Author's note: Bella: This is our idea of what the second circle would be like, it had similar characters to the first circle, and some of the originalcharacters are mentioned. We don't own any of them... R7R because the mroe you do the more we will update :D Enjoy
"God's damn it, Lati!"
"Go away, go away, and go away." Latia Bewyn flipped right over in her bed, and covered her ears.
"It's past sun rise! Get up!"
"It's not sunrise, it's not, you're lying, you liar." Tact was not one of Lati's strong points, awake or no.
"Your porridge is by your bed, don't step in it, if you're not in the fields in ten minutes I'll personally make you clean out the privy." in his voice she could hear only the tiniest tinge of warmth that had been there when her mother was alive.
"Ew…" Not hearing him reply, she sat up in her bed, "I'm up, you see. I'm up!" The air did not respond.
It was her own fault, she could have told herself that, if she was being rational. But she was tired, and the farmhand was sick, and her book had been so interesting, she couldn't help staying up to read it. Fighting the cold of a coming winter, she stepped out of her bed, Like her father had predicted, Lati's little toe caught the bowl of porridge and the whole thing flipped over onto her bare feet, and over her dress, laying "neatly" by the side of her bed.
Gee, thanks Dad
With a little glare at the water in a jug by her father's bed, which, Lati was sure, was freezing cold, she tipped the jug over her head, as she poised herself over a clay basin to catch the extra drops.
Then with expert, if sleep fogged fingers she pulled a many times mended underdress over her head and tied the lacings tightly. Her wet hair soaked through the thin thing quickly.
Lati carefully stretched the fabric of her overdress over the wash basin, taking a pot of water that would have been warm if she had woken up on time, she poured that over the porridge stained stretched fabric, and just as the water over flowed and for a moment the porridge rose up and out of the fabric, she used the back of her fathers wooden comb and pushed it onto the ground.
By now her lips were blue and her teeth were chattering, and she danced around the room looking for a patch of wind to dry her dress as she waved it wildly, she jumped up and down and hoped for some warmth to enter her bones.
Then some warmth did indeed fill her body, and Lati pulled her still-wet dress on, and then a shawl that had belonged to her mother.
Something smelled wrong… Like smoke. She looked around the room; the candle her father had set out was not lit, after sunrise he always pinched out the flame.
"Oh gods." At the base of her beloved home was a flame, eating away at the wood her father and mother had sanded, cut, and worked together. It had come from the trees her grandmother had made grow for her beloved family.
Taking the wash basin, she threw the water in it at the flame. It sputtered and went out for a moment then sprang up again.
"Damn. damn, damn, damn, damn, damn." she repeated this to herself as she smacked the flame with her bedclothes. It spread up the wall.
Then it spread over to the next wall, then to the next.
Lati stared in awe, the flames were mesmerizing, not only were they mesmerizing they were deadly, and a small part of her mind, the smart part, urged her to run.
The pain was dizzying even as her brain barely acknowledged it.
What hurt more was someone grabbing her burnt arms and legs and ripping off her shawl; it was well made and could be used for the raider's own women, then dragging her away from her village.
"ERG!" she lashed around, her arms struggling for hold, her fingers reaching for some soft flesh to pinch.
"I thought you said she was calm and spoiled."
"She usually is."
"Gods Amian! You idiot! We treated you like family!" Lati stopped fighting, her eyes growing huge with disbelief.
Amian, the farmhand grabbed her chin. "Be quiet, we're not going to hurt you."
"I treated you like a brother!"
A man with blood soaking his hair and the ground around his head moaned, "Lati…"
"Father! FATHER!" Lati lashed out again, but this time something was different. Her eyes were huge with tears, and she pressed her hand to a raider's chest, he convulsed, and fell onto the ground, blood pooling out of his mouth. Her foot kicked the other raider holding her arm, on the soft underside of the knee; the person fell to the ground, dropping her too. As her calloused hands touched the ground bits of rock sprayed around her, "You gotta do better than that." she told her dirty, burnt hands. The ground seemed to agree as it churned like the ocean on a stormy day, ripples knocked people off their feet, she thrust her hands up into the air, and the earth itself came up like when a person jumps into a lake. Then she pushed her hands out, and again the very dirt she had once farmed followed her lead, it cut open heads, and her rose bush lashed around Amian and the man who seemed to be the raider leader. That felt weird. Then Lati took a look at her father, and saw only a corpse. With a muffled cry she ran towards the gates.
"Where will you go Lati?"
She didn't answer, but somehow Amian's words seem to reach her ears, cold and cutting.
"You're strange; you always have been, but now your stranger, who'll take you in?"
Again she didn't answer, Winding Circle will, she wanted to yell, but she couldn't, her throat wouldn't work. Her feet slowed, but no-one tried to grab her, no-one wanted to touch her.
"We could give you a life, Lati, You could be rich, famous, and you could have all the money in the world."
"Shut up!" she flung her arm out and a rock whizzed past her and hit his head. Amian slumped to the ground; her roses released his limp form.
Then she ran.