot. I winced at the sickening crunch noise its skull made and I was once again filled with absolute hatred for such disgusting close-combat situations. I would never understand why anyone would want to be a warrior.

"AEOLUS HAS DEFEATED HAWK! EXPERIENCE +100! NEW SKILL LEARNED: SKULL CRUSH!"

Dib's head popped out from behind one of the nearby tree trunks a moment later, not that hiding had done him much good, since the trees were hardly bigger around than flag poles. He shot me a relieved smile and hurried over as I started plucking the hawk's soft brown feathers I could use to fletch more arrows with later. Dib put one hand on my shoulder and breathed an airy sigh. "Thanks for killing it! Did you see the way it was looking at me? It looked like it was about to peck my eyeballs out and then eat them! Really scary. You're so brave."

Shaking his hand off after I'd collected all of the loot, I stood up and walked away from him. Trying not to feel irritated as he immediately chased after me, I searched the air for another hawk. "Dib."

"Yeah?"

"Please, tell me something you are actually able to train on," I requested quietly. "I am not going to continue to waste my arrows on hawks if you are just going to run away every time I bring one down for you."

"W-well, that one was so huge, s'why I didn't wanna fight it," Dib grumbled, crossing his arms. "Get me a smaller one!"

Launching myself off the ground, I flew toward a nest and landed on the branch beside it. Trying to drown out Dib's renewed yelling at my desertion, I killed the mother hawk and tipped the nest over. All of the baby hawks that had been sitting inside fell to the ground, screeching loudly.

Dib gave them one look, then promptly ran the other way.

Glowering at his retreating back, I flew toward him. "What is wrong this time‽"

"There's too many, of course! How d'you expect me to fight so many all at once? Stupid!" he yelled, giving me an indignant frown as I landed in front of him to stop his retreat. I glanced in disbelief toward the three baby birds laying on the ground, then looked back at Dib. He kept his arms crossed stubbornly. Striding over to the chirping monsters, I picked one up by the neck and angrily threw it at Dib, probably half-killing it in the process.

"There you go. One tiny bird," I huffed.

Dib stared fearfully down at the completely helpless hawk for a moment, then slowly drew one of his swords. Closing his eyes, he quickly stabbed it in the bird's general direction, missing by quite a distance.

I didn't bother to watch whatever ridiculous thing he did next and instead bent down to pick up a second bird. Tossing it by a different tree, I left the third where it was and took off again to find a hawk for myself to kill. One that was actually worth killing. The urge to leave Dib there and go train on my own was starting to grow, but I quickly beat it down. I'd promised to train with him. My dissatisfaction with how things were going was my own fault, since I'd agreed without being aware of his complete and total lack of even the tiniest shred of courage.

But he really didn't have to be that scared of them…

"Al!"

…since they were just baby birds, barely the size of a house cat or a puppy. One of them didn't even have any feathers yet. Not scary at all, I thought, rolling my eyes as I slowly drew my bow back to shoot an adult hawk out of one of the spindly trees several meters away. Very ugly—a little funny-looking, really—but not scary in the slightest.

"Al! C'mere!"

I paused and looked down in bewilderment. Dib was waving one of his bloodied swords at me. Glancing toward where I'd left him, I saw the chopped-up corpses of the baby hawks littering the messy ground. So he'd actually managed to kill them. I wondered how much experience he'd gained. Probably as much as a flesh-eating slime gave.

Exasperatedly shaking my head at how ridiculous this all was, I turned my attention back to the hawk and carefully aimed.

"A-A-A-AL! STOP IGNORING ME AND COME HERE!"

Lowering my bow, I blinked slowly, trying to gather up the last shreds of my patience while his screaming echoed around me. I apparently wasn't allowed any time to myself now that he was here. And what in the world did he just call me?

I reluctantly let myself down to the ground while he ran up, looking extremely pleased with himself as he importantly puffed up his chest, hands on both hips and nose in the air. "I killed them all, though it was so-o-o scary!" he pointlessly told me after I silently stared at him for a long moment. What, was he expecting me to praise him for accomplishing something so small?

Apparently he had been, judging by the way his face fell when I still didn't say anything. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me toward another tree. "Do it again!" he ordered, looking very sulky.

Sighing in resignation, I flew upward and repeated the nest-tipping process. Under his firm and absolute command, we continued that for several boring hours. But I supposed that it wasn't a complete waste of time on my part, since I discovered many of the nests had little treasures—coins, pieces of jewelry, precious stones, even a few small weapons here and there—stashed inside amongst the feathers and twigs. It definitely wasn't anywhere near as good of training as I'd done on my own, but the extra loot helped somewhat. However, I let Dib have the majority of whatever I found, since the baby hawks barely dropped anything, aside from their corpses, which weren't particularly useful, unless one was perhaps attempting to bait some other sort of prey.

I was also able to make quite a few arrows while I waited for Dib to finish killing each batch of hawks I supplied for him, thus saving me a lot of money I'd be using for archery supplies on my next trip to the city.

Still, I was wishing I was on my own. Being around another person for so long was exhausting.

