"Chase!" The boy being addressed stared up from his paper, where he had idly been drawing sunbirds, his favorite animals. It was strange for such an otherwise normal boy to love them so much. His teacher narrowed his eyes at him. Although the public school system was an innovative move that had caused many people to love King Jonathon III, Chase almost preferred the old ways. He looked up from his drawing, thankful that he would soon be rid of this dump. In three weeks exactly. He had never been to Carthak, or indeed outside the village of Bane's Park. Bane's park was located in Trebond, which now prided itself on being Alanna's homeland. He wished that he had been born in any other fief, any! Most of his school's curriculum consisted of long studies on the Lady Knight. At the end of every year, Alanna actually came to speak to them. Chase could care less, which was another strange thing about him. The girls had been waiting to meet their idol, and some of the guys were interested in her for slightly more hormonally-based reasons. In fact, Alanna was gracing the class with her presence in less than three hours time. The last thought was bitter sarcasm. If Alanna was so important to Trebond, why did she never go there? Indeed, Coram, now well into his fifties, was the grizzled caretaker of the fief. It was a well known fact that Alanna came only once a year. Why did she care so little for Trebond? Why? Why? Why? Chase's teachers' voice cut through his musings.

"Pay attention Chase!" Seeing what Chase was drawing brought a leering, wry smile to his lips. "Chase, I believe we have covered sunbirds three moons ago! And what happens when we're not being obedient to the rules?" Chase muttered the phrase from the educational regulations, "We get… punished." The mistake in this quote was not realized until it was too late. Eyes flashing, the teacher stood up. "CHILDREN ARE NOT PUNISHED, CHASE! THEY ARE CORRECTED!" Chase did what was required, and walked to the front of the classroom. He turned around. "Shirt off," said the teacher, and he took it off and faced the wall, as the classroom regulations stated for what was about to occur. At the beginning of the year, girls had giggled and laughed when the boys took off their shirts, but now, they had nothing to laugh at, unless they were amused by scars. Chase had scars up and down his back. All because of the sunbirds. Chase looked outside, to the sky, where if he squinted, that hawk was a sunbird of hope flying toward him…

With a cruel smile playing around thin lips, the teacher nodded, and three boys each took a board behind their desks, and boarded up the window. Before he could help it, his mouth again ran unchecked. "Why do we shut the windows if we have nothing to hide?" The teacher only smiled harder. Chase winced and let out a hissed breath as the teacher ran his fingers along a gash on his left side that went far deeper. This scar was when he called his teacher a 'Stormwing.' Although he had only half known what that insult meant (he was, at the time, only ten), he was beaten hard. The teacher turned to Chase's right side, and with a grin that would put Duke Roger to shame, said, "I'll give you one to match." He clapped, and a boy ran up with the strips of leather that formed a whip. With a clap, the students came, and dunked it into freezing water. After five minutes, it emerged, hard, brittle, and cold. With this, the painful enough wounds became almost deadly.

Thwack! One was over, he said to himself, eyes painfully shut. Thwack! He moaned in pain, about to keel over, until he remembered that'd give him two more. Thwack! The pain birds were flying around him, and unlike his sunbirds were ominously black. Thwack! Almost halfway, he said, perspiration mixing with tears of cold fear; trepidation. Thwack! He was halfway done with the whip that was cold as ice and hot as sun. Thwack! More than halfway with the torture, he wondered if sanity he did lack. Thwack! His sunbirds were coming closer as hope did not blind him from pain, but just opened his eyes. Thwack! He had taken his punishment without screaming, as was Teacher's rule. He called this an Ordeal.

His teacher, leering at him, satisfied, stared at him. "Was that a punishment?" Chase knew the answer was yes, but it was 'no' in the whipholders' eyes. About to respond, he opened his mouth, until a different voice said,

"Yes." Staring around, angry for interruption the teacher found himself drowning in violet eyes; mercy there was none! Indeed had the Lioness witnessed 'correction' and found it to not be quite nice.

Chase's eyes flared with anger, and the Lioness looked surprised. "Why are you angry at me, boy?"

Before Chase knew what he was doing, he screamed at the King's Champion. "My name is Chase!" Looking rather taken aback, she asked, "How was I supposed to know?" Chase glared. "You could have bothered to ask!" He paused. "Why I am angry is that you just watched. You could have said something and helped me, not just waited until the damage is done!" Alanna was ashamed all of a sudden.

"Chase, do you know how to take care of horses?" She figured, no, she knew that the boy deserved better than this. He would learn much more being Darkmoon's son, Starshine's groom, than being in this school. Instead of being grateful, Chase narrowed his eyes.

"Talk to the King. Tell him about the shit that they are putting us through. I am one person, but we are many." He gestured around the classroom. Alanna realized that all of them deserved better than this. "Besides, three weeks from now I depart to explore the southern Carthaki jungle." Alanna raised an eyebrow. She pulled something out of her pocket. It was an ornate dagger that was a present from the Bazhir Bloody Hawk tribe. It was an ornate dagger that had a bronze and golden hawk as a handle. The bird had a ruby eye. Where some see hawks, others see sunbirds, and it was the best present in Chase's life.