CHAPTER 3

The morning wasn’t as usual as it should have been for the Theandor family, as both Grey and Lyvia were darting through the living room, grabbing several toys, magazines, a change of clothes and some food.

The only one who wasn’t hastily preparing was the little Daelyn. The three-year-old kindergartner looked quizzically at his parent’s behaviour, wondering why they were harrying him about being careful again and again.

‘I don’t get why they are so worried? I’m only going to play with some children, it isn’t like I’m marching into the mouth of a cinder fox?’

Daelyn silently sat one on the kitchen chairs, recounting all the times he had sat on these chairs.

The times he had been playing with Lyvia, the times he had been playing with his food, the times he had gotten scolded for it, but also the times he had gotten hurt, the times they were worried, discussing deep into the night, unaware that he could hear and, just recently, understand everything.

‘Was this about me being a Dinol? If so, they could have just told me instead of being all secret about it. I wouldn’t mind anyone calling me a Dinol, I just want them to be happy. I don’t want them to be sad.

Oh! Maybe it’s something about a ‘biological’ parent? I don’t really know, but they seemed really worried every time that came up.’

The little boy had grown very close to his parents in the three years he had been under their care. He had spent each day with them, playing with his mother and learning from his mother. It hadn’t taken long for Daelyn to figure out that Lyvia held the throne in this household, as she had ordered Grey around on multiple occasions, especially when something happened to Daelyn.

He had been very kind, full of energy and childish towards his parents, begging for his mother to read the story of ‘The Hero Albericht’, and plaguing his father to play with him more, throwing the small boy up in the air and enticing him with the moving roots that split off from his robes and slithered towards Daelyn like a batch of snakes.

They had grown from a couple with an adopted child to a family. Daelyn had grown closer and closer to the two over the years, creating a strong bond between the two parents and their new child.

The over-enthusiastic pair had recorded almost everything their new-born did, they cheered at his first steps, hung his first attempt at painting in the living room, and they were absolutely adored by his ‘mapa’, earning him a praise for his first word and his creativity.

The combination of an eager mother, a curious child and a calm husband made it hard for Grey, as he was often dragged upstairs and away from his work by Lyvia, busting his eardrums about another one of Daelyn’s achievements, or harrying him with questions that Daelyn’s inventive mind could come up with yet she couldn’t concisely answer.

Surprisingly, Grey never got mad. He never scolded Lyvia for her impulsive actions, he was never angry at Daelyn, he was always proud of his son and happy for his wife. There hadn’t been a moment when he had shown any irritation, anger, or even mental fatigue. He was the calm oasis in the chaotic storm his wife embodied, filling the house with a silencing mist and quiet tranquillity.

It had greatly enjoyed the praise, giggling like the three-year-old it was, yet He wasn’t satisfied. He had given the answer their parents asked, He had whispered them to It, He had done everything he could, yet He didn’t feel satisfied, instead He felt imprisoned.

He had spent every day trying to gain more knowledge, trying to create more and more complex theorems, trying to create images beyond reality, beyond fiction, yet He failed each and every time, as He didn’t know enough to imagine the wonders of the universe, the underlying rules that dictated every part of life. He didn’t have enough information, and He couldn’t get more, because It had control of their body, and It, being the child that It was, didn’t want to read, It wanted to play with their mother and father.

So, He was chained to the will of It. He had already long given up any aspirations to gain control and venture out, any aspirations of leaving for the outside world and learning about the wonders of nature, the workings of the universe or the origin of life, or itself. Instead, He simply waited for the day where He would fade away, absorbed into Its consciousness and terminated from the world forever.

    So, He refused to think any further. He went on a silent protest, refusing to give any more hints or answers to It. Yet that protest seemed futile, as It was quickly developing itself, creating thoughts of Its own, speaking words, sentences and telling whole stories to his bewildered parents, only because He had guided him a little in the beginning.

    So, instead of wasting anymore time contemplating, He stopped thinking. Any thought that He would have would be futile, any theorem that would cross his mind would never be used, nor would any halogenic picture ever remain.

    He was silent, and he would endure till he was gone.

    He only looked out the window that It opened every day, staring at the world He longed for so much. Yet It didn’t want to explore the world, instead it incessantly plagued He with thoughts of his newfound companions, calling them his ‘friends’ or ‘best friends’.

    And their parents had decided that they go on a playdate today, giving It more than enough reason to frolic in the dreamscape like a headless chicken. Even when the illustrious window to the plane of colours closed, did It not stop thinking about those ‘friends’ and continued his frolicking even in a dreamscape.

