Eleo's departure

Month: Ashenveil

Day 1: Ironday

Eleo, now twelve years old, sat at the kitchen table, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. Across from him, Abby and Lucy stared.

"I'm leaving," Eleo said, matter-of-factly.

Silence.

Lucy set down the dish she was drying. Slowly. Then she crossed the kitchen, pulled out a chair, and sat down across from him with the deliberateness of a woman deciding how to handle something.

"Eleo," she said, "tell me what you're thinking."

Not a shout. Not a facepalm. Just her full attention, which somehow felt heavier.

Eleo blinked. He'd prepared for yelling. This was harder. "I... I wanna see the world. Get stronger. I can't do that if I stay here my whole life."

"Your whole life," Lucy repeated. "You're twelve."

"It feels like a whole life!"

The corner of her mouth moved. Not quite a smile. "It does at twelve," she said, like she meant it. "Where will you go?"

"I'll figure it out as I go!"

Abby's ears drooped. "But... why?"

Eleo scratched his head, feeling the weight of both of them watching him. "I know it's sudden. But I've always wanted this. I need to go, Abby."

Abby gripped her sleeves. "But you're my only friend, Eleo. My best friend."

The words hit him like a punch. He opened his mouth and couldn't find anything.

Abby's voice dropped. "Do you remember when we first met? It was snowing. We were both five. That big jerk Nico was picking on me."

---

The air was freezing, snowflakes drifting over rooftops gone soft and white.

A small Abby stood alone, trembling. Around her, a knot of kids laughed, breath steaming in the cold. At the front stood Nico, a young wolf kid, smug grin plastered on.

"Look at her, all alone! Guess no one wants to be friends with a weakling!"

The kids snickered. Abby's ears flattened.

Then—

SMACK!

A snowball slammed into Nico's face.

Everyone turned.

A short bunny kid with messy fur and a furious scowl stood a few feet away, panting, fists still packed with snow.

Eleo pointed. "HEY! LEAVE HER ALONE!"

Nico wiped snow from his face. "Oh, you wanna play hero?" He cracked his knuckles. "GET HIM."

Eleo's eyes went wide. "Oh."

BAM. SMACK. THUD.

The bullies walked away laughing. Eleo lay face-first in the snow, twitching, one ear flopped over his eye.

Abby walked over slowly and pulled him out. His face was swollen and covered in snow.

A tear fell from her cheek onto his.

"Why?" she whispered. "Why did you help me?"

She thought he was unconscious.

"It's my fault. If I wasn't weak—"

Eleo leaped up.

"BECAUSE I THINK YOU'RE COOL~!"

He immediately collapsed back into the snow.

Abby stared.

Then she laughed. Real, surprised, warm. For the first time that day, she felt it.

---

Back at the table, Abby wiped her eyes. "That was the day. You were a total idiot. But you were my idiot."

Eleo scratched the back of his head. "...I'm still an idiot."

"At least you're consistent," Lucy said, quietly.

Abby took a breath. "Do you really have to go?"

Eleo stood. He put on his best confident face. "Yeah. But I'll come back. I swear it."

Abby looked at him for a long moment. "Promise?"

He held out his pinky. "Pinky swear."

She hesitated. Then she linked hers with his.

"Fine. But if you die, I'm bringing you back just to kill you myself."

Lucy raised her hand. "I'll assist."

Eleo laughed. "I like the confidence!"

"Eleo," Lucy said. "Wait here."

She disappeared into the back. They heard a cabinet opening, something being moved aside, the careful handling of an object that had sat undisturbed a long while.

She came back with two things folded over her arm and set them on the table.

A hoodie. White, long-sleeved, the kind that had started soft and gotten softer with age. A small patch worn at the left cuff, the hem washed so many times it had faded to the particular off-white of something genuinely loved. The second item was a pair of dark gray pants, clean and sturdy, clearly new.

"The hoodie was Kuma's," Lucy said. "He left it here years ago, before he got too big for it." She smoothed the sleeve with her thumb once. "I kept it. Maybe I always thought it would end up with someone who needed it. He trained you. He believed in you. I think he'd want you to have it."

Eleo stared at it.

"The pants are from me. New ones. You're going to need them."

Eleo picked it up carefully. It was light in his hands, smelling faintly of cedar from wherever Lucy had kept it hidden all these years.

He put it on.

It fit perfectly — sleeves long past his wrists, hem down to his hips, exactly the way an oversized hand-me-down should fit on a twelve-year-old setting out to do something impossible.

He looked down at himself. Then up at Lucy.

"...Thank you, Miss Lucy."

