My queen. I shall protect these souls through their winter. I shall see them reborn in their spring. No matter what trial I face, I swear it my queen. I swear it.
It was hard, but Ara’lon could remember when wishes were simple.
Falling stars weren’t too irregular in the skies over Ardenweald, and it could be a fun game to claim them. To ‘catch’ the stars by pointing them out first so that you could wish on them, or to have a bunch of fae wish at once and see whose came true.
Granted, most of the time there was a bit of a friend’s magic behind whatever came true. Not that people told who did what, even if they knew.
That was the fun of it.
Ardenweald’s great sprawling expanse required tending and care, but it needed laughter and whimsy just as much to flourish.
The souls in the wildseeds could feel it, after all. That sense of safety, that they could dream and heal while an unknown world beyond them went on, stable and carefree.
When the weald first started to wither, they had felt it, just as surely as the night fae had. Ara’lon had found himself singing to the wildseeds more and more, pushing himself to stay cheerful and optimistic so as to keep the slumbering souls encouraged and calm.
For a time, that was enough. Songs interrupted with playful tricks and tales woven around shaky souls to let them fall back to sleep to the comforting lull of voices handled the anxieties that rippled through the groves. It might have been enough for the seeds, if the drought hadn’t continued to get worse.
Slowly, the withering weald became too much for the caretakers to ignore, and as their own laughter faltered, their charges’ sleep became more and more broken. They had felt the changes first and now they could feel that the changes were bringing something dreadful: uncertainty.
Ara’lon moved through his grove, playing his flute and singing the most cheerful of songs.
And the wildseeds trembled.
When the first seed dried, its inhabitant lost, Ara’lon had sad beside it in silence, stroking the husk left behind and mourning it as quietly as he could.
That hadn’t been right though. It was a faerie who started a proper lament first, though he and the others had joined in. Their music had wound through the grove, saturating it and for a moment, it seemed as if Ardenweald itself was mourning with them.
Oddly enough, that helped the remaining wildseeds. It was as though they had needed the severity of the situation to be acknowledged, had needed to know they were not uneasy without cause. Their dreams settled and for a time, things seemed a bit better, or perhaps they were simply more manageable. After all, the less anima was needed to soothe the wildseeds, the more there was to feed them.
And then the Winter Queen came to his grove.
Ara’lon had never known heartbreak like this. Ardenweald was a place of rebirth and joy and song and laughter.
And bit by bit, the drought was draining it away.
Where all else withered, hopelessness took root.
There didn’t seem to be any end to the drought in sight, and no amount of wishes on stars would be able to bring much needed relief.
And so Ara’lon donned the mantle of the Wild Hunt. He had done his fair share of fulfilling others’ wishes during their games, and so he took it upon himself to fulfill his own. He wasn’t much of a fighter at first, but he had the drive, the willingness to put his everything into defending the weald. If they could just last until the drought came to an end…
That was what he told himself, over and over and over.
And over and over and over they lost ground. More groves withered, the Drust assaulted them in force, the gorm themselves became a hostile entity with sentience and lust for power motivating them to do things no one had thought them possible of.
It was all…so overwhelming.
Still, Ara’lon pushed forward. Even when his friends and fellows-in-arms fell, he pushed forward.
He could do his part to make things right. He knew it.
The problem with wishes, of course, is that not all of them could come true. Perhaps some simply weren’t meant to.
He had considered that, when he was caught by the Drust, despite his best efforts. He had held his wishes as he watched the stars fall through cage bars, waiting for his turn to be made into some mindless monster that would help bring ruin to everything he loved. Part of him felt like he had no right to ask for miracles, and another part hoped that someone else would have better luck with gaining the favor of falling stars.
Perhaps he had always been too gentle for this. If he let someone else take charge, let someone else lead the fight, it could still be won.
He comforted himself with memories, daring to hum a tune from time to time, remembering when his grove had flourished and the wildseeds had hummed with anima in response to the sound of his flute and voice. He remembered those who had fallen as they had been, full of smiles and mischief, always ready for Dapperdew’s next theatre production or the tales of Lady Moonberry’s next prank. He remembered Gweyir and the others, taking arms to protect their beloved weald, of how they still found time to joke, even with everything falling around them.
He hoped Gweyir had been saved, prayed to his Queen that the rumors that she had perished from her curse were just cruel barbs meant to weaken his spirit. Surely, with the aid of the Maw Walker and others, there had to be some kind of victories ahead.
Not that he would be there to see it.
His time as a captive of the Drust went by in a miserable blur, until Ghorak Zhar decided his fate. As he was dragged forth to be used for her wicked trickery, he fought with everything he had, claws and hooves and horns, doing whatever he could to make one last wish come true.
Don’t make him hurt the ones he had wanted so desperately to protect.
And then the stars and weald were lost to him.
Fate, however, did allow him one small mercy. His friends were able to stop him.
Just as they would Ghorak Zhar and whatever else came their way.
Surely.
As Lady Moonberry held his hand, shaky voice attempting to sooth him for his last moments, Ara’lon saw a star falling overhead. He focused on it with all his might and made his last wish, that wherever he might end up next, it be a place with laughter and that, should it need protecting, next time he would be enough.
