Caught by a Hunter

Chapter 2

During the day Alderoth took care of a few tasks, helping others in the village and getting to know them. He sat down under a windmill for a while with Auni who just like always was enthusiastically talking about bugs and was now telling him how while delivering letters for Hodari, he had spotted bahari bees on his way. The boy even caught a few in a glass jar and excitedly showed the jar to Adleroth.

"So what are you going to do now?" the man asked. "I don't think bees are meant to live in small jars..."

"I know", Auni assured with a bright smile. "I want to build a beehive! We can take care of the bees and then we'll get tons of honey from them!"

"With just two bees?" Alderoth asked amused.

"Obviously there won't be just two bees", Auni groaned. "I'll collect more!"

"I understand. But what do you know about taking care of bees? What do you know about bees in general?"

"That's why we're going to the library!" Auni smirked when he jumped up on his feet and took his huge backpack.

"What? Right now?" Alderoth asked surprised and he got up too, patting some grass off his pants.

"You promised to spend time with me today, or are you planning on breaking your promise?" Auni asked, looking at him with a pout.

"Absolutely not, show me the way. I haven't been in the library yet anyway so might as well go visit there finally."

"Are you serious? How come you have not visited it yet?"

"I've heard about the librarian from my neighbor so I'm not sure if we'd really get along..."

"Oh, I get it", Auni hummed as they were walking towards the village. "She can be a bit scary sometimes. But not like Eshe..."

"Are you afraid of Eshe?" Alderoth asked amused when looking at the blond haired boy.

"Absolutely not! Most of the time at least", Auni murmured with a slight blush. "Mom sometimes says that having a lifestyle like that doesn't automatically make people happy and dad just laughs, but I know they don't hate her either."

Alderoth hummed as they were walking up some stairs.

"She has her own way of keeping this village in order", he said. "It might seem harsh sometimes but it works. I think most of the time at least", he said and they both jumped when they heard a wooden clack against stones.

"'Most of the time' you say?" they heard a familiar sharp voice and turned towards the old lady who was giving them annoyed look. "Be very careful with what you say, Mr. Solarfox. I'm only just starting to warm up to you", Eshe warned when stepping closer to them and Auni quickly looked away. Oh crap, he really hoped Eshe had not heard what he said!

Even if Eshe did hear what Auni had said it was obvious she was not planning on bringing it up and instead just kept looking at Alderoth.

"But I did hear what you said before that", she said with a slight nod. "And I'm going to take it as a compliment so I'll pretend I did not hear that last sentence you said."

"With all due respect, we have different aspects of how some things could be done here and my opinion is just as important as yours", Alderoth said.

One of his probably worst traits was the fact that he absolutely hated it when someone was trying to act all high and mighty over him. No, he would push back. He did respect elderly, he didn't hold himself above anyone else and he was always ready to hear reasoning and compromise.