Private I Missed You: A Decky and Ellen Story.

[Declan Durinson]

She made camp alone away from the rest of them and a sadness took his heart. The Aelin that he knew, and granted he may have presumed to know her better than he did, that Aelin would've been happy to be amongst them. She likely would've been quiet and reserved, observant of the strange Wolves around her and cautious of making some mistake or seeming ignorant but she also would have been happy.

He did not blame her for staying away. What on this world or any other could bring her joy now? A year of her life taken from her, spent shackled and caged and tortured, only for something far more precious to be taken from her in the end. Her pups; Stolen from her before she even had the chance to hold them. In a galaxy full of all manner of evil, Declan knew no greater evil than that.

A year of beatings and starvation made it slow work for the Anasa and yet as she did with all things she persevered. She'd known hunger and hardship as much as any of them and more too than many and not just in the last year. Aelin on occasion had spoken of her life on Seoul 5 after the death of her father and the stealing of her sisters. A grim and cold existence it had been with death following always like a shadow. A life like many of the Wolves here had lived and yet also unique to her.

Declan watched and waited while she finished and waited longer yet until the glow of a small fire could be seen.

Without an invitation Declan joined Aelin at her camp. She sat near the fire on a log that had been turned on its side, he took a seat on the bare ground next to her, one of his massive shoulders bumping into a resting against her knee.

She hated him, he knew. Yet, he loved her still.

"What do you think of my Wolves?" He asked her.

He was certain that all he would get from her in response was anger and venom but that was ages better than the nothing. For far too long he'd gotten nothing from her. It was his fault her knee and there were times between the drinking, the spice, the fighting, the conquest, that he would think of the nothing and that nothing was terrible.

"Yasmine thinks them stupid, and savage, and cruel, and ignorant." Declan said rather quickly, having given Aelin no time to answer his question, so fearful was he of the nothing.

"They are that." He admitted "but they are also kind, funny, curious, brave. The same as you or I or Yasmine, and this I think is why she hates them."

It was why he wished he loved them.

"Do you love those who you rule?"

Who she ruled.

It was a strange thought, that. Ellen as Anasa, Alpha of all Alphas, though the same could be said of Declan.

Aelin Erevos

 

[Aelin Erevos]

Forgotten Dreams

Islimore was alive, and the Lupo people with it. There was a general sound of revelry coming from the center of the camp, a celebration of sorts over Prince Alasdair Sabathian 's men whom they'd defeated along the bend of the river Olv. It'd been days of it as they traveled, the many spoils of battle divvyed up and then proudly paraded around for all to see. Yet it seemed a strange sound to Aelin, the sound of joy and mirth, as if it were foreign.

And while everyone else had joined together to bask in the revelry, Aelin stayed on the outskirts, clinging to the darkness and wearing it like a mourning shroud, pulling those feelings of loneliness and desolation as tightly around her as she could manage, until every breath she took felt shallow, as if her lungs had forgotten how to expand fully. What was there for her to celebrate? Freedom? Her life? They seemed like such small things in light of what she'd lost, inconsequential even.

A small bonfire illuminated the center of the makeshift camp that Aelin had made for herself apart from everyone else, the raging flames leaping high into the crisp night air, every once and while spouting a glittering spray of orange sparks toward the stars as if trying to escape the weight of this world and reach for something greater. Aelin watched them in silence, feeling mocked by their frantic dance.

Perhaps she was her father's daughter after all—a colossal failure, unable to keep those she loved safe. Or worse, cursed. Hadn't she killed her mother? And then later her father? Even her children weren't safe. Maybe that was the truth of her destiny. Maybe her life was never meant to be lived to heal, but to destroy. It seemed like the only thing she was good at.

Between her silent musings Declan had come, uninvited but not unexpected. She felt the weight of him settle beside her, heard the soft creak of the log and felt the pressure of his shoulder brushing her knee.

