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Summary: Ayria of Myerscroft is on a mission to take letter to Andalf in Ivendell, armed with her fat pony, it shouldn't be more than a day or two ride...
A/N: If you ask me this is one of the ambitious lil girl's I've come across...
Chapter One Ayria's Choice
"Ayria! You finish feeding them chickens yet?"
Ayria of Myerscroft say in the dark patch of shade round the side of the main house as she threw with one hand the feed for the clucking hens who bobbed their heads to get every little piece. Their little wooden tags bobbed with their heads so she was more interested in the tag swing back and forth.
She could read the numbers, but her Ma claimed that reading the numbers and knowing what they mean weren't the same thing.
She didn't find much use in numbers, besides counting apples of sticks. The chickens continued to cluck quietly under the heat of the mid day sun. She stood up brushing off her with as a hand as she tugged her under shirt, and rolled up the sleeves so that they rested past her elbows.
She un tied the white pouch so that she could easily dump the rest of the feed onto the ground as the chicken happily flocked around it, fighting each other to get the most. She shook of her feet, the dust had managed to already cover part of her toes as she grabbed the bucket leaning against the wall.
She put it on her head and she wasn't just Ayria of Myerscroft anymore as she started for the lower fields.
"No my love!" Her suitor called as she sat upon her white stallion, her long black hair elegantly woven against her head as the free wisps danced in the wind. She ignored the man's pleas as she steadied her steed who was bathed in the best amour, glistening in the rays of the red sun.
She tapped her chest plate, feeling the heavy chain mail and wrapping a hand around the hilt of her sword. She was ready to lead the company, 20 best of the land had to offer to fight against the evil.
She had made up her mind though she was going into battle. She raised her sword to start the forward charge, as her horse reared-
"What? Yah see yah reflection?"
Ayria lowered her fist as she lifted the bucket from her face. Byrm was sitting in the great oak with its twisted rough broughs swinging his dirty bare feet in her face.
It wasn't a field day, which let him run wild and bug her without Ma stopping him. He was taking full advantage of it today.
"No. I was leading mah company in tah battle." She answered pointing a finger at him, "Yer the one we be fighting!"
Byrm stuck his tounge out at her as he jumped down from her perch shaking the leaves out his head of curly brown hair. Ma claimed it was their curse to have such unruly heads, when she herself had long elegant hair that sloped around her neck. Ayria hated her 'nest' as her Da called it, it sticking up every which way.
Ayria finished playing with her 'nest' crouched like she was going to fight Byrm, putting her fists up in front of her. Byrm was easy two heads taller though as he seemed to tower again over her, like everyone else did, as he snatched the bucket from her head.
"I gots it! I gots it yah bucket!" He yelled running down the sloping hill through the long grass. Ayria shook her head again as she began to run after him.
"Give me back mah helmet!" She demanded in her best shrill voice.
"Nah! Nah!" Byrm sand as he held it up from the shore of the river. It wasn't a big river, Ma always said, but it ran deep and wide quickly, and was a horrible place to loose a bucket. Byrm seemed to pay no mind to the danger as he swung the bucket round and round in the air with his free arm.
Ayria paused to catch her breath, she was only a few paces away now, as she crouched and took a run screaming at him all the way to the bank. She was about to hit him, when he side stepped sending her face first into the sandy bank.
She sputtered hauling herself up and brushing off her front.
"Ew." She spat out the grains as she turned to glare at him, "That ain't funny! Where'd the bucket go?"
"I dunno." Byrm answered as he pointed a finger at her chest as he glared down. It wasn't fair, he was 13 winters old and she was barely past her ninth.
"Tell me." She ordered as she stomped on his foot as he yelped letting go of the bucket. He had been hiding it behind his back, but in his surprise lost his grip as it began to float down the stream current.
"Go get it." He ordered as he pushed her back a step as she spit, hitting him right in the eyes. He grimaced wiping it off with obvious disgust onto his pants.
She turned away watching the bucket slowly drift away with the current as she slipped off her dress and under shirt. She placed them in a pile on the bank, taking a few timid steps into the cold water.
It made her shiver, but as she turned around Byrm had already started back up the hill leaving her alone.
It was always her job to get the bucket. The stream carried on long past their farm, but the bucket usually would get tangled in the thrushes. She waded in, trying to ignore the bitter cold water, as it quickly rose to her waist and then her chest. She paid no mind to the ice water, she would warm up once she started swimming in the gentle current.
Ma had made sure all her children knew how to swim, she was to busy at the main house to fish them out otherwise. Ayria never asked, but she had a few cousins who the river had claimed otherwise.
She moved easily now as the banks rose up on either side, the woods getting denser and the stream wider. There was still no side of the bucket, but she wasn't hunting for a bucket anymore.
