Seven Years Later

"If only those damn Beastial reinforcements came." Nion thought about this almost always in his head, but tried to push it back. He thought that maybe if the Beastial soldiers came to back them up, Alexen's parents would be alive.

He promised to tell Alexen stories of his parents, their battles and adventures, but he couldn't hold back his true feelings. Some of his resentment for the Beastials seeped through as he seemingly put the blame of the deaths of Alexen's parents on them, and it rubbed off on the young glacial boy.

Alexen grew up hating the Beastials, being reminded of that same hatred every time he looks at his own brother's face. The scar that stretched across the right side of Temo's face, his inability to see from his right eye, all of these acted as painful memories to that fateful night.

Now at the bright age of seventeen, Alexen became a fine warrior, doing everything he can to support his people and protect them, something the Beastials never did. Although there wasn't much combat due to the non-aggression pact that's been going for a ripe seven years, Alexen and his brother went on dangerous adventures and missions to both hone their skills and feed their community. One such mission was to hunt and kill a murderous bear that slaughtered citizens who wandered into the woods.

"Hurry up! We got to cut him off!" Temo yelled to his brother as the two of them pursued the bear.

The bear sprinted on all fours, trying to shake off it's hunters, for it definitely did not want to be dinner. It dodged incoming trees as the snowy leaves shook snow onto it's warm brown fur.

Alexen shoved the trees behind him to maintain momentum while he flanked the bear to the side and threw himself in front of the bear's tracks. The bear skidded to a stop momentarily, until it turned around to retreat. It ran even faster right in Temo's direction, intending to ram it's thick skull into him which would surely be fatal.

"Shoot now!"

The bear continued to charge for Temo as he screamed at his brother.

In an instant and without hesitation, Alexen shot an ice arrow from his hands which soared through the freezing air and hit the bear in the back of the head. The arrow went clean through the bear's skull and it continued to fly in the air until it eventually hit a tree.

The bear's humongous corpse lost balance and began to tumble to the side as fragments of the skull and the brain seeped out the hole along with rivers of blood.

"That was close. If that arrow didn't kill him I would've been screwed," Temo chuckled, all the while catching his breath.

" Don't be dramatic. That arrow was going to hit it in the head one hundred percent." Alexen pulled his fur lined hood over his head, warming up his cold cheeks and hands.

The two walked back to the city of Eiraco, their sweat dripping onto the snowy ground as they slowly drag back the bear's meaty corpse. They eventually came across a small cabin with a row of covered wagons behind it.

"Watch the bear, okay?" Temo began walking towards the cabin, but Alexen grabbed his shoulder.

"I should go. That scar on your face might scare them." Alexen pulled him back towards the smelly bear corpse and walked up the wooden stairs. He took one step up and the wooden boards broke in half, and his feet sunk into the hole that was made there. Alexen's whole body fell forward as he face planted into the wooden porch outside the cabin.

Temo chuckled a bit, seeing his brother takes a nasty fall like that, just until he got up and walked to the door. Alexen turned the weathered copper doorknob, surprise to even turn the thing, and walked inside only to see an old man behind the counter with hair just as white as the snow outside.

"Welcome sir to my covered wagon rental shop! Would you like to rent a wagon?" The man scratched his long mustache excitedly since he hasn't had customers in a long while

"Yes, but I don't have horses to push the wagons."

"Well no worries, we will provide the horses and even have someone drive you to your destination."

Alexen smiled at the sound of an awesome discount, but was beginning to wonder why this place doesn't get any customers. It was empty and the wagons seemed untouched.

"Okay, I'll accept the deal."

"Excellent! Now come with to the back."

The man led Alexen to the back of the building which had a small handful of horse stables, each one occupied by big and hardy horses. Taking care of these horses was a man roughly around Temo's age, maybe a bit older."

The man was feeding the horses when Alexen and the old geezer walked out.

"I want you to meet the man who'll be driving the wagon." The old man waved to the guy, screaming his name repeatedly.

"Hey! Hano! Come over here!" Hano dropped his pale of animal grub and walked over to the two.