There would have been time before where even this little interaction, this bit of closeness and companionship would have been something for Aelin to soak in, taking any moment that might be remotely positive and holding it tight in her heart as if those seconds alone would salvage the hell her life was pitched into — so starved for pleasant days and moments in time where she had more to look forward to than survival.

Silence lingered between them, the crackle of the fire the only sound until Declan spoke. His words washed over her, but she did not immediately respond. She knew what he wanted to ask, what lingered beneath what was said and what everyone wanted to know: when would she return to them, the Aelin she used to be, instead of this husk of a woman? The truth of it was, she did not know. So she let his questions hang in the air for several moments before finally, she sighed. "I think we both know I don't rule anyone anymore," she stated plainly, her voice rough from disuse. "But, to answer your question... yes. I think at one time I did." Aelin's chest tightened. Once, she'd known every wolf in her camp, every name, every face. She had loved them, protected them as best she could.

"But... look at what that has brought me. I was stupid to think love was enough to win loyalty. I gave everything I had, of what little there was, and was left to rot in a cell for over a year. Everything has been taken from me Declan. My children, my future... and love wasn't enough. It's just a liability."

Declan Durinson ​

 

[Declan Durinson]

She ignored him.

No, that was not true. She had only ignored his attempt to hear some word of approval from her.

'What do you think of my Wolves?'

The fool of a King had asked her. Him wrapped in his cloak of Alpha skins. He surrounded by a victorious hunting party and her Queen Of Nothing.

Of course she ignored him as he tried to explain to her without explaining why he had not been there to keep her safe. Her approval was not absolution for his failures and yet he longed for it still.

When she did speak it was not to lessen the weight of broken oaths, it was to speak of her own burdens great as they were. She spoke softly and with no disdain for him just well earned weariness and The King silently thanked and cursed The Gods for allowing him to be Declan again.

"I think we both know I don't rule anyone anymore," she stated plainly

"What I don't know could fill Ceremæ's vast archive." Declan told her. He did not laugh for he could tell how serious she was. "What I do know," he continued, "is that you are Anasa. Your pack may not be bred of great heroes or ancient bloodlines."

But they are not savages and sorcerers either.

He thought as his mind went to his own pack, the sounds of the merry making filling the cool night. Shouts of mocking and laughter drifted to them from several of the other campfires like the embers that danced before him and Aelin.

They numbered less than fifty now and still Declan could pick out at least two different dialects of Wufi. The raiders of the Black Forest were spoken of as if monolith but they were just as varied as any civilized Wolves, maybe even more so with as disparate as they were. He could smell meat cooking and his eyes flicked unbidden to the place in the dark he knew the salvaged wagons sat, and wondered if "Ser" was being served tonight.

He could hear their laughter and their boasts as they savored this truly great victory that they had won him. He heard them argue over spoils or who would hump who and he heard the sound of what happened after it was settled but he heard no music.

There was never any music.

That is why I brought them south.

"Your Wolves would not so easily forget their honor. Nor would they forget you." He told her in a tone that would suffer no argument.

Aelin was Anasa. A title from antiquity and one she earned through sheer proclamation. Not a drop of blood was shed nor a single challenge to her claim had been made. They had all just showed their belly and offered her their service and their lives.

Declan had bathed The Black Forest in blood until it ran red, choking the yronwoods and drowning any too weak to rise above. He had allowed none to simply submit themselves. All he had, he had taken by steel or fang. Those who fought died and those who wouldn't died just the same, now all that was theirs was his and he was Anasai.

Which of them truly earned their right to rule?

He knew where he stood on the matter and he thought he knew where The Gods did as well

Blood for Blood.

He unstoppered his wine skin. A scent familiar to Aelin wafted gently from it. Lycanberries. A holy plant left on this world by Vatheum the dreamer, it allowed mortal Wolves a chance to see the world as The Gods did. Wine from the berries was not commonly found outside The Wilds and even then it was an elixir used by witches and sorcerers. Typically made one part fermented berries for every six parts regular wine, just a drop of the God's fruit in every cup. The King's skin was two thirds full with berries softened with a third of it being a dark red wine he had taken from the spoils won off the humans.