    He simply waited for his demise, yet he just hoped that It would make his waiting a little more pleasant, as enduring anymore of this childish behaviour was bound to push him past any former boundary.

    Their parents stood at the front door, preparing for their departure towards the so called ‘playdate’.

    “Daelyn, are you ready? We need to be at the play date in an hour!”

    It perked up, looking up from the chair they had been sitting on, and waddled over to the front door in the fashion only a three-year-old could. It looked up at their parents with a smile on their face, earning a warm smile from both.

    They were quickly scooped up by Lyvia and put in a small blanket wrapped around her shoulder, keeping their body close to hers.

    He had already bored of the small trip to town, yet It continued to gaze at the surroundings, awed by the beauty they held. Provided, He did enjoy the beautiful picture of the overarching trees and the green tinted forest floor a dozen metres below them, yet He had seen it more times than He bothered to count.

    So, He quietly drifted off to the comatose state it had experienced so many times, into the veil of inactivity that would keep the incessant chittering of Its thoughts away from him. The only sound that penetrated through the veil and reached He was the soft beat drums of their mother, soothing the mind and taking him away to that place of complete inactivity, the only place that offered refuge from the test of time.

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Yet while He quietly ran off to bed, It didn’t spare a thought about rest, or even being a little more composed, as the little boy was gazing at the passing trees, the occasional fleeing animal and the forest floor filled with all kinds of colourful vegetation, from poisonous herbs to beautiful flowers, the forest floor of the Eleanor League had it all.

Yet the rainbow coloured forest floor didn’t win out against the trees that loomed over them, as their large roots broke through the ground and their bodies swallowed the sky, outlining the blue yonder in a green and brown frame. They limited the denizens of the forest comparable to a toad in a well, never knowing what is beyond their meagre interpretation of the endless blue expansion that held above the world.

The same was true for Daelyn, as he had never seen the sky beyond the trees, he had only caught glimpses of it through the thick layers of foliage and the occasional toad’s view from a small clearing.

He had spent the years wondering about the great beyond every time that Lyvia took him out, yet his passion had diminished over time, growing more and more numb as it seemed to more closely resemble a flickering candlelight instead of the blaze it once was.

So, instead of looking up at the sky, he looked in front of him, at their destination.

    The large townhall stretched out in front of him, towering above the little boy like a giant would. The town hall seemed to be made from different levels, a ground level opening to the shops on the forest floor, a house several dozens of metres up, and a watchtower even higher up, only being visible by the lights that were lit every hour of the day to make sure that no enemies took the village by surprise.

The townhall itself stood opposite of several shops perched next to each other creating the shape of a crescent moon. The village had a small amount of utilities, such as a blacksmith, a tailor, a small inn, and the local alchemist shop, where ladies could buy beautification potions and men some strange blue pills. Daelyn hadn’t really been able to figure out what they were for, or, more likely, It hadn’t.

The small family walked with large strides towards the townhall, making it clear to any outsider that they were hurried. They crossed the square without exchanging the usual pleasantries, reaching the large building within the minute and slowly piling in the front door, only to be greeted by the smiling face of the leading elder in the region, Ellith Elrieden.

Grey and Lyvia’s expression visibly loosened, hugging their friend and starting the small talk they had been avoiding to vehemently only a moment ago.

“Elrieden, how are you? Thank you so much for the invitation! We are so happy that Daelyn finally gets to play with some of his peers!”

Elrieden smiled and bent down to eyelevel with Daelyn.

“So, this is little Daelyn, I haven’t seen him since you got him registered, and that was when he was young. He grew so much in two years, but I guess it’s normal for a dinol. Let’s save that for another time, the little party is down the hall on the right. I’m sure you will find it easily, it’s hard to miss the screaming children, even from the lookout.”

As if to prove Elrieden right, a high-pitched screech resounded through the hallways, momentarily drowning out all sound but that of a hysterical child.

“Don’t worry, there is a soundproof chamber across from the room, next to my office.”

The expression of both adults standing in front of him visibly eased, dispersing the tension that the scream had warranted, and replacing it with a euphoric calm.

    “Thank Eleanor.”

    “I would rather drink a dinol’s concoction than listen to those children.”

    “And what? Get raped behind an inn? Dear, the dogs wouldn’t even have you, let alone a dinol.”

    “Then what are you doing here?”

    The two of them laughed wholeheartedly, enjoying each other’s company. Meanwhile, Ellith looked at them, baffled.

