First part here
Second part here
Third part here
Fourth part here.
Fifth part here.

All Leo lines in this story are as-written by inventrix in the roleplay that sparked this

There were sparks of electricity flying around the air. The grass beneath their feet was damp, too early yet for it to be a fire risk, but Luke still worried. Lightning could burn down a forest, after all, and he would not forgive himself – even if Cynara did – if he caused Leo to scorch the fields outside her city.

He waited, taking the time to get himself under control, watching the sparks subside as Leo’s breathing evened and calmed. He didn’t say anything else. He wasn’t sure there was anything he could say that wouldn’t make everything worse. And he’d already done enough of that. Mike would probably say far more than enough.

“I believe you were watching.” Leo’s voice was calm again. Luke wondered how much it was hiding. “But that doesn’t mean you know everything about us.”

Luke nodded infinitesimally, all he trusted himself with at the moment. Cya spent decades… He should have known. Zita and I spent decades… He should have seen. He’d been looking. It’d been his job to look.

Leo exhaled and looked down at the ground. “I apologize for that outburst.” Luke didn’t answer: for one, there was nothing to say. For another, Leo wasn’t done. “However. I still don’t see what you expect to happen due to this.” He looked up again as he touched his collar.

It was a good question. He’d been so angry when he came here. He’d been worried, and he had to admit he still was.

He’d expected, what, Cynara to go off the rails without Leo to balance her? He could still remember a young Cynara, just past her first year into school. “I want to kill them all. I want to make them bleed, and hurt, and then I want to end them. But Leo wouldn’t like it and Howard would be uncomfortable.”

There had been no doubt in his mind that she meant it completely. The only question Luke had ever had was how many people constituted “them all?”

He took a breath. He wasn’t going to tell Leo that part.

“I didn’t expect you to be happy about a collar, for one.” He managed to sound calm now. That was an improvement.

It got a small and rueful-looking smile out of Leo, which was probably even more of an improvement. “You and everyone else.”

Luke felt a bit vindicated by that. At least he hadn’t been the only one blindsided by this. He wondered if he was the only one completely confused by it. “Why’d you do it?” He’d flown all this way, and he didn’t really want to leave without knowing.

Leo hesitated before answering. Luke tried not to flap impatiently. “You won’t be happy with ‘because I wanted to’, will you.”

“I’ll be surprised. All right. Why did she do it?”

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