The notion his friend yearned to find a home, to stay within their wintry confines, was an aspiration come true – and he thought in earnest of all the things they could do and all the sights they could possess with their young might. The scion would have to introduce him to Rikyn and Aithniel, all the other flourishing babes growing beneath the swell of the icy kingdom, and they could all run through the parlors and halls as renegade minstrels, blending into the surroundings as future chieftains. His sentiments altered, a severe morphing, however, when the tone changed; a note in the schism, in the pattern, manifested into dreadful arches and ghastly hymns. Death had beckoned, stolen, swept into the corridors and latched upon Adelric’s own sire, and he was left destitute, rotting in the forlorn fixtures. Erebos had been immune to the travesty and tragedy of demise in his short life, and though his father seized and drummed the satanic magic, the devilish incantations, he’d never truly used it in front of his son, nor upon someone he cared deeply for. The little prince, with all his exuberance, with all of his wild, energetic finesse, couldn’t begin to understand how the spotted colt felt. Surrounded by family, content in the confidantes and intimates gathered amidst their sinewy webs, he’d been given and granted the well wishes, the freedom, and the prosperity of blossoming with education, with instruction, and with wondrous opportunities. But what of Adelric, now hastened into the status of orphan, with naught and no one to guide him? He sculpted his frame back into a respectable air, quiet, silent, drifting into the abyss, watching, listening, unsure of how to react or what to do, pondering over the measures of his mother’s stories, of his father’s domination, and how they’d carve their regrets, their rancor, their heartlines. But the golden stag moved into their void too, and Erebos merely stared, in wide-eyed wonder, as he uttered the chains, the reverberations, of actions and recourse. Murdered; a harsh word, a guttural hiss, a portrayal of sinister demonstrations and chaotic opuses, he stayed beside the GildedBlade and wondered, pondered, imagined the horrific scenario.

His brain couldn’t conjure the images, had no background or prior knowledge into the comprehension of such a bloody state, but he captured the notion, the tangled eaves of Illynx and her irritated stature towards Thranduil, the secrets kept locked inside the minds of his friends, the multitude of furies ruptured back and forth, over his head, causing his juvenile mind to swim in ferocious befuddlement. A series of questions leapt and bounded along his cranium, daunting and overbearing, refusing to be thrown into the mass of voices, but still seeking clarification. Was their father a bad beast, conducting terrifying, tyrannical affairs in the midst and mist? Did he deserve to die? Why had others attacked him, if he was the opposite of what they’d said? What made others yearn to murder? While not voiced, the passionate collection of his brow, sullen and fallen due to his friend’s poor circumstances, he leant his sincere, wholehearted apologies for their dire whims. “I’m sorry about your father.”