DotW: The Price of Growing Old

In moments of silence, I often reminisce.

I have a great many moments of silence now, for I am as old as the mountain our King calls home, and I have precious few visitors. My memories are becoming my only company, and I am left alone with them often, ruminating on the things I have seen and done in my years on this earth.

There are some happy memories. Sometimes I will sit alone in a small crop of sunlight, let my eyes drift shut, and smile as I remember them. Early moments with my family. My son and daughter playing in a meadow, dancing between the bobbing heads of wildflowers. Alora’s wistful smile, beautiful even in not being the one I had first loved.

But for every moment of happiness, there is a fractured darkness.

The immorality that lurked in the depths of my half-brother’s crystalline blue eyes, like a storm cloud brewing in a beautiful Summer sky. Mylene’s retreating form, beside her promised suitor, her lids pressed shut so that she would not shed a tear in front of her family. Hadwyn’s empty gaze, staring into the distance long after the battle had finished.

And the war...

With heavy guilt, I occasionally think back on the war with a certain fondness that should not come with bloodshed and loss.

I would not wish war on this place again… these young wolves, I think, would be ill-equipped to deal with it. They lead fanciful lives, where they have no greater concern than climbing rank or making sure they hold one’s chin a fraction higher than their neighbour. The worst insult they know is to be called a bastard, their greatest fear becoming lowblood or losing favour with the High King.

War… they would not know how to handle war.

War is much more than tooth and claw. It is a battle of wills. It is the question on your lips with every break of the morning sunlight, hoping that the answer might be, not today. It is the last breath you hear from your comrades as they crumple in a stain of birch-blood red, having given everything they can give. It is the scream in every stolen second of sleep that you can bear, the rasping cry that wakes you rudely and reminds you that you must face another day.

But it was also the last time that I recall being… useful.

Many years have gone by in peace, and I have watched this Kingdom grow and prosper. Eventually I came to realise that it had no need of me. I had outlived my purpose when the last throes of battle scored their final marks across my face. War was the only thing I had been good at. That much was obvious by the fact that I was alive, that I had survived where countless others had been felled like forests.

I can see them sometimes, when the ripples of the gentle mountain streams slow enough for me to catch a glimpse. The scars, the deep knots of flesh-purple, the bark to my tree. There had been a time I wore them proudly, for I knew at what great cost they had come. I recalled every battle for each and every scar. I remembered those who did not return by my side, felt the tightness in my chest when I had looked into their families’ eyes.

I think it is so easy for the young of this Kingdom to find excuses for them all, those scars - they imagine I had a run-in with a particularly furious elk, or that a friendly spar went awry. Maybe I tripped and fell, since I am old and my ankles are weak now. Maybe I lost a Blood Dance, wouldn’t it be romantic and noble?

All these things are much easier than looking at my face and having to realise what I had sacrificed in order for them to live the lives they have now.

My friends.

My son.

Myself.

And now, I am surplus to requirement. There is no war for me to fight. There is no wolf who would come to me for protection - hah! How the Highbloods would laugh at a wolf who came to a frail old man with such a request. Where once I thought I had earned respect, I now begin to realise that I am the fool of this court. A drain on the resources of the mighty Highvalley.

I was a wolf who gave them everything. In return, they shelve me, amuse themselves by coming to me for advice like a token fortune teller. Pretending that anything I have to say is useful, replacing me easily with those who have not done a shred of the duties I have done for this Kingdom. For its people. For the King.

This, I suppose, is the price of growing old.