She looked at him the same way she had two years ago, the morning she'd first noticed the ink on his ear. The filing-away look, like she was making sure she remembered this exactly.

"You eat properly," she said. "You sleep when you need to. And you come back."

"Yes, Miss Lucy."

"I mean it, Eleo."

He met her eyes. "I know."

She nodded once, stepped forward, pressed the folded pants into his arms, and turned back to the kitchen like the conversation was finished — though she didn't move right away, just stood a moment with her back to them.

---

"WAIT!" Abby called, as he headed for the door.

Eleo stopped. "Huh? Did I forget something? My bag? My carrots?! MY EARS?!"

Lucy, from the kitchen: "Still on your head."

"Oh, phew."

Abby held out a necklace. Small. A carved wooden pendant on a cord.

"There's a little carving of me on it. So you won't forget me."

Eleo slung it around his neck immediately. "Now I have my own tiny Abby! I'll never be lonely!"

Abby's eyes went slightly bright. "Don't forget me, okay?"

"Pfft. Like I could forget you." He grinned. "I promise."

"Don't do anything stupid out there."

Lucy muttered, "Impossible."

---

The whole village had gathered at the dock by the time they arrived.

It started with just Abby and Lucy walking him down the hill. But by the waterfront, the path behind them had filled in, the way a tide comes in without anyone noticing the moment it arrived.

Old Maren the goat farmer came first, leaning on her stick, falling into step. Then the fishermen, nets still on their shoulders. The baker's family, the youngest daughter still holding a half-eaten roll. The blacksmith in his apron, soot on his knuckles. The merchant who always overcharged for everything stood quietly at the back — which said more than anything he could have said out loud.

Even the animals came.

Bipp, the old stray dog who slept on the dock every afternoon, padded over and sat at the edge, tail still. The village cats — usually too dignified for any gathering — appeared along the fence posts, blinking slow and solemn. A pair of deer wandered in from the field and stood at the crowd's edge, watchful, the stillness deer carry when something tells them to pay attention.

Eleo looked at all of them. His ears went flat. Just for a second.

He hadn't expected this.

Then, from the back, came a slow, deliberate step. People parted without being asked.

Elder Hagan made his way through, cane tapping the worn boards, and stopped at the front. A broad old man — a bear, grey-furred and heavy-shouldered, carrying the stillness that comes from outliving a great many things. He looked down at Eleo for a long moment.

Eleo stood up straight without meaning to.

Hagan crouched — for a man his age and size, it took visible effort — and put one large hand on Eleo's shoulder.

"I watched you grow up on this island," he said. His voice was low, but the dock had gone quiet enough that everyone heard it anyway. "I watched you lose fights you had no business picking. I watched you get back up every single time." He paused. "I used to think you were just stubborn."

A few quiet laughs rippled through the crowd.

"I know better now." His grip tightened once — not hard, just sure. "You have something in you this island is too small for. I don't know what the world is going to do with you. But I know what you're going to do with it."

He straightened, reached into his coat, and drew out a smooth, flat stone with a simple mark carved into its face — a circle, split by a single line. The village symbol.

He pressed it into Eleo's palm and closed his fingers around it.

"So you remember where you're from."

Eleo stared at the stone. He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out. That almost never happened.

Hagan's mouth moved, just barely. "Go on, boy. Before you make an old man stand here any longer than he has to."

Eleo laughed — a short, surprised sound — and wiped his face with his sleeve.

He turned to the crowd. All of them. Maren with her stick, the blacksmith with his sooty knuckles, the baker's daughter with her roll, the deer at the field's edge, Bipp with his tail starting to move again, the cats watching with their particular kind of knowing.

"I'll come back," Eleo said. He didn't shout it. He just said it, clearly, the way you say something you actually mean.

Nobody cheered. Nobody needed to.

He climbed into his tiny wooden boat, waved both arms wildly—

"BYE, LUCY! BYE, ABBY! BYE, ELDER HAGAN! BYE, EVERYONE!!!"

—and the crowd watched him go.

Abby and Lucy stood side by side. Bipp sat between them. The deer didn't leave. The cats stayed on their posts, unmoving.

Abby whispered, "Be safe, Eleo."

Lucy said nothing. She watched until the boat was small against the water, the white hoodie catching the light like a lantern, then rested her hand briefly on top of Abby's head, the same way she always had.

Hagan stood at the edge of the dock long after most had turned to leave, watching the boat until it was nothing but a white speck. Then it was gone.

He looked down at his empty hand.

"Good," he said quietly, to no one. "Go see it."

---

The sun sat high and merciless. Eleo lounged cross-legged in the boat, arms folded, nodding with the deep seriousness of a man who has clearly thought this through.

