d o n t e ☆ h o w a h k a n
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Maybe if Donte could speak, he would be yelling out a string of obscene words. He probably wouldn’t even be in this situation.
But, it was his fault anyways. He was the one who made the decision to step outside his frostbitten house and not look back ever again. He was tired of the constant bickering of his parents, the slamming of doors, the silence he drowned himself in, and his damn disability. While he couldn’t fix his nonexistent voice, the blonde could fix the bickering and the slamming.
So, he ran away.
With no idea of how the world outside of his little hometown that seemed it was out of a snow globe worked, he ran to the thick, snowy forest right by the enormous lake that bordered the town. The only way to get to it was to cross the frozen lake which he gladly risked. He didn’t want to see the people who tormented and teased him for his disability ever again. No one wanted to talk to a mute child because you simply couldn’t without some paper or a phone to write out what each person wanted to say to each other, forget sign language. Donte didn’t even bother learning the language as no one else understood it. He was the only child in the town to have such an odd disability. All of the other kids were somehow perfectly fine. Anything was better than staying in the ignorant small town he grew up in for the past twenty years. Well, anything but animals.
He adored them more than he should have, but there was a certain look in their eyes when they stared at the blonde that made him cower. The cat he left behind at home, Phoenix, would do the same. Sitting on the ledge of his windowsill, the spotted cat would stare at what he was doing in his room the whole day until he fell asleep. Donte never figured out why, but he felt like he had to be careful of his actions because of the cat’s constant watching. Even when he left the house, Pheonix just sat on the windowsill and stared at him until he closed the door.
However, the situation he landed himself in was different. After slipping and sliding across the lake, the hazel-eyed boy found himself in foreign territory. With each crunch of his step, he found himself lost in the vast forest, not mentioning the various howling and flying animals around him. The sun was setting soon, and the moon was already making its appearance.
Within a couple of minutes, Donte felt the frigid air sting his bare hands and cheeks. No matter how much he rubbed his hands together, he could still feel the chill growing unbearable. With nowhere to go, he finally sat under an evergreen to maybe build a fire somehow. He didn’t know. He just wanted to sit and close his eyes, but suddenly he felt the same chilling sensation when he was around any kind of animal and immediately opened his eyes, straightening up from his slouching position on the tree. He froze, staring at the pack of grey wolves growling in front of him were planning to do something else than just stare at him with indifference - they were ready to tear him to pieces. Getting up and backing away tenaciously, each step making sounds too loud for the silence, the boy tripped backwards on a lanky log that broke when he fell on it. Donte’s eyes were locked with the wolves, who kept advancing towards him.
Three? Wait, maybe five? Fuck, how many are there?
He couldn’t tell. But either way, he knew that he couldn’t even take on one, let alone the number that was in front of him. Closing his eyes, he accepted his fate until he heard the cry of a wolf. Confused, his eyes found that the largest wolf was struck by a man much taller than him. He looked tribal and not part of the town he had escaped. But, he wondered why the man helped him.
By the look of the older man’s skin color, Donte could tell he was Native American due to his mother also being of Native American descent. However, his facial structure was somewhat different from what he was used to seeing. He had had high cheekbones, similar to his mother’s, but his eye color was similar to his which was strange for a Native American. Hair more platinum blonde than he had ever seen on anyone else made him want to touch the flowing hair reaching just below the man's shoulder blades. The boy couldn’t observe his features for long, though, as the man, after putting his hands up to prove that he was no harm, turned around and motioned to follow his broad stature.
Steadily, he got up without the help of the platinum blonde boy and followed him. They were silent except for the crunch of their boots and neighs of a nearby horse. Donte wanted so badly to thank him, to do something to repay for his actions, but he had a feeling that he didn’t understand the English language enough to be able to read his messy writing in the snow.
The horse that he heard before was apparently the man’s to whom he addressed as Hana. She was gorgeous, her stark dark mane and skin matching the night sky with a tint of red. When she saw him, she backed away a bit in caution, but with a few incoherent words from the man, she halted and looked at the shivering blonde boy. He held out his shaking hand in a way of showing that he wasn’t dangerous and let her sniff it before nuzzling his hand. Smiling, he felt at ease with the animal, something he never felt with none other. He put his face against its muzzle, the softness of its fur warming him up a bit.
It was short-lived, though, as the boy was beckoned by the man to follow him to a visible cave. When they were inside, it seemed as if there were a number of paths that could be taken and lead one through the snow capped mountains which was surprising due to its rather small size. He sat down at one side of the cave, the man on the other. While the man occupied himself with the fire, Donte pulled out a woven blanket out of the man’s backpack with permission, laying it on Hana. She laid down just outside the cave, her eyes weary with fatigue. Donte looked back at the Native American and tilted his head to the side to display his confusion when he saw that the man was igniting a fire in a way he’s never seen before.
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