Chapter 139: Orion and His Family I

For a long time, Orion didn’t move.

The night had quieted around him, the hum of festival laughter fading into the distance. Lanterns above the graves swayed gently, their glass shells catching the faintest breath of wind.

The runes carved on their sides pulsed dimly steady, rhythmic, like heartbeats beneath his feet. The cobblestones still held the warmth of countless footsteps, but now it was only his that lingered.

He stayed there, head bowed, until the ache in his neck burned through the stillness.

Two minutes, maybe more. It didn’t matter. He had to do this.

When he finally straightened, his throat was tight. He placed the two wineskins before the graves...one before his mother’s stone, one before his father’s. The third, smaller stone, he brushed with his thumb. It was smooth, rounded from years of rain and wind. There was a faint carving on it, the curve of a name that had never been fully written.

For the child who never drew her first breath.

"Hey," he said softly, his voice barely breaking through the hush. "It’s been a while, hasn’t it?"

The lanterns didn’t flicker in answer, but the air around him shifted a faint current that might have been wind, or something gentler. He sat down cross-legged before the three markers, the wineskins resting between them, and sighed.

"I know. I know I’ve neglected you. It’s been..." he swallowed, lips twitching into a half-smile, "...too long. Especially during the anniversary but it doesn’t matter, I should have come. I should’ve come."

He stared at the names etched into stone. ’Alaric; loving father, a true leader, a warrior..."

There were many more written in the headstone but none that was written by Orion.

His mother, ’Kayla; loving mother, healer, a guide, a leader...’

Still none written by Orion. Realising just how much he’d neglected his family, Orion sighed deeply. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"I kept trying to tell myself that there wasn’t time. That I didn’t deserve to stand in your presence, that you wouldn’t want to see me especially when it was all my fault, when it was my mistake that led to the destruction of our pack but I’ve come to realize now that maybe the enclave would have attacked us after all. And like someone said...they were just looking for a reason to attack us."

He let out a trembling breath. "I’m sure Daniel and Ronan have already told you,""

He said as he rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the lump in his throat. It didn’t go away.

"I...we settled in Nirvana. It’s snowy and the weather is fucking unpredictable...sorry for cursing." He said glancing at the smaller gravestone.

The silence was patient. Lantern light crawled over his boots, over his hands, over the tears that had begun to gather despite himself. He blinked them away roughly.

"I wish you could see this place," he said after a while. "It’s... gods, it’s a strange place. The weather changes whenever it pleases. One minute it’s calm with just small bouts of snow and the next thing we know, there’s a blizzard or rain and we have to take cover in our houses. It was difficult when we first came here. People died especially due to frostbite. But we learned to adapt and make our houses stronger and better. We used blocks and everyone came together to ensure that it was safe enough. I can proudly tell you that not one house has fallen since we built them."

"And Lysander is the head of the medical facility. I’m sure you’d be proud of him if you saw him right now. I have an injury...it’s two actuallly from some of the beasts around here that attacked us...I’ll get to that in a minute and Lysander wouldn’t let me rest because I tend to skip treatments. It’s not my fault I hate the smell of herbs." Orion said with a chuckle.

"I remember when you’d race around the pack trying to get me to drink some of your concoction. Yes...it doesn’t matter what you say or what you said rather," he said glancing at his mother’s headstone. "Those things were awful. I’m still if the belief that you just took any herb you could find, smashed them and made me drink."

He turned to the smaller headstone then. "I’m glad you didn’t get to meet that. They are awful...but...I’m sad I didn’t get to meet you. I’d have introduced you to many things and maybe you’d have been a warrior like Brynhild or maybe a hunter or...gods! If have let you be anything and let you do anything you wanted to do."

He smiled faintly, a ghost of pride threading his tone.

"Speaking of Brynhild," he said turning back to his parents. "She’s pregnant now. I’m sure you already know because she must have visited you at some point. And she and Lysander are married. They are mates. And Tobias isn’t so young anymore. He has a complicated love life I tell you."

"The land... Nirvana...is wild, dangerous, but it’s ours. And the people... the people are strong. We are stronger than before. We fight together, we support each other. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing but they keep on calling me Alpha and when they do...sometimes it reminds me of you, dad. I...sometimes I feel like I’m not doing things right. That I will fuck things up at some point but that’s yet to happen though but sometimes...i wish you were here to correct me. God! I even miss you hitting me when I do something stupid."

"Um..." Orion was quiet as he tried to think of what he hadn’t told them yet. "Yes! The beasts. God they are huge and different. Very different and they are not shifters like us. There’s a Skylur that has fangs like a wolf bug isn’t a wolf, the Trihydra and many more, some we are yet to discover."