"Alright!" he declared. "Now it's time to... uh..."

Silence.

He scratched his head. "Wait... where do I go exactly?"

A long pause. He blinked. He scratched harder.

Then, with complete and unearned confidence, he shouted—

"MEH! I'LL JUST GO STRAIGHT! THAT ALWAYS WORKS!"

His stomach growled.

"Luckily, I have all my carrots in this bag!" He patted the bulging cloth sack. "As long as I have these, I won't starve to death!"

He pulled one out, took a big chomp, and grinned.

"Yup! I'm a genius!"

Then—

SPLASH.

A dark fin rose from the water.

Eleo's chewing slowed.

"Uhhh..."

The fin circled the boat, cutting a lazy ring through the water.

His eyes widened. "WAIT A SECOND. DON'T TELL ME... OH NO... IT'S..."

A massive bear shark exploded from the water, snarling — a nightmare stitched from a shark's jaws and a bear's enormous, furred arms.

Eleo's eyes sparkled. "COOL! I'VE NEVER SEEN ONE UP CLOSE BEFORE!"

The bear shark roared, jaws yawning wide.

Eleo beamed. "Wait, does this mean I get to fight it?! FINALLY!"

The shark lunged.

Eleo shot to his feet, cracked his knuckles, and grinned like an idiot.

"INK BARRAGE!"

He swung his fists in a wild, joyful blur.

WHAM! BAM! POW!

His punches landed at random until—

BOOM!

The creature went cartwheeling across the sky, spinning end over end like a flung stone skipping off the surface of the world, shrinking to a glinting speck before vanishing over the horizon.

Eleo stood, panting, hands on his hips, thoroughly pleased with himself.

"Haha! THAT'S WHAT YOU GET, YA BIG JERK!"

He nodded to himself. "Welp. That takes care of that!"

Then—

CRACK.

He slowly looked down. His boat now had a giant hole in it.

"...Oh."

It sank immediately.

Eleo floated in the water, blinking. Then, grinning like an idiot, he pumped his fist.

"I'M WINNING AT LIFE!"

And then he sank.

He bobbed back up a moment later, arms crossed, nodding sagely, as if the ocean had asked his professional opinion.

"Okay, so maybe punching the bear shark so hard I sunk my own boat wasn't my best idea... BUT! I won the fight, and that's what really matters!"

Then—

"Huh?"

A massive ship drifted nearby, golden sails shimmering, its hull gleaming like something poured from honey and light.

Eleo's eyes went round as coins. "OH, JUST MY LUCK! A NEW BOAT!"

He grinned, raising a dripping hand. "Time to use my big brain!"

He shaped an ink rope, twirling it overhead. "Three… two… ONE!"

THWIP! The rope snapped tight around the ship's rail.

Eleo grabbed his carrot bag and yanked himself up, hand over hand—

"WHOOOOAAAA—!"

THUD!

He landed face-first on the deck.

Silence.

Fancy music played. Dozens of people in elegant suits and gowns stood frozen mid-sip, mid-step, mid-laugh.

One man, holding a monocle, turned slowly. "My word… what is that?"

A lady in a purple gown gasped. "Oh, dear, did a wild animal sneak aboard?"

Eleo pushed himself up, rubbing his face. "Wow! I've never seen anything like this before!" His ears twitched as he took it in — the crystal glasses, the gleaming rails, the glittering excess of it. "It's so shiny and fancy and…"

He paused.

Everyone sipped tea. A man adjusted his polished shoes. A lady fanned herself. A waiter poured wine into a glass already full of nothing happening.

Eleo squinted. "…Boring."

The crowd gasped as one.

"HOW DARE HE?!"

"THIS IS A HIGH-CLASS EVENT!"

"WHO EVEN IS THIS RUFFIAN?!"

Eleo, ignoring them, turned and saw something far more interesting.

Another massive ship — but this one was flying.

"WHOA."

It hovered in open air, sleek and black, threaded with glowing blue energy, silent as a held breath.

A cannon along its side charged, glowing sickly green—

BOOM!

A ball of energy tore toward the fancy ship, screaming through the air like something that had never once been told no.

"WOW!" Eleo grinned, watching everyone around him scream.

"OH NOOOO! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

The crew sprang into motion — men in sleek white uniforms, eagle emblems on their chests, boots hammering the deck.

One adjusted his gloves. "Activate battle protocol!"

Another drew a sleek blaster, its barrel humming to life. "FIRE!"

PYEW! PYEW! PYEW!

Laser fire tore across the sky toward the hovering black ship.

Eleo sat cross-legged on the deck, munching a carrot, eyes shining like this was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

"THIS. IS. AWESOME!"