Summer, a time of joy, a time to be free, nothing to that he should have been having to do. Yet Raivis was still hard at work, little drops of perspiration starting to trickle irritatingly down his forehead and cheeks, making him wish he dared stop even just for a minute to wipe it away before he tasted the stale salt in his mouth. He couldn't though. He knew he mustn't, his work was far from over for the day even though he had now been doing the same menial task for hours, indeed, what felt like days.
He sighed softly to himself, self pity was not normally in the young Baltics vocabulary, but today… today had started off badly and gone steadily and unerringly to worse. Right now, he could imagine any number of things he would rather be doing. Fighting wild bees for example, or defrosting frozen meat in the freezer. Instead, what he was doing, was chopping wood in readiness for winter. Of course, he already knew that come winter the wood would be rotten and he'd have to do it again, his captor knew this too, but the man had decided that it was both the best way to keep him out of sight, and to punish him for whatever mess up he managed to do in the near future. Not that he wouldn't get punished for that anyway. To be honest, he was fed up. Fed up of punishments, fed up of threats, and especially fed up of being forced to hide everytime he got visitors or decided it was time to go travelling.
Truth be told, that last reason was the onlyreason he was here… without control of Rigas, his tormentor couldn't travel nearly as easily, both to Estonia and to the rest of what was known as Europe. Not that Raivis had ever seen much of said Europe… Not since that run in with Germany who had refused to acknowledge him and even attempted to completely destroy him!
That, in fact, was the main reason Raivis had agreed to the terms of his capture. Young as he was, he wanted to live. He would live through this too, he knew he would, but oh Gods above, it was hard! It also affected his growth, his appearance, even his speech. Relying on others so much, had kept him with the resemblance of a child, seven or eight years old at most, and that only if he was small for his age.
Ha! That thought made him laugh, he was at least as old as the other Baltics, but no one would either admit this, or admit to remembering it even. That hurt, maybe more than the ache in his muscles. An inner pain that rarely faded and yet still he had to act grateful!
Grateful when his people suffered, grateful when they were sent to war, grateful when his lands were nigh on desecrated by over zealous armies all fighting for his heart. His heart, so many times almost taken, almost broken, but there was a strength in the small Latvian that wouldn't let him give in, His people needed him, relied on him. He couldn't give up.
He stared at the pile of wood in front of him, seeing a face, a familiar face. The Latvian smiled dryly. He brought the axe down hard on the wood, seeing only that face in his minds eye.
"Raivis! Are you done yet? Dinners nearly ready! For God's sake hurry up!"
Raivis shuddered slightly, his nose wrinkling with a frown, obviously his visitor was about to leave.. had to keep up appearances right? He took a deep breath, then, forced the smile back on before giving the log one final whack with the axe. Tonight, when all the chores were finally done and he could drag himself back to bed, he'd curl up with one of his romance novels and escape into a world where hearts could only be taken by the one who was absolutely and perfectly right for you, and the bad people and tormentors always got what was coming to them. Then, keeping up the cheerful tone he shouted back.
"Almost! I'll be there in ten minutes Mr Toris!"