Are we ever going to talk about what happened or are we ignoring it?

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Current Date: December 27, 2057

Character: Aelwine Draxelis
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 399, physically about 27
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

I know the look he’s giving me far too well. It’s a look I’ve seen times and again, especially so after we’d left the place I had called home while I’d been growing up. Not that he was with me by then, not that he was with me either when I left it after the dark. But his grandfather was with me then and while they are certainly different horses, I can tell that the same blood runs in his veins; he’s much more headstrong than either one of the other two were but that’s the only true difference between him and his father and grandfather.

It took me years to get Arun to behave. At this point, he’s still headstrong but he knows that his childish behaviour doesn’t pass with me. He might start acting up when he’s left to roam free but if he tries anything with me, it rarely takes more than just one quiet look from me for him to settle down for the most part. It’s not perfect, he still spooks, kicks and puts up a fuss depending on the type of exercise I’m putting him through, but it has gotten better.

The only thing to keep in mind is that it has gotten better with me and I’m the only one he behaves at all for. I’m not about to let anyone else deal with him and that’s fine. He’s mine, as is and I have no intention of letting anyone else try to even step up to him. Even in the stables, this idiot has to have his own separated stalls with high walls through and through because he likes to nip at anyone that might step too close to him.

The look he’s giving me, though, I know exactly what it means, and I can only shake my head in exasperation. He tries, this idiot. He tries so hard to get out of daily training and he fails miserably every single time. It’s a look that tries to get across that he’d very much like to be spared this whole thing. It’s a look his father gave me every so often and a look I’ve seen his grandfather give me as well.

In the case of the other two, that look was slightly different, mostly because neither one minded the daily exercise or training, mostly because they seemed to thrive on it. In their case, when they gave me that look, it usually came right after they’d reacted poorly to something that had been in our way. They’d been spooked by something that had never spooked them before and yeah, once I’d calmed them down, they’d give me this look as though they wanted me to just ignore what had just happened; they didn’t want to dwell on it much preferring to leave that little mishap far behind. They were prideful idiots, but they were loving idiots, and they were gentle giants.

I could have put a toddler on either one of them with no saddle and no reins and that toddler would have been so fine it wouldn’t even have been an issue.

That, of course, is something I’ll never be able to do with this one, but I’ve made my peace with this a long time ago. Gone are the times of going on rides with my pair and a single horse. He’d try to eat her toes if I even hinted at the idea, and we can’t have that. He doesn’t need that kind of snack and I quite like her toes where they are at, thank you. If we do go, we’ll do so with a pair and usually not with this one as part of the pair because even then, that would end up in nothing but drama all around.

So really, I know that look. It’s quite the same as the ones I used to get from the older boys but from him, it means something else entirely, but I read him like an open book. I doubt that it comes from the gifts that were so kindly bestowed upon me once I accepted my title, I’ve always had an easy time of being able to read horses and their body languages; I suppose it’s one of the reasons why I manage so well on handling them—for the most part, in any case.

He’s not getting out of today’s lesson, though. Try as he might, he’s out of luck and I don’t have the patience to be, well, patient with him today. He will learn and that will be that.

Final Word Count: 765

That’s the creepiest statue I’ve ever seen and it’s just casually sitting in your living room.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Aelwine Draxelis
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 398, physically about 27
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 787 words
 

---

I have seen many things while I was out and about in the world. Before I came to live here. I ran away from my duties when I was younger. I don’t know why the doors to Atheria were open to me then. My life wasn’t in danger, I didn’t need safety. I only needed to get away from a destiny that awaited me and that I just wasn’t ready to allow into my life.

I did go back. During the dark years, I went back, I accepted what had been meant as mine and still was waiting for me and the weight of the world settled onto my shoulders. The thing is that weight wasn’t half as bad as I had expected it. Yes, it was a lot to have to deal with, but I wasn’t alone in dealing with it all and, in the long run, I believe that it worked out for the best. Before coming back home, I was able to find others I could trust with helping me out while I went back to the one woman whose presence I missed more than anything else in the world.

In my younger years, before all this talk of titles and destiny and power and lordship, I roamed. I was restless as I grew up. I always felt as though my parents asked too much of me and I did my version of running away. I would be gone for a few hours, a day, two at the very most but I took my trusty steed with me—a horse that changed often as I grew up, of course—and I went out and about.

Until I was a certain age, people seemed to not really know me. They knew me by looks but they didn’t know who I was. Until I was ready to take over my father’s role in things, certain information was kept from others, and it suited me fine. They didn’t judge me or act towards me in any way, shape or form that I might not have wanted to deal with. To them, I was just another young man on a big horse and that was that.