Lady Moonshine moved quickly through the waters of the dead letting the current take her quietly through the dangerous passage.
Human skulls smiled at her from each side, glowing ever so slightly and staring errily from their places, as they watched her swim by. Her pale skin reflected by the moonbeams made her look she was a glittering reflection.
The stream of the dead ran deep and long with no hope out of its icy grasp once you started down it.
She stole a glance behind her, but nothing had been alerted to her presence, and for that she was thankful. Her clothes, her dress made that shined like the stars was back on the bank, when the she was told she had to swim.
She hated to think of what would happen if a vengeful spirit was disturbed, she hated it more to think of what it would mean for her.
Ayria surfaced, as she had bobbed under as she shook her hair that remained happily tangled in its knots and curls as she made a grab for the bank. She spotted the small wooden bucket tangled in some over hanging vines, as she wiped the rest of the water out of her eyes. She hauled herself forward as the water quickly became shallow again letting her catch her breath.
It was even colder now as she pulled herself from the water, the wind nipping cross her bare body. She leaned forward giving the bucket a tug.
It refused to come loose.
Ayria huffed as she waded further up into the small alcolve. It was tangled tightly in the vines, she saw know, as she began to rip at the stems tossing them to the side, when a hand grabbed her wrist.
She was so scared she lost her footing falling with a small plop back into the deep water. She popped back through the surface, blinking and gasping for air as she hand still had a good grip on her arm. She willed herself back up onto the sandy bank as a she realized a man or well something with the body of a man stared at her. Its face was hidden in the shadow of its hood.
His right hand clenched something with a deadly grip.
"Promise."
She yelped again. It spoke.
It looked like a spirit from her ma's stories, they showed up when you least expected them to. They could speak like anyone else to, so that you would always understand them. This spirit seemed to have taken the form a soilder from the look of his clothes with his leather and amour and tall boots.
He was lying in the stream, strange place for a spirit to be.
She tugged at his grip when he didn't say anything else, but he pulled her foreward a step or two. She paused as he the shadow face spirit took a shuddering breath.
"Swear."It croaked.
She took a deep breath as it repeated, struggled with itself, "Swear to take this letter."
"I swear by 'is river's bed an dah fields of mah families farm that I will take yah letta."
His right hand moved towards her, but slumped half way as the shadow face took another breath.
"Do. Not. Fail." He told her as his grip suddenly lightened and then his left slumped back into the stream.
Ayria stood shivering as she leaned over to take the letter from his fingers. She held a small circle, it was shiny and glittered in the sun, as she took it as well placing them in the bucket. She finished pulling it from the vines as she dug it a place on the bank.
The spirit with the shadow face needed to be sent on his way, or he may end up haunting the river, which would bring back luck to their farm. He moved rather lightly to her surprise, she had seen Da struggle to help carry a spirit before, but he seemed to only float on the river. The current picked up taking the spirit in its power. Ayria huffed washing her hands off in the stream of any bad intentions as she grabbed the bucket and started up the small incline
She stared from a top now the grassy bank as she dug her toes into the soft dirt trying to make the feeling return to them after the bout with the river water. She looked down over the edge, but the spirit was long gone. She brushed her hands against her dress again as she picked up what he had given her.
It was a letter.
Ma got letters a few times, official ones when the harvest was near from the town council, but Da always burned them under a pot of soup.
She had touched one of the letters before, it was such fine paper.
She flipped it over, "Ivendell" she scratched her head. Most the letters had been smeared, but she could read it just fine.
She read underneath that, "Andalf." The letter's were running as she waved it to dry and keep them from disappearing. Ivendell couldn't be more than a day's ride, besides not much lay beyond the town Ma said, so Ivendell probably was an Inn.
Why a spirit-she thought to herself as she placed the letter back in the bucket, carrying it along the bank,-wanted a letter delivered to Andalf in Ivendell was beyond her, but it was none of her business. She was obliged to take it there now.
Ma always warned that a spirit would wander their world if it had something it wanted done, and passing on its bad luck to those who crossed its path. If you wanted to help the spirit you asked what its final task was and you had to carry it out or forever wander as well. Ayria didn't like idea of wandering around, Ma wouldn't like it either.
The sun was slowly warming her, as she felt her skin prickle, setting off in a slow, awkward jog with the bucket in her arms.
She wondered briefly if the spirit had served from some army.
She had never seen an army, there were plenty of stories about them, but Da said armies were big lumbering animals that had fallen out of favor with nature. She wasn't sure what that meant either, but most things the adults talked about confused her.
