Kindred: The Man With No Name

Alec

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Falling leaves flutter down, discarded, some green, most crisp and browning; sparse in the cold morning air. They hit the ground lightly, making no sound- as hushed as the boy who padded through the forest like he weighed the same.

He cut through light green thickets of moss that sprout to life with the breaking of dawn, and Ivy thorn bushes which pricked his skin. He didn't mind. The earth, darkened, felt moist under his feet. Alec had always known he was different, try as he had to convince himself otherwise. He was smaller in comparison to the other boys, a feat remarkable in its own right considering that most of them were no less a day older than twelve.

But his frame portrayed a false frailty. Where they were tall, he was strong, and when he wanted to, which was often, he could move as inconspicuously as their shadows. That boded well because he liked to keep to himself most of the time.

He also had an eye for adventure, so wander the forest he did, mapping out almost every inch of it, even the restricted sections.

No one knew the woods quite as he did, and that is how he continuously got stuck with guard duty during the hunt.

It was a rite as old as time - all the boys who wished to join their ranks had to complete it. The tasks that the initiates undertook were perilous, as the participants seldom made it back unscathed. But victory assured a thing many of the forgotten children longed for, a place they could call home. So those who could find the forest flooded it in droves, each chancing to meet a being as divine as the mother.

The scent of moss and lichen be-fowled the air, and he knew was close. He caught a whiff of something else too, and instinctively looked up.

Crows swarmed the orange sky above, hauntingly silent, save for the flapping of their wings as they flew below blushed, drifting clouds.

They suddenly clatter towards a nearby clearing but stopped short of the tree line. Alec watched the branches, bereft of leaves, lean towards the ground with the weight of birds as dark as the shapes that moved in between the trees ahead.

The wind whistled around him as he cut to his right, veering deeper into the forest. Towards the Eastern borderline the trees thinned, as the sun rose above, its light streaking through the branches in bright beams, slowly taking the cover of darkness with it.

It would take a little longer to get to the brook now, but this way he could avoid the wolves. There was nothing more vicious than a hungry wolf, save for an insulted one, and crossing their terrain at this hour would bring out both.

The trail, riddled with colorful rose hips and squirrels that dove into bushes at the sight of him, began to slop up and down, and he knew he was venturing uncomfortably close to the ravine that marked the Eastern border.

After a moment or so, the sound of rushing water permeated through the soft susurration of bushes below. He broke into a clearing soon after, braking wildly against the edge, as mounds of dirt and rock catapulted into the water.

The stream, wide, blue and uncommonly glassy, fell over little cascades in its rush, swaying past large rocks littered across it. The water hammered against a muddy bank, littered with the trampled remains of wild red roses that once stood proudly.

They happened to be one of the items the initiates were required to bring back. They also only grew across this bank and deep within the ravine at the Eastern border, a fact privy to all the initiates. But it didn't take any effort on his part to deduce what had happened.

There was a hint of movement from the trees behind, and a pale boy, much taller than he stepped out of the thicket. His light hair was tousled as f he had just woken up, and a large grey-white spotted horse galloped past him.