[ALANOR]
'Unar' Alanor smiled as he walked deeper into the forest.
It was a lonely walk to the other side of the hound-filled forest, but even then, young Alanor was determined to get there. It was risky, especially for a child like him, but that didn't matter anymore. He knew he had to get there before the hours turned to days.
He was slowly weakening and he needed to be there before his body finally gave up. That wouldn't be a good thing for him, let alone his plans. Sure, he had been spent and needed sleep, but what was sleep when his life had just been turned upside down?
How was he supposed to even move forward when he had no one? Walking and running only got him so far, but with his determination, Alanor ignored the bruises on his feet, and even the great desire to branch at the stream and drink water.
His throat had run dry, and his body was sweaty, not to mention his clothes kept sticking on him, thanks to the blood that had gotten on him when his parents were stones. He had experienced a day that no one would survive.
But Alanor knew he would make them pay.
Eventually, Alanor reached the one place he had wanted to reach but had been too scared to even think of. The place where all his fears lay and all his life's mini-plans were about to drown. His parents' resting place.
********
The sun was bright and high up in the sky, and the temperatures had increased, but the forest cover was making life a little more bearable here. Alanor wasn't sure whether to be thankful to the deities for reaching this point safe or he would go back to Udrad and be stoned too.
He still had six days anyway. However, he wasn't going to go back. He wasn't going to try and demand an explanation for what had happened to his parents, if anything, he was just a ten-year-old powerless boy. One who had no one to turn to.
Now that he could see the fresh grave, Alanor wasn't sure what to think anymore. He didn't know how to feel. He didn't know where he would be okay, he didn't know nothing. The only thing he could think of was him being beside his parents so they would meet together in the afterlife.
He was thankful though, for the food that Unar had given him. It was just a burger and some milk, but that did help him, a lot. Alanor would have been curious about the kid, but whoever Unar was wasn't important to him.
So he wouldn't waste his time trying to make things that didn't mean anything.
The lycans believed in the existence of life after death. Sure it was an argument that gave people hope, but then what else could they do other than live in hope? So young Alanor had also believed in the theory.
His parents were put in one grave, something that broke Alanor's heart. This wasn't how he had thought their family would be split apart. He never thought that a day would come when he of all the people, would be saying goodbye so soon, and that too in such a manner, but that was life, yeah?
He was sure his parents were innocent. He knew they were innocent, but then he had already lost them and it wasn't like they would be waking up anytime soon. Whatever he had seen in the previous day.
Whatever had shown up and how the whole podium for the judgment had been cleaned up professionally, that was all the assurance Alanor needed to know that his parents weren't on the wrong.
The Wynters were silenced, to avoid raising an issue on something, or maybe they were convicted because they had spoken against the King. There was no knowing that. But it didn't even matter, at least not now.
Devastated, Alnor slept beside his parents' grave, hugging the soil like it was the only thing giving him hope. He fell asleep and woke up, only to fall asleep again and the next time Alanor woke up, a beast was hovering over him.
Anyone in young Eleanor's state could have been terrified of the huge beast hovering above him. Anyone would have screamed out for help even though the forest was large and there was a chance that no one would be coming, but it could have been the first reaction.
But Alanor wasn't just anyone.
Alanor had lost everything to the point that he was sure he had nothing more to lose. If the beast wanted to eat him, then it could as well go ahead. So he turned towards his parents' grave again, because somehow in his overly uncomfortable sleep and with a hurting stomach and body, he had turned to the opposite side.
The hound watched keenly as the kid just looked at the grave beside him and hugged the soil, closing his eyes, as if he was waiting to be devoured. Alanor didn't care and the hound could see that.
Once again, young Alanor fell asleep, into his own world of dreams, a world in which his parents hadn't been stoned and a world where he was a happy ten-year-old living in the Lycan kingdom of Udrad.
He had such beautiful dreams that almost felt real, but each time he would snap back to reality, because his dreams, no matter how beautiful, would always end up with him watching his parents be stoned over again.
If not, they would end with the crows, vultures, and dogs fighting over the largest pieces of his parents that they could get. It horrified him and broke his heart so much. all he could do was cry it out, mourn because that was all he had left. mourning.
The young boy cried it out in his sleep. He let out the tears no one had seen him shed. He let his broken heart flow and he let himself come to terms with everything.
Alanor was hurting and no one could help him.
No one was coming to his safety. He had no relatives, literally no one, considering he was an orphan who had been adopted by the Wynters.
They had taken him in, they had loved him like their own and they had always been there for him, and when they were being stoned, Alanor had been helpless and that broke him.
The pain of Alanor's heart shattering woke him up, and for the first time, he wished it was already night so he could be consumed by the hounds. Or maybe, he could provoke the hound that had been beside him when he had fallen asleep.
He had lost track of time, not that it was important to him anyway.
Nothing made any sense, and even if they did, the young Wynter had chosen to ignore it all. He had chosen to stay here and be with his parents.