1. A Journey Home part 2


    Date: 8/20/2015, Categories: Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Author: sirreadsalot10, Rating: 1, Source: LushStories

    gathering heading home when he spotted Elder Haran sitting by a fire watching the younger people as they reveled. Aerik changed direction and approached the old man. “Elder Haran,” Aerik said and then had to repeat himself much louder for the old man to hear him. “Yes, my boy,” Elder Haran said squinting up at the younger man. “I just wanted to tell you that the summer songs you taught me as a child saved my life,” he said. The old man looked at Aerik more closely. “Aerik is it?” he asked. “Yes, Elder.” “I remember you,” Elder Haran said, “Skinny little thing, all hair and bones. I remember you were more interested in playing at spears than learning my little songs.” Aerik laughed. “I guess I wasn’t much of a student, but I remembered the songs when I needed them. Thank you.” After talking with Elder Haran, Aerik quietly slipped away. When he awoke the next morning, he wandered around the village trying to find the feeling of belonging that he was missing. His feet seemed to lead him, without conscious thought, to the garg pens. He spoke with their keepers about Unkes. They remembered him when Aerik described Unkes’s rare light brown eyes. “I remember him well,” the head handler said. “He was one of our best hunters. We bred him to a fine bitch a while before you left and the litter is ready to be weaned from their mother.” “Show them to me,” Aerik said. He felt a sense of joy that Unkes would live on through his children. The garg pups were fat and healthy. Aerik laughed ...
    as they fought for their mother’s teats. At the sound of his laugh, a little female pup waddled over to his feet. He knelt and scratched her behind the ear. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth and she gazed up at him. He gasped. She stared at him trustingly with Unkes’s light brown eyes. He laughed again when the pup started growling and prancing around trying to get him to play with her. Despite the protests of the handlers, when Aerik left the garg pens the little pup was tucked under his arm. “I knew your father, little one,” he said to the pup as he carried her home. He named the pup Picah, which meant “little one” in the old tongue, and she went with him everywhere he went. At first Aerik’s status as a returning hero made people overlook his strange attachment to the garg pup, but over time that faded and people began to whisper that he had changed. By the time an annum had passed, they now thought of Aerik as the strange Loner. Picah was now fully grown, and proved to be a fierce hunter, but she would only hunt with Aerik. Together they provided more food for the village than any other three hunters combined. For this reason, the elders allowed Picah to remain with Aerik. They feared if they tried to take her away from him, Aerik would just leave, taking the garg with him. Another problem was that Aerik remained unmarried. The elders approached every father with an eligible daughter in the village, but all refused to have their daughters wed to a garg lover. The other ...
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