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the whole first chapter of my story. enjoy!
One: Spring Brings Weddings, Weddings Bring Strangers
Spring was emerging in the land of Asano. The trees were budding bright green, and the people were coming back to life, as the weather warmed. The castle town of Terimina was all bustle today, the inhabitants preparing for the first wedding of the year.
A young girl, no more than 15, lay on the parapets of the wall surrounding Terimina. She was not excited in the least about the wedding. The fact was, it was her sisters wedding. Her fourth eldest sister. she had sat through five weddings already in her lifetime and she held no love for the ritual. First it had been her brother, Sprig
then her sister Layla, her sister Yarrow, her sister Cari and then her brother Donov. and today was Zahna's wedding. there were still Kandra and Khaz's weddings this year.
Sprig, was 34 and had quite a few children already with his wife Foxglove. and Layla was 27, her husband Gron had died in a wall-rebuilding accident just a few years back, she had two children. Yarrow was 26, and already had quite a few children. Her brother Donov's wife was pregnant with their third child. and Cari had died a few years ago of a mysterious illness.
and since Zahna was being married today and Kandra and Khaz were already engaged it only meant that her parents would start making arrangements for Shard. Oh how she despised that fact. and how if she even socialized with boys anymore her parents took it as a sign that the boy she might have even asked the time of day was who she would like to marry. three times already she had been asked if she would like to marry a certain boy. and, of course she'd said no. which turned out rather embarrassing when the parents of the boy had made him dress up and go to the dwelling of Shard's family to make wedding arrangements. Shard thought it ridiculous to be married at fifteen. but it was the way the world worked.
and, being just the daughter of a blacksmith, she did not have, nor ever would, have the power to change that particular bit of society. so her view of the whole wedding thing was bleak, and she assumed it would remain so until all of her siblings were married. but then, shard thought, there would still be nieces and nephews to see married and then her own children. not to mention Sprig's children were not too much younger than herself and the whole thing made her head hurt and her view was made all the bleaker by the omnipresent dark cloud of weddings.
Shard lay on the parapet staring off at the clouds, thinking.
"shaaard! where are you?" came her mothers' voice.
shard sighed. she had just come to stuff shard into a dress that didn't quite fit. it was too wide in the waist, and too small in the bust. it had been Yarrow's. which showed how far hand-me-downs went in shard's family.it was most unpleasant. and then she'd try to do something awful with shard's hair, which was straight and did not hold curl very well. so her mother remedied it by smearing foul-smelling stuff on shard's hair, and the smell usually stayed for several days, no matter how much it was washed.
"shaaaaaard! come here this instant!"
"i'm coming!" shard snapped.
"don't you use that tone with me, young lady."
shard stuck out her tongue, and made her way to the ground via a ladder which she slid down as unladylike as possible.
"shard! i'm horrified at you. old enough to be married and still sticking your tongue out. and those walls which you seem to like so much are dirty! not fitting at all for a young lady at all. i wish you wouldn't go up there. oh--and look at your hair; all windblown and wild. i wish you would let me braid it, instead of keeping it down like a hooligan. you know, Juniper wears her hair like a proper lady and she's three years younger than you."
shard got this lecture often. how lady-like she should be and how juniper was this and juniper was that--oh, it was just infuriating. juniper was her mothers' dream. perhaps because juniper was just her mother. prim and proper and involved with all the things a young girl should be involved with.
shard was the least fond of juniper out of all her siblings. she liked Khaz though. he had been a wild-child as well, though that might stop when he got married and had his own children.
"shard-- i came here to talk to you about your marriage"
oh boy, what fun. shard thought.
"what about that imminently approaching disaster?" she said as pleasantly as she could manage. (which wasn't very pleasant at all, in her mothers' eyes.)
her mother was struggling not to snap at shard, perhaps coupled with a slap to the cheek. most of her patience had been worn out by Khaz.
"shard, dear, if you don't pick some nice young boy, then your father and i shall have to choose." the way she accentuated 'nice' implied that if the boy shard picked wasn't exactly who her mother wanted, then he wouldn't be the boy.
and as for 'your father and i' mother-dearest meant she would decide. Grane, shard's father, had learned that his life was easier to go along with what his dragon-of-a-wife had to say.
"well mother, i shall try to pick some nice boy." shard had to grit her teeth so she wouldn't sound so snappy she'd be struck.
" we're just concered for your future. i want the best for you, and a nice husband is very important."
"more like you want my future to be the best for you" shard muttered under her breath.
"what did you say?"
"nothing, mother, nothing."
"well, come along, we must get you looking presentable. and i hear there's going to be new people to Terimina and i hear there's a pleasant boy your age. so, we'll make you presentable for that as well. and shard? no running off after the wedding. you're coming back home so i can make sure you meet this boy."
mommy-dearest gripped shard's arm tight, and dragged her off to be tortured.
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the wedding was as unpleasant as shard had imagined, and what made it worse was meeting who she would most likely marry, like it or not. her mother had never seemed so serious about a suitor before.
shard quickly ate reception-food, trying to put something in her stomach before she went off for another round of 'meet-the-suitor-because-your-mother-thinks-he's-appropriate-brand' torture. she glanced the newcomers immediately. they stood out, not quite knowing where to stand or sit or when to eat and laugh at jokes. an old man was among them, he had visited terimina before, his name was Triig, he was the mayor of a flood-stricken town a few days away. it seemed he'd brought the survivors of the flood to Terimina. several boys shard's age were among them. but which one did her mother think was appropriate? certainly not the two making rude gestures at a particuarly well-endowed girl named Cornflower. and not the one so boisterously flirting with the fair maidens of Terimina. there were quite a few left. One staring at the food, but not eating. one staring at everyone morosely. three perhaps behaving 'properly'. and another was there, behind Triig, he was the one who caught shard's attention. his hair was long, and was tied back into a horsetail which caught the wind rather easily, and it was a sandy color. what really intrigued her were his eyes. an exotic violet color. and knowing. he had seen much, and his eyes met shard's for an instant. he smiled, then frowned, his hand went into the air and he stared at it as though he couldn't figure out what to do with the appendage. he looked back at shard. she smiled faintly, then mouthed to him 'what's your name?'
'Tratto.' he mouthed back.
then he paused. 'what's yours?'
'shard'
'really?'
she nodded. they stared at each other for a moment more, then Triig turned to Tratto and shard's mother was hauling her away.
***********************************************************************end chapter one********************************************************************************************
 Prince Ripoff · Thu Mar 29, 2007 @ 10:43pm · 0 Comments |
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