21 December.
Small clusters of ice splattered against the boy's face as he trekked toward the forest with his few belongings slung across his shoulder in a burlap sack. He didn't feel the cold anymore, but neither did he feel the warmth of the village lights left in his wake.
He felt nothing but the surrounding darkness as he trudged onward, his boots dragging and leaving long streaks in the snow on the ground.
An outcast.
That was indeed what he was now, nothing more than a homeless teenager with no family to speak of. He had been disowned when they had found out.
Found out the truth about him.
Of all their children, why him? They had so many reasons to be proud of him, his mother had screamed.
Why bring such an embarrassment to their family, which had a high reputation in their village? No; it couldn't be allowed.
He was shameful to their family, and had been forced to leave.
His father hadn't even yelled.
He had only slammed the boy into the wall, pointed a thick, unwavering finger at the boy's room, and told him quietly to gather his belongings.
His mother had shouted and screeched and cried, all the while his siblings watched silently from the corner in which they played.
They had received a set of building blocks and some dolls made of potato sacks on this day of advent.
Berwald had received a small pocket knife, not too large but strong enough to be put to good use.
And he took it with him when he left.
Berwald.
That was the boy's name. A quiet, serious child who was often lost in his own wandering thoughts, but just as often ensnared in the trap formed by his grounded worries.
Would he ever be allowed back to his family?
It didn't seem so, and so Berwald continued walking.
He had the orange from yesterday's advent prize, at least. And a small bag of grains, dried berries and nuts, but that was all. He would have to ration out his food, if he couldn't find a place to stay soon.
The fresh snow was all he would have to drink.
Snow.
It continued to fall around him, on him, blanketing the wintry world in a sleepy white cloak. It alit on the frozen trees and their gangly branches as they stretched out to scrape the dark sky. Although it was afternoon, hardly any sunlight reached these ends of the earth during the deep winter. A fleeting ray of light, perhaps a blood-red semicircle peeking above the mountain peaks in the distance, and that would be the most light they would ever get.
It suited Berwald.
South.
He thought to go in this direction. There were certainly outlying villages scattered across the southern snowdrifts. Hardly anything could be found further north, unless he planned to stay with a herd of reindeer or elk. It was all wilderness there, with no humans in sight.
But maybe that would suit him.
There was no sun to guide him, and he could scarcely distinguish between the directions in the low light and blustery weather. He had already delved partway into the forest, and if he hadn't been walking in a straight path, he would not have been able to tell from whence he'd come. Clumps of snow dropped into the footprints he'd left behind, erasing them quickly as if no one had trodden here.
As if no one had trodden here.
He was a nobody, wasn't he?
And Berwald didn't need anyone to tell him this. He could sense it, the way his parents looked at him so severely. Anger and frustration and sadness behind his mother's eyes, and nothing but an icy coldness in his father's eyes. The sort of icy coldness that only a northerner's gaze could hold.
Berwald could hold that same sort of gaze, the one that masks all other emotions until nothing but darkness is left.
Perhaps it would serve him well.
And he continued onward, memories and thoughts galloping through his mind like wild horses. Horses that could roam freely, without ever having to return to one place.