There was one other man who wasn’t very far from my age that I used to visit. Thinking back, I’m not really sure I can remember when exactly we met, or how. Not that it really matters so far down the road. As far as the age of my people, I was still just a teenager, give or take, when we met. That’s one thing I do faintly somewhat recall.

It took some time before we were comfortable enough around one another that he seemed to trust me to see where he lived. We would often meet in public places and my habit of hooded cloaks and neutral coloured clothing seemed to put him in a mild state of distrust until I proved to him that I was as innocent as a lamb could be.

I do remember that, when I first stepped into his home, I was taken aback by a statue, of all things, that was just sitting in his living room. Now, I’d seen plenty of statues before, most were of others that I had never met but had heard the story of, but the one in his living room, it was sitting on a chair in a corner and by the looks of it, it wasn’t even a chair that had been sculpted along with it. No. The statue itself was done in a seated position and eventually, he told me that finding the perfect seat for it had taken quite some time.

Thinking back, I don’t know that I ever understood why he had such a creepy statue sitting just there, in his living room. He was clearly fond of it, and it seemed to do no harm, so I never really bothered him much about it. If it made him happy in some strange way, who was I to take that away from him? There I was, running from my responsibilities. I had no right to want to point out to him that the statue was just too creepy to be kept anywhere that the public eye could see.

I might have been fairly hotheaded when I was younger, but I was far from heartless, and I think that all of my little trips into the neighbouring area of where we lived did me good. I got to learn and see how the people acted and behaved and, in the long run, I’d like to think that this is a good thing. It served me well when I went back to accept what was rightfully mine.

You require an amount of patience that I don’t have.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Aelwine Draxelis
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 396, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 648 words
 

---

I’d forgotten what it feels like to train a headstrong horse. I mean, I’ve had to do it over and over again through the years before I came here, but when I did come to be here, my own steed followed me here and his offspring, up until now, had been even-tempered. There was one who proved to be a troublesome one but we’ve let him mostly run free after it was clear that it would take more effort than any of us were willing to offer to train a horse that we knew we didn’t actually need to be trained for riding, so we let it be.

The thing is, time passes and horses grow older. Some take to the field somewhat well but it doesn’t make them last forever, it only adds some extra years to their lives but it was clear, after quite a long and wonderful life, that my latest four-legged riding companion had done his time so I let him go free. I took him through the doors and let him roam his last few years peacefully. It’s what we do with all of our horses when we’re ready to give them their final few years. Tyron was thankfully willing enough to let us have some room through one of his doors and the horses do no harm.

Three years ago, my latest, now released, companion sired a gorgeous new lad for me to take care of but, from the start, I knew he was going to be headstrong. It showed in the smallest of things and in how he acted, so when I started trying to at least get him to respond to me, it was clear that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. I suppose I should have expected it, I mean, not all horses are calm and docile after all, are they?

Arun was also quite big for his age, so I knew that I had to start early on if I wanted some sort of control over him. Any hope and desire for a gentle giant evaporated the first time I approached him with treats and he nearly took my hand off with them. Not because he was hasty with taking the treats—an apple, a few carrots—but because it was in his behaviour. I’ve been around horses long enough to be able to read it in their gaze, he meant trouble.

So far, he’s required far more patience than I’ve had to spare but I refuse to give up on him. At this point, there has been no saddling, I’m not going to saddle him for another two years at least, he’s still too young to be saddled for as big as he’s turning out to be. He’s not quite done growing and maturing yet but I can wait.

I still work with him daily, I have to. I’ve barely managed to put a lead on him without him fighting me every inch of the way but I can at least mostly get him to walk at my side when I’m in the roaming pen with him. At least, so long as I have treats for him, he’ll follow me. I swear, he’s part demon. It’s the only thing that could and would explain his behaviour. Not that I’m judging demons and stating that they are bad, I’m really just using it as a metaphor for the fact that he’s so much trouble.

Even if it takes me years more to get him to behave, I’ll keep at it. On some days, he wears my patience thin but I’ve had to handle worse, so he can do what he likes, he’s not going to get away with any of it. He might think he’ll win, but in the long run, I’ll be coming out on top, just you wait and see.

I never enjoy this part.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 1st Generation
Characters: Aelwine Draxelis
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 395, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 629 words
 

---

There used to be a lot more tied to my title than there is now. I suppose that the world ending would have changed that. Some of the responsibilities are the same, they haven’t changed but there are so few people left out there, so few people left to cross the boundaries, that those very responsibilities are pretty moot.

