Snowcapped Serenity [Ch. 1]

Chapter one - The Mountains He Calls Home

Aeron, while not the smartest, strongest, or even wittiest of three, happened to be the favorite of the village. He was the middle child, the one no-one paid any heed to, the one who seemed to go unnoticed.

His elder brother, Raidon, had been the one to catch the wounded stag. Personally, Aeron really didn't see what was so amazing about it. Raidon was only a year older than him, yet he  was the one that got to go hunting, while poor Aeron was stuck doing work around the house. Of course his younger brother Eirik never did any of the work, because he was the younger one, not supposed to do anything.

The brothers were born a year apart, but that didn't stop Raidon from parading around town acting like he was a hero, nor did it stop Eirik from using his youth as an excuse to slouch off, and chase rabbits all day

They were supposed to be a proud, noble family of wolves, who could trace their lineage to the some of the first who settled their region. That all changed, of course, when somewhere along the way, his father mated with a prairie wolf. (Coyote, brush wolf, etc.)

Since then their pride had diminished, and they landed themselves in the little no-name town that resided quietly in a valley.

All this Aeron reflected on as he dutifully did his work around the house and in the small field in front, where they grew some of their spices. He tried to ignore the almost oppressive silence of the village, as people recovered from the recent death. Nothing like this had ever happened, not even the oldest in the village could recall anything like it.

But the war changed that. Assassins from the other side took out one person and left, their way of 'warning' them that, if they did not pledge their allegiance to them, they would all be picked off, one by one. Everyone had hoped that, because of the secluded nature of their village, they would remain hidden, off-the-radar.

That obviously didn't work.

Still, he was grateful for the mountains. Aeron would slip off into the forest and hunt for a bit, for nothing mattered in the forest. It was his equivalent of a 'safe haven', a place where he could do anything, without a care in the world. He had even gone so far as to venture into the snowy parts of the mountain, hoping to maybe reach the snow-capped tops.

He suffered from a broken leg after that excursion, but that moment of absolute carefree, a broken leg was a small price to pay.