Being thrown to the wolves is a death sentence.
Adalia knows that all too well, since she witnessed her own father being slaughtered in that same unmerciful way.
Living life as a meek slave in a kingdom full of royals, Adalia has no rights and is tr...
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Her cloak of wool flapped against the wind the snowstorm produced. The sun tried desperately to fight off the suffocating clouds that attacked it, but it was no use. Cold clashed with the warmth the sun tried to give, but as usual, the heroic fight the sun put up proved to be futile.
So it slunk back into the clouds, forever hiding its face until the price was paid.
The snow fell and stuck onto the cloaked figure who wandered into the tundra alone. Bread in her shaking hands and teeth chattering as she pulled the hood to her cloak tighter against her face. Frozen shards of ice licked her legs but she pushed forth towards her daughter.
Or, what was left of her daughter.
The horizon gave way to a grey sky, producing thick fog and wet, small snowflakes that collided with her face. The snowflakes melted on her skin but quickly froze as the frigid temperatures grabbed a hold of the moisture.
Ice cycles clung to her body and clothing and she was bathed in ice. The trek to her daughter was a miserable one, but it would not be in vain.
She could see the dark shadow of the pole in which her daughter was tied to in the distance and approached it ever so slowly. The muscles in her legs ached from trudging through the thick snow and her feet started to feel heavier and heavier with fatigue.
But she was determined.
She had made this same trek all those years ago when her dear beloved had been cast out, thrown to the wolves as if he was nothing but a worthless toy.
And now she was making it again.
She had prepared herself for the sight she might see, so when her eyes laid forth onto all the blood, so much blood, scattered around the worn-down snow in scarlet drops, her knees gave out and she fell forth, catching herself on her wrists and leaning forwards.
Her hair that matched Adalia's dragged in the splattered blood and her eyes saw remnants of flesh lying around. Raw, bloodied flesh told of a story of suffering and she couldn't dare look at it any longer.
Her head was spinning.
She clutched a bone in her hand - it was fresh, not yet hollow and dry with time but wet. Ligaments and tendons were still attached and she closed her eyes, mourning the loss of her daughter. What she didn't know that these remains did not belong to her own kin, but to a deer.
A deer killed by the very wolves that saved her daughter.
But how could her mother ever possibly know?
To her, she had just lost her daughter.
And maybe she had. Even though her daughter was not dead, she might as well been to her mother. Her mother had no idea of knowing and now she was alone.
Utterly alone in a land where agony dwelled and where the callouses on one's hands could boast about a lifetime of hard, back-breaking work.
She let herself mourn, not caring that the breath of the wind was slowly carrying her away by stealing the warmth she needed to survive. She had no will left to survive, any way. What would be the use? She no longer had to stick around for the good of her daughter, since she had no one.