Still, there just was so much to do when I was younger, I admit that I ran away from my responsibilities for a while, the ideas of being keeper of this and safeguarding that were terrifying and I didn’t feel ready, no matter that it was a title and job handed down through the generations and I wasn’t likely to ever have a child of my own—sure, that changed a couple of hundred years later but there remains the fact that I was expected to remain within the area of the place I had called home as I grew up and to eventually have an heir of my own.

While I was being taught about my responsibilities, I suppose I didn’t mind much at first. Most of them weren’t terrible. They were just the usual things one would find with a ruler or the keeper of something and I could handle those well enough. What changed my mind, were the responsibilities attached to the punishment side of things if you would. Every king—though I am no king and do not imagine myself as one—has to do things he might clearly not enjoy from time to time and in this particular case, it was the dolling out of punishments. I can admit that I enjoyed some of the responsibilities but this one downside, I just couldn’t do it.

That might very well have been what got me running away like a coward. I went back to these roots eventually, I claimed back my rightful place that had been empty for years while I’d sought to escape everything and it still was an unpleasant thing, an unfair one it felt like because I had never asked to have all of these responsibilities thrust upon me. I learned during those six years. I learned so much. More than I wanted and it made accepting the ‘throne’ a little easier.

So when I did leave that throne again, though this time taking everything with me, I was a little more ready to face things as they truly were supposed to be. I was ready to do what was required of me, though with the way the world was changing, these responsibilities were already a little less exhausting than they had once been.

You might imagine that I also left in the first place so that my first-born would never find himself in my shoes. He was close to the age I’d been when I first had been drawn into the whole thing and I still knew that they could have found him if I didn’t return. When I came back, I felt as though a weight had been added to my shoulders but not a heavy one, a weight I could handle. A weight I carried with myself and still carry now. A weight I allowed myself to share and that turned out to be one of the better things I could ever do.

With the world at large gone, however, most days are absolutely peaceful and every day I murmur my thank you to my ancestors and my past to have led me to where I am now. I would not have this wonderful woman at my side or my children near if I hadn’t left that first time. In a way, I believe that certain things do happen for a reason and I can appreciate that and be grateful.

There you go again. Stop playing with fire.

Timeline/World: Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Aelwine Draxelis
Race: Elf – Forest
Age: 393, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 550 words

---

Was I a difficult child? I suppose in a way, I might have been. It wasn’t easy, being groomed to the role I was meant to eventually be stepping up to. I didn’t want it when I was younger. It was the last thing I wanted and I actually hated living where we did. All the trees, the forest, nature. The sounds kept me awake at night, in my much younger years and I often dreamt of setting fire to it all. I’ve had time to change, of course, and thinking back to then make me smile a little wryly, especially when I think of my own children who have had such a different upbringing. At least for the most part.

So I’ve heard it often, particularly by my father or my uncles who were looking after me at the time. I was too young to really understand how they were tracking me down so easily and putting an end to my not really nefarious plans. I wasn’t really covering my tracks well, I didn’t know how back then and I wasn’t really thinking my plans through. Trying to set fire to a place that was surrounded by water never struck me as a bad idea, or an idea that wouldn’t really reach its goal. Thinking back now, I can see why, of course.

My guardians at the time, those who kept watch over me while my parents were busy with other things, would just chuckle and shake their heads at me while I waved this flaming stick in their faces, threatening to set the whole forest on fire. Never mind that this while waving of the stick in question often resulted in that very fire burning out and then I was promptly shoved into the water.

I learned to swim mostly against my will, by the way. These situations were sink or swim but I think it was because most of them expected me to already know how to swim but I’d yet to be told so I just did what made the most sense. Kicked my legs hard, waved my arms around like crazy, and paddled back to the shore. It wasn’t deep, I wasn’t really in any danger but my self-esteem took a few blows through these particular means.

I’ve lost all family I ever had long before the end of the world came to claim them. At least, the family I was raised surrounded with. So many of them were not blood-related to me but they were family nonetheless. I don’t speak of them often, I haven’t really relinquished my title as Forest Keeper but it doesn’t really need me anymore. I hold on to it out of sentimentality far more than anything else.

Playing with fire is something I also haven’t done in a long enough time and I have no real interest to get back to it. One grandchild being a problem child is more than enough in this lineage to keep me from the foolishness of my youth, though her ‘problems’ have settled quite a few years ago now, something for which I am glad. I do not love her any less than I do any of the others, of course, though she did remind me of my own behaviour, at least somewhat.