The rushes grew thinner as the slope of bank began to lessen as she slip her feet now, into the soft patch of dirt where she had first entered the river. Da said it was called silt and was good for only growing weeds. She liked silt though, as she jumped from her silt bed and into the water wading through to her clothes. She was wet again, but nearly as soaked as she had been from her swim.
She set the bucket far in front of her as she waved the dress over the water so it would brush off any dirt. She slipped them on, feeling warm in the cloth, as she pulled out the shiny and the letter holding them in her right hand and the bucket in her left.
Ma hadn't waited for her to take off the clothes from the line, as she instead hung the bucket against the brought that stuck out an ark ward angle. That left for her today, to make her bed up for tonight.
The farmhouse was two levels and stood away from the fields. Ayria always thought it was the most lovely thing she had seen with the kitchen and the rooms. The big door that she had to haul open and the windows that were all open to, letting the wind blow through to chase out the heat.
Stew, she smelled it in the air as she smiled and trotted in. Ma hardly noticed her as Loma, her little sister played with the ears of the old hound, sitting at her feet. Ma was busy prepping the vegetables with one long, sharp knife. The hound raised its head at her, but Ayria felt she was being ignored by everyone else.
Ma was good at letting her do as she pleased as long as she did her chores, and set a little time to working on spinning thread. Ayria decided she wanted to look at her, well the spirit's letter a little more though before she did anything else.
She climbed the steps two by two as she heard the familiar cluck of the chicken outside the upper widow. She walked past Ma and Da's room, down the short hall. Byrm's room was on the left and her's on the right.
One of these days she would end up sharing it with Loma, when she got to be older than four winters, but now her little sister was snug wrapped in a long basket with Ma and Da. Tulan, would have been sleeping with Byrm, but since he had turned 16 winter's last spring he have moved to town. A blacksmith, Ma was proud of him to get away from the farm, he had a gift with the horses-she didn't understand it beyond that.
Byrm had the whole space to himself, lest Tulan ever came home from Town.
She pushed open her door, suddenly sad thinking of her brother as she tired to push that thought from her mind. Her bed was leaking straw again, as she dropped the letter and the shiny as she went over and shifted it. She wanted it neat enough so she could crawl in tonight comfortably. She folded the sheets back over as she smoothed the blanket out.
Da had always stressed that his family was prospering when they didn't sleep on the ground. She never remembered sleeping on the ground, but Tulan had told her he used to sleep in the kitchen with the hound and the cow. Ayria couldn't imagine sleeping with that noisy beast as she went over to the trunk.
She loved her large wooden trunk that her Da had brought back a few winters ago from Town. Ma had given it to her saying she would find something to do with the hulking thing. It was covered in a soft leather as she un did the straps and opened it up.
Inside laid what she called, "treasure", it was really just a deer skull, a necklace Tulan brought from a fair, and her pair of boots for the winter. There was also the tattered brown cape for when outside got to cold. She turned leaning against her chest as she pulled out the letter. The sun bathed her small in room in a soft light so she could see without risking going back downstairs.
Ivendell.
Andalf.
She could make out the words pretty well now, that we were drive. Mah had stressed that she learn her letters, she said they were a different than the white city, but she was never going to see that.
Da told her that their land had been settled long ago, by a people he couldn't remember, but the rest of the world outside the town seemed to have forgotten as well. She didn't understand what that meant, besides maybe people told stories about them.
She doubted Ivendell was any where near the White City, wherever that was, she could never be to sure if anything lay outside of Town.
Ma said if she asked that it was full of, "Wild men and evil demons who will eat you up!" She made claws with her hands at night as Ayria was faster hiding under her blanket.
"Eh! Watcha ya go?"
She looked up in time to see Byrm snatch the letter and her shiny in fell swoop.
"Watcha ya got a letter for? This is official yah know, see dah stamp an' seal." He pointed to the purple circle as she didn't move. He would give it back faster if she didn't chase him.
"Ere." He tossed it back to her as she caught it with ease,"Nice brooch."
"What's a brooch?" She asked as he held up her shiny, that now had a name.
"I dunno. Da has one for his cloak." Byrm shrugged as he fan finger over it.
"Brooch." She repeated as he continued to stare it.
"It's a tree." He noted before he threw it to her as well, "More treasures?"
"Yeah." She nodded. She wasn't going to tell Byrm about the spirit. He didn't like talk of spirits and things in the dark. He knew all about her chest and she let him explore it as long as he was careful.
'Don't cha got spinning or weaving to do?" He rocked on his feet.
"Yeah." She answered pulling herself up as she safely tucked the letter and brooch among the other things in her chest shutting the lid. The spirit's words came back to her.
Swear.
Swear.
Ayria wandered back down the steps. Her Ma was busy chopping the meat as the a nice pile of vegetables for the stew stood to the side. She went to the basket that held the skien's ready to wound as she hauled it over to the long bench that sat against the far wall. She clambered on as, her feet over the edge.