    “Ehm, I don’t get it. Wait, I do get the joke, but aren’t you basically saying that your son would rape someone?”

    Lyvia and Grey looked at him, their faces returning from their relaxed state before they turned, ugly. Grey sighed, while Lyvia’s brows furrowed, her eyes narrowed, and her lips were packed tightly together, letting only the bare minimum of sound through.

    “Elrieden, I get your confusion, but do you really think we would associate our son with those barbarians? Most of them are comparable to the rats they live alongside, nothing more and nothing less. We don’t see Daelyn that way, because we will make sure that he has a better education, good tutors and a loving family to rely on.”

    Elrieden met her gaze, gazing deeply into the stoic eyes that refused to move for even a second, challenging him to say the opposite, daring him to oppose those eyes filled with stoutness.

    He averted his eyes and led them to the kids’ room in silent.

    The sudden screams only increased as they neared the room, transforming from a far-off echo to a full-blown orchestra of unintelligible screeching, whining and the occasional calls for ‘mama’.

    They entered the room, only to be met by a room in chaos, a few parents sitting off to the side with pained expressions, and at least a dozen children running around playing. Well, it was hard to call this playing for Daelyn, for him, it was more like seeing a fight for the first time, as the Dynn Doráin children filling the room were stronger than a Dinol, far stronger.

    They darted around like wasps, turning corners like hares and charging into each other like boars, creating a spectacle comparable to a tavern brawl, only with a lot more screaming and laughing.

    Lyvia and Grey had resolved to stay the whole playdate, watching over Daelyn from the side-lines to make sure he was okay, yet the third eardrum busting scream made them regret their choice.

    They calmly walked over to the chairs, quickly being spotted by the adults sitting there with hollow eyes. They looked at Daelyn, gazing at him with a mix of emotions, curiosity, pity, indifference and the occasional scowl. These emotions could hardly be masked with a social façade, as they were genuinely surprised to see a dinol child at the hands of Dynn Doráin parents.

    Their eyes followed the small boy waddling over to the dozen of overbearing children, curiously following his every footstep, only to find that they weren’t the only one.

    The whole room had gone silent as the children had stopped their games and turned to gaze at the newcomer, apprehensive of the alien in their midst.

    The silence lasted for several moments, engulfing the room in an awe directed towards Daelyn, only to be broken by the voice of a little girl.

    “Daelyn! You finally came!”

    An ordinary girl with dull grey hair shot out from the crowd, closing in on Daelyn with her little sister in tow. The two of them sped towards him, running at the little boy with a dangerous pace, before abruptly stopping in front of him, creating a small breeze.

    “Took you long enough! Me and Ayda were waiting for you! Come, we are going to introduce you to everyone!”

    The little girl looked at him with glee, quickly grabbing his hand and dragging him off to one corner of the room where a small group of boys and girls hadn’t been participating in the brawl. Instead, they played a little rough to make sure that the younger children weren’t injured, Daelyn inevitably became a part of this, as he was both young and extremely weak compared to the rest of the children darting through the room.

    Well, even the less rowdy corner was still imposing to the little bookworm, as the children ran after each other, running at speeds seemed impossible for their kindergartner physique, whereas their three-year-old minds were just able to keep up with everything going on. They knew they shouldn’t go near the larger kids, so they didn’t, simple as that.

    Daelyn saw it a little different, as he had trouble keeping up with the children whose physique were at least two years behind, and he had even more trouble spotting the children whose physique were the same as his. They darted around at speeds he couldn’t hope to match, and the occasional bump was shrugged off, whereas Daelyn knew he would be hurt badly, very, very badly.

    So, instead of playing, he opted to read his favourite book for the dozenth time this week, they had stopped keeping count after the first month.

    He opened the book, gazing at the colourful pictures and big letters. The story flowed from his mind as he saw the images pass by, the letters skim past, and the characters wave at him. He wasn’t proficient enough at reading to read the story himself, especially when there was a lot of text, but Lyvia had read it so many times that he knew it by heart, enjoying the adventures of young Albericht again and again and again.

    His mind became entranced by the pages, blocking out all sensations but the touch of the rough paper, the colourful drawings on each page, and the emotions that welled up.

    Daelyn finally noticed something about his surroundings when he had a lull in the story, the crowded room had become calmer, less noisy.

    He looked up, before he rebounded, startled by the six faces that were mere centimetres away from his. The dark skin colour didn’t help, as their faces were masked by their overhanging silver hair and the low amount of light, resulting in a vision filled with six expressionless faces.

    Daelyn wanted to scream.