"Yeah, what is it boss?"

"We have a customer for once! Go ahead introduce yourself to this fine young man."

"Um, I'm Hano of Glacia, nice to meet you." He scratched his head and his face began to get red, as he wasn't very good with customers.

"Nice to meet you too. I'm Alexen of Glacia." Alexen reached out to shake Hano's hand. Hano awkwardly grabbed his hand and shook it up and down violently and let go, leaving throbbing residual pain on Alexen's hands.

"Tell us where you need to go lad," old man said while Hano set up the wagon.

"My brother is at the front of the building and we need to take a bear corpse to Eiraco."

The old man lifted an eyebrow as he nodded at him. "Eiraco huh? That'll cost you ten wintres."

Alexen expected the price to be a bit cheaper, but nonetheless pulled out ten silver coins from his pouch and dropped them into the man's palm.

"Here you go, ten wintres exactly."

The man counted the coins, then stuffed them into a bag.

"Alright, talk to Hano when you're ready to depart. Pleasure doing business with you." He then walked into the building.

Alexen stood there, contemplating as to what's up with this place that no one comes here. Is it the price? Maybe the conditions of the wagons? But he felt there has to be one thing that scares the customers away, and he knew exactly what it was.

Hano yanked on the reigns and the mighty horses tugged along the wagon to the side of Alexen. Their strong legs and muscular shoulders trotted through the snow with seemingly no problems.

"You ready to head out?" he said so violently as if he were yelling at him.

Alexen gave him a thumbs up and he drove the carriage to the front of the building where Temo was sitting on the ground next to the rotting bear carcass. After seeing the wagon stop in front of him, he got up and began to drag the bear to the back of the wagon, although he didn't take it far before exhausting himself. Soon after the wagon pulled up, Alexen came running to the front.

"Hey Alexen! Help me lift the bear will ya'!"

"Coming!" Alexen ran up to Temo's aid and they've successfully dragged the bear close to the wagon but failed to lift it up. The two of them can't even lift that big of a bear, so they called for Hano who sat at the front of the wagon.

"Hey Hano?!" Alexen yelled from behind, looking ever so worn out and pale faced.

"Yeah?"

"Mind helping us lift this giant bear corpse onto the wagon?"

"I'm not sure. That's really not my job…"

"Well it is now. We can't leave without the corpse."

Hano sighed then jumped off the wagon to the two young Glacials, and grasped a side of the bear tightly. He sunk his nails into it's thick hide and inserted his strength in unison with the other two. Together they hoisted it up onto the wagon, dropping it as carefully as possible as they were sure it had the potential to go right through the wooden wagon floor if it were to just be tossed onto it.

The three of them jumped right onto the wagon and began to depart.

"Eiraco was your destination right?"

"Yes."

Hano yanked on the reigns again and the horses took off running down the path. Now at this time, Alexen thought on himself as an over thinker. Nothing's out of the ordinary that drives of people from what he could list, so he began to think that maybe people just don't know where this business is. It is isolated in the woods after all, so that would make sense.

Nothing bad was going on, so Alexen went into a deep sleep, one that could not be awakened from easily. He snoozed for about an hour only to wake up confused and cranky.

"Are we almost at Eiraco yet?" He began to yawn and his hair was wildly out of place.

Hano gulped before he spoke, but was hesitant to do so as if he was afraid of the outcome. "I really don't know."

"What!?" Temo peeked outside the wagon, screaming after barely lifting up his heavy eyelids.

Alexen flinched at Temo's sudden burst of screaming, and shot up to his feet to investigate the outside. He looked out to see Hano driving the horses under the cold sunset, and no path at all. He's been riding on the grassy ground this whole time rather than staying on the path which was nearly a straight shot to the capital.

"Do you even know where the capital is?" Alexen kept bashing on the poor driver.

"Well… I've always been bad with directions."

Alexen and Temo looked at Hano intensely as if he were insane, and he was for driving them into absolutely nowhere. "Why did he even get a job like this then?" The two of them thought

"Yeah, well I'm driving now. You can sit in the back with the bear." Temo pushed Hano to the back and took the reigns. With Temo guiding the horses, they made it to Eiraco in less than two hours.