She sat, she wasn't sure how long as she idly wound the thread so it began to instead form a ball.
She wasn't winding yarn though.
Lady Raven the 3rd sighed as she worked her clever weave. She would weave whatever she will herself to do, making blankets of the softest nature, dresses that glittered like the stars.
She glanced at her latest work, a whole forest of glittering trees. The leave were the purest silver, the broughs glowed.
It would keep the darkness at bay at least for a while.
She glanced at the mess of thread in her lap, she had only until the sun rose to finish. She wasn't how she was going to make it as was already so tiered.
"GIRL! Watch that thread!" Her Ma's voice rang out.
Ayria blinked as she glanced that neat ball of thread. She wound it a few more times, before replacing it back in the basket.
"When's Da due back?" She asked as she stretched out her legs. There wasn't much to do while Da had the wagon and team in town.
'When yah Da is back yah know." Her mother chided gently as she fingered the bun that rested on her neck.
Ayria was never sure if she should fear her Ma. She was a tall woman, towering over the house like a giant with two keen eyes and a spoon as her club.
Her hem of her dress dragged the ground, but she always wore a white apron making sure the front was clean. She had her sleeves rolled up, where her arms budgled from her strength in using the plow, washing, and gathering the harvest. It took a lot to make Toby and Sir Ed the 5th get their work done, the big hulking beasts they were. Ma was keen on their horse team, claiming they were lucky to have two field animals.
"Go see that Byrm put away the chickens." She told her with a wave of her hand as she planted the knige with a thunk into the counter.
Ayria obeyed leaping from the bench as she ran outside to the side of the house. Da had built the barn, so that all their animals slept under one roof. A fox and wolf were less likely to steal a chicken if they had a noisy horse to deal with.
The barn door was open as she jogged in swinging her arms by her side. She heard the familiar cluck of the hens who were happily nesting in the their part of the barn. She started at the long ramp that lead to their little shelves.
"26, 37, 101, 72, and 7." She pointed to each of their wooden tags as she gave a short nod of her head. She went on walking past the two empty stables and the third had a simple rope as its door.
Pebbles, her own fat, grey pony with big spots stood happily munching the hay at his feet as Byrm sat on the paddock edge looking down.
"He looks like you." He pointed as Ayria glared. Pebbles had been an accident.
The little pony had wandered onto their farm with a broken halter. Her Da claimed anyone stupid enough to lose a pony, didn't deserve it. They used him for trilling the soil, but he had the tendency to drag his head in the dirt, because he simply refused to lift it up ever.
Bridles and bits didn't help , but Pebbles did his work with out a whole lot of noise, unlike Toby and Sir Ed who had whole conversations with each other as they worked. Da instead had set about getting her to learn how to ride, setting her on his little back, he was such a slow little beast. She got him to do a trot once, but usually stuck to his plod or walk.
She brushed his forelock as he shook his head. His eyes were hidden under the mass of tangled hair. She supposed it was better he didn't do anything faster than a trot with his blindness and his nose on the ground.
"You ride him any more?" Byrm asked, "I could get you on Toby."
Ayria shuddered at the thought of riding the chestnut with his wild black mane prancing about. Byrm knew how to ride the bigger horses, he got them gallop when they weren't need in the fields. She shuddered at the thought of it.
"He'd eat meh." She answered. Pebbles was big for her, though he hardly got off the ground with his belly, "Can yah get his saddle an bridle. I wanna make sure I can still use em."
Byrm slid himself into the paddock, as he stepped under the rope. He disappeared as he brought the saddle and bridle plopping them both at her feet. The bridle didn't have a bit, metal was to precious to be used on a pony who never went faster than a walk. She instead just slipped it over his nose.
"Ma was looking for you." She commented as she leaned the saddle against the side, with the small piece of sheep skin that would protect it from rubbing him the wrong way.
"I did mah chroes, probably wants me tah get the cow in."
Their one cow, grazed happily in the back grass, usually with Pebbles. Ayria waited for him to leave, before she ran and grabbed the grooming brush from the side of Toby's stable.
She ducked under the rope, as she quickly rubbed down Pebbles, getting his coat as clean as she could. There was no hope for his mane or tail, which like her 'nest' was a hopeless mess. She let them be as she quickly replaced the brush back on its hook.
She patted Pebbles nose. He had seen the saddle as he stamped a hoof, but she moved them inside Sir Edmund's stable so Brym wouldn't notice. She threw a smile to her pony, he would keep her secret, as she stole out of the barn.
oh dear, nine year old taking letter from shadow spirit's never a good thing...and leaving the farm without tell their Ma, deff not a good thing.