Leaning against the thin trunk of one of the trees, I watched Dib furiously hack at one of the tiny hawks, blood disgustingly spraying all over the place—how did that itty bitty bird contain so much blood, anyway…?—and wondered if he would mind if I logged out of the game early. Waking up didn't really seem like it would be a very good way to recharge myself, since waking up meant I had to get ready for work, but I didn't want to be here any longer.

Dib romped up to me a moment later and smiled happily as he sheathed his swords. "Let's go to the city! My pouch is full!"

So much for logging out early.

Putting away my knife and the unfinished arrow I was holding, I nodded at him and slowly unfolded myself from my seat in the grass. He hurried off ahead of me, frequently pausing in his steps to stare at me while I followed after, as if he was making sure I wasn't attempting to escape.

I watched in silence as he bounded through the grass, purposefully looped around trees, crouched down to look at things that caught his attention on the ground. It was quite easy to get mad at him for being so annoying, but moments like this where he was simply behaving like a playful child made me smile slightly. He was very cute when he wasn't acting so obnoxious.

Once we left the tree line, I looked around, feeling a bit disoriented. We were on the opposite side of the forest from Sun City.

Glancing over my shoulder, I frowned. I definitely didn't want to walk all the way around the extensive forest yet again and I certainly didn't want to go through it, since those bears—and probably other equally terrible things—were inside. Nor did I particularly want to carry Dib, but since flying to the city seemed like the quickest method to get there…

"Dib," I called, extending my wings and stretching them out to their full span, shaking them slightly to limber myself up.

Dib looked up at me from the patch of colorful wildflowers he was sitting in. "What?"

"Come here, please," I asked, withdrawing a stamina potion from my pouch and taking a long drink. He quickly stood up, tightly clutching a fistful of flowers, and ran up to me as I knelt in the grass, pulling my hair over one shoulder. "I want to fly to the city, so I would like to carry you if you do not mind."

He raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise, but nodded without a word and clambered onto my back, firmly hooking his knees under my wing joints and tightly gripping my shoulders while I stood. I cautiously beat my wings for a moment, experimentally lifting us a couple meters off the ground to make sure he wouldn't slip off. When he didn't move, I raised us up over the trees and shot off in the direction of the city, flying much easier now that I wasn't attempting to awkwardly hold him in my arms, as I had been earlier.

An hour later, I stared down at the map of the continent I had spread across the grass in front of myself and scratched my chin for a moment before using my quill pen to ink in a little note on the far side of the forest where Dib and I had been killing hawks. Trying to find training spots was an extremely difficult task, though it had never been before. Every new option I thought up seemed to be a bad one in regard to Dib and his cowardice. Moments ago I had discovered that asking him for input was useless; everything was a good choice in his opinion.

A light tugging on my hair drew away my concentration from the map. I questioningly glanced back at Dib, wondering what he was doing. He waved a blue flower at me and smiled brightly. My eyes widened and I quickly ran a hand through my hair, pulling out a small, pink flower. I frowned down at the little blossom, threw it away, then undid the braid he'd been making while I wasn't paying attention. "Why are you putting plants in my hair?"

"They aren't plants!" Dib retorted, gathering my hair together again. "They're flowers!"

"Flowers are plants. I do not want leaves tangled in my hair, so please, stop."

"It'll look pretty when I'm finished! And I'm not tangling it, so quit your complaining!"

"I do not want to be pretty!"

"Too bad, 'cause you're gonna be pretty whether you want to or not! You're already pretty and girly, even without flowers adding to your looks, anyway, so just let me do your hair!"

Feeling slightly offended at his remark that I was like a girl, I stood up, snatched my map off of the ground and quickly rolled it around itself, squashing it back into my pouch. Dib stared up at me in disappointment, many brightly colored flowers still clutched in his hand. Wordlessly turning away, I pulled my hair over my shoulder and ran my fingers through it a few times to make sure there was nothing else stuck in it.

Dib tugged on my arm's bracer and I reluctantly looked down at him. "C'mere," he said, waving a hand at me. I gave a suspicious glance to his fingers, making sure he wasn't holding the flowers anymore, and then crouched down in front of him, satisfied that he wasn't going to try anything again.

"You've got a petal here," he explained, smirking slightly as he raised a hand toward my ear.

He slowly removed a purple petal from my hair, then I quickly stood up again. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he responded, sounding annoyed that his doll had been taken away. Dropping the petal to the grass, he walked along beside me, frowning slightly. "You're so mean, Al," he muttered under his breath. "They were just flowers…Wasn't like I was trying to put dirty plant roots in. Geeze. So mean."

"I was not trying to be mean. I asked you to stop and you refused. What was I supposed to do?"

"You coulda let me finish doing your hair," he suggested, glancing up at me in a hopeful way as if I'd let him try again. "It's so long and nice, you could do so many things with it. It's kinda a shame to just have it plain."

"I am satisfied with my hair as it is. I do not want decorations," I told him, letting my hair fall down my back again. Dib made a grumbly noise in return and crossed his arms in a pout. I gave him an amused glance and patted his curly head for a moment. "But thank you for the thought."

He looked embarrassed and nodded silently. "Mm," he finally mumbled, grabbing my hand off his head and pulling me forward. For once I didn't try to take my hand back from his clutches, but instead let him hold it as we walked on.