Alexen had predicted it. The reason why they don't get much business wasn't because of the price, or the location, or the quality of the wagons, it was because of the employees. He could already feel sorry for all the people Hano got lost.

Once they got there, they turned the bear to the local butcher and returned to Nion's house where they both slept like rocks.

"Get up!" Temo tossed a fishing rod at Alexen while he wrapped himself in blankets.

"In a second."

"You always complain you're bored, which is why we're doing all these quests, so get up!"

"Alright. Okay okay," yawned the weary Glacial. Alexen unwrapped himself in his cozy blankets only to bear witness to the cold air creep down his spine.

"Why is it always so cold here?" he said, shivering and his teeth chatter.

"Glacia has blessed this land with her power, and your complaining because of it? If it weren't for Glacia, we would be using the weak metal swords and bows that the humans use."

"I wouldn't mind that actually. Swords are pretty cool."

It didn't take long for Temo to be enraged by his younger brother, because that's what siblings do, right? They always have tendencies to hit each other, and that's what Temo's itching to do. But there was no time for such trivial extracurricular activities.

"Just…get ready." Temo walked off with a fishing rod, rubbing his eyes with his hand.

Alexen put on layers upon layers of clothing, only to end it off with his white fur lined jacket and leather boots with a soft sheep-like interior. In total he totted four layers of clothing. It was normally not always this cold, although it's always cold enough to be snowing year round. Alexen passed by and snatch the fishing rod that was thrown at him previously and walked out the door to Temo.

The two of them walked to the bay and hopped in the canoes that Nion rented for them. Together the rowed out just until they were barely out of the harbor, since they couldn't go very far out with canoes.

The canoe stopped abruptly and the two boys dropped their lines into the water, hoping to get a big catch.

"Hopefully we get a ton of fish, and the tasty ones too."

Temo nodded, seeming to be more focused on fishing.

"Oh yeah! By the way, where is Uncle Nion?" Alexen continued to blabber

"He's assisting the general in the barracks."

About half an hour passed and no one got a single bite, and the two became very tiresome. The sparkling ocean waves slowly rocked them to sleep, they slowly, and slowly… and slowly began to loosen their grip on the fishing rod. They were just about knocked out until a big thud rang out from the canoe and scared them awake. Alexen excreted a mighty yawn then proceeded to look over the side of the canoe. It was a man, a human. The human looked very young, about eighteen, and wore shiny bronze armor topped off with gold gauntlets. Alexen pulled the man onboard, and began to perform mouth to mouth in an attempt to save his life.

"Whoa, where did you learn this?"

"Nion… taught me…" Alexen replies between breaths.

Eventually the guy began to cough up all the water and started regaining consciousness. He looked up to them only to be terrified and push himself to the end of the canoe, as far away from the two boys as possible.

"You're Glacials. You monsters," he muttered.

"Look, we're trying to help. We're not going to hurt you, 'kay? We have a non-aggression pact remember?" Alexen walked closer to the man and slowly reached his hand out for the man to grab.

Temo analyzed the mysterious man, up to the point where he reached into his back pocket for something. "Alexen stop!" he screamed urgently.

The human pulled out a dagger and charged at Alexen, aiming for his heart. Alexen, who was shocked, fell over onto his butt. Temo jumped in front of his brother, quickly forming an icicle and drove it into the human's heart, popping it like a balloon. He instantly feel slumped over, looking at them one more time before going into the afterlife.

"Why do I have to be rescued again? Am I weak?" Alexen whispered to himself poutily.

Meanwhile, Temo was freaking out since they've broken the pact they had with the humans. "Maybe we can ditch the body or something?"

"I don't think we can."

"Why not?" Temo look at his dear little brother with confusion.

Alexen dug into the man's shirt and pulled out a crimson red and gold necklace wetted with blood. It also contained some sort of coat of arms.

"That's a necklace… belonging to the royal family."