Chronicles of the Wolf: Of Wolves & Spiders

Chapter 5

Perhaps an hour or maybe more had passed since this “presentation” (as I found out it was called later) had occurred. My father put me on the spot to go talk to Lacia. I decided to give it a try, seeing since all children around our age seemed to be missing. Even Da’Mon’s son who was a friend of mine, was noticeably missing.

“Err…hi,” I said when I approached her.

“Hi,” she said smiling.

She had been standing off to the side nervously glancing in my direction as I approached her. I must admit when I was closer to her, she was quite beautiful. Had I been a tad older I perhaps would have appreciated her beauty a bit more, but I had not even reached my adolescent years yet so to me at that time she was just another person my age.

“Some festival eh?” I said.

I honestly had no idea what to talk to her about and this was the most obvious thing that I could talk to her about.

“Yeah, it is,” she said.

I noticed she had an accent I could not pinpoint where it was from, but it was different than mine or even her father’s.

“You have an accent,” I said.

“Oh yes, my mother, she is from Fergana,” she said.

“Wow that’s far away,” I said.

I had heard of Fergana, this was way to the west of the Bel’athore Forest. It was past Lake Sari-Celek, a small lake to the west of the Bel’athore forest that was about three days out. It was even further west of Kyzl, which was where the White Wolf Counsel, of which my father was a part of, held their meetings. Kyzl was often considered to be the capital of the Beghrest because of that. But Fergana was nearly on the other side of even that.

“Yes, it’s like two weeks out, I think,” She frowned when she thought about how far Fergana was to the Bel’athore Forest.

“I heard it’s very cold over there,” I said.

“Oh yes it can be, that is why my mother and her family moved here before I was born.” She said. “They are mostly white or silver ones over there, I was surprised to see you and your father here, who have no relation to the White ones and the Silver ones from Fergana.”

“Yeah I’ve heard of them.” I nodded.

Blancs, was what they were called, the white Beghrest of Fergana. It was often thought that they had this color fur because Fergana was mostly tundra area. Yet Fergana had a high populace of Beghrest it had the second largest population from what I knew, I think only Kyzl had more Beghrest living there.

“Is your mother a Blanc?” I asked.

“Greyer like you,” she responded.

She herself had a dark-grey almost black coat like her father.

“What does Opidium mean?” I asked.

I realized that I didn’t know what Opidium meant, it wasn’t Baharus’s surname, no his name was Baharus Dugh’munt, so this Opidium I had no idea where it came from.

“You have not heard the legend of our peoples then?” She asked looking curious at me. I had stared at her blankly because I had no idea what she was talking about at all.

“How is this possible, you are the son of the Supreme Chief of Bel’athore.” She said, and I stared at her blankly for a second before I decided to say something. I decided to ridicule her.

“Hey, you don’t need to rub that in my face like that alright?” I realized I had said that a bit louder than I intended. Everyone stopped what they had been doing and turned in my direction. In all honesty I didn’t care that they had because at that time I was trying to make a point.

“You don’t have to rub it in my face my father is the great and almighty Alqamar of Bel’athore,” I continued my rant. “When I am chief, all this stupid… (insert expletive here) rituals and (another expletive) ceremonies will be forever banished. Such trivial idiocies!”

With that I stormed off and started heading back towards my village. I realized that I left Lacia in shock and disgust, but I didn’t care. My father tried to grab me, but I ducked under his grasp and very curtly glared at his direction.

“Excuse me your Majesty,” I said as I walked away.

My father was left confused about my attitude.