The sickly sweet aroma of fermented lycanberries danced in the air with the smoke of the fire.

This is what Kings smell like. Smoke and wine and guilt and grief.

"Freya would never allow it." Admiration and resentment fighting for control of his voice.

For the first time in a very long while Declan thought softly of the priestess. He thought her beautiful. Though, that seemed the wrong word. It was too small to describe all that she was and at once far too vast a word to capture her specificity.

He thought of her hair; golden and smooth; sunlight trapped in honey. Her lips, red and soft, like wine on freshly fallen snow. But it was her eyes that truly stood out. As sharp and blue as any he had ever seen. Twin bolts of lightning in a far off storm illuminating the pitch just enough to show you how much you could still not see. Beauty with depth beyond understanding.

He'd thought of her at other times before now. Times he had been struck low. After what he had done at hidjolva after his brush with the Drengir and again after he had been the one to send his brother to Freann, but no, in the end…just no.

She was a Wolf of the spring. He was the blood of winter.

She was beauty and love and birth and hope.

He was sharp and harsh. Indiscriminate and biting. He brought with him death and nothing more.

"But... look at what that has brought me. I was stupid to think love was enough to win loyalty. I gave everything I had, of what little there was, and was left to rot in a cell for over a year. Everything has been taken from me Declan. My children, my future... and love wasn't enough. It's just a liability."

"Not everything little sister. You still have love and you still have loyalty." He said looking meaningful in her eyes. He spoke of himself and of Brynjar and of those who would weep to see her returned even if she herself could not imagine such a thing.

"Love and loyalty returned you your freedom which you also have now. Love and loyalty will return the rest to you as well"

He offered the wine skin to her after taking a long slow drink himself.

Aelin Erevos

 

[Aelin Erevos]

Forgotten Dreams

The rich aroma of lychanberry wine enveloped Aelin as Declan uncorked the wineskin. The scent transporting her back to a time when joy wasn't a stranger— it smelled like the summer she'd spent frolicking through the grasses on Bellassa, of bathing in the starlight hot springs beneath the mountain, of the rose gardens that'd bloomed beneath her window in spring.

It reminded her of the night of the Summerlight Gathering, the first night she'd tasted lychanberry wine. The night she'd first met Brynjar Threist and Gerwald's brother, Varick. When Declan had spun her around and around in an unending dance as the world blurred into a whirlwind of colors and laughter, and for a brief moment, she'd felt genuinely, truly happy.

"I guess it's a good thing Freya isn't here, isn't it?" Aelin said, accepting the offer of wine and lifting it to her lips without hesitation, taking a slow, deliberate sip and letting it warm her down to the core.

Her golden eyes glanced sidelong at Declan beside her, watching as the firelight cast warm hues across his features, softening the edges that time and hardship had carved into a sort of harsh ruggedness, and for the first time since he'd rescued her, Aelin didn't see the Butcher King or the warrior draped in the spoils of conquest. She saw the friend who had once made her laugh, who shared in her dreams and fears.

There was a small, quiet part of her that wanted to believe what he said was true, but another part that screamed over that voice—Yet, the warmth of the wine and the comfort of familiar company drowned it out, if only slightly.

"Do you truly believe it?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Or do you say this to keep me from running away at the first opportunity that presents itself?" The answer didn't matter, nor was she expecting one, in truth. Whether Declan spoke honestly or offered her comforting lies, it would change nothing of her current situation.

Feeling a knot tighten in her chest and the need to distance herself from it, Aelin took another long drag from the wineskin and handed it back to Declan, wiping the remnants from her lips with the back of her hand. She nodded towards the fires in the distance. "Tell me about them. Your wolves... how did you bring them all together like this?"

Declan Durinson​