I do not own The Inheritance Cycle.
Just a short character story. I needed a break from the main story line, and the endless traveling is starting to get to me...
Well enjoy and have a Happy Easter.


Shoes and Fables

Her mother brightly smiled down at her and Selena smiled back. That day was one of those especially rare ones where her mother allowed Selena to assist her in the house. The day was blistering hot and even though it was stuffy the women gathered under the shading of the shingled roofing to hide from the burning sun, with content in their hearts. As the women labored over their needles and fabric, two men and a young boy labored stubbornly on the ground.

Despite the dampness of summer rain the ground was hard and dry, and it was an ill year on their farm. A small number of plants sprouted from the ground and the ones that did were crisp and brown, burnt from the roasting sun. The animals on the farm hid in the leaking shade of sparse trees, swatting at buzzing insects with their tails and chewing uselessly at tasteless sunburned grass.

Selena was only in her seventh year of life and her mother had only just begun to teach her how to stitch a week ago. Selena was quick to voice it to be an unexciting task that she would rather not know how to perform. Her mother quickly hushed her and began telling a tale of a mighty warrior who saved a young maiden from the prisons of a dark spirit. Selena had set aside her scrap of fabric and needle listening intently to the fable, dreaming of a time when she too could set out into the world. She would be a mighty warrior famed for the charm of her sword, Selena decided, and she would not be the troublesome maiden who constantly needed saving.

"That's a s-silly st-story, mama," Selena said when her mother finished the tale, twisting the dainty strings between her fingers.

"Silly?" her mother asked. "How is it silly, little duck?"

"Because if sh-she knew not to jump into that river and sh-she did anyhow, getting ca-caught by the evil sp-spirit Alkir, and if sh-she didn't sh-she would never be in trouble and in need of sa-saving. It's s-silly."

Her mother gave her a hard look. "If I recall correctly, you don't always do as you are told either."

Selena squirmed under her mother's steely gaze and looked down at her hands.

"Um, that's different," Selena said. "There's no evil sp-spirit in our river."

Her mother shook her head with a light laugh. "You know what I think?"

"No, but I know what I think."

"I think that it is you, who is the silly one," said she, tapping Selena's nose with her finger.

"No!" Selena exclaimed, wiggling away from her mother. Sliding off the wooden carved chair, Selena ran to the small trunk where her mother stored the sewing supplies, and once there she quickly opened the chest to toss the crumpled fabric inside. She banged the chest closed and turned to her mother, smiling happily. "Um, can I go outside, please, Mama?"

"It is 'May I go outside', Selena, and yes you may," Selena flashed her mother a happy smile and ran to the front door. "Hold on just a moment, silly girl."

Selena froze mid step. Stumbling, she turned around to face her mother, her face knotted in a pout. "Yes, mama?" she asked.

"You need shoes, Selena."

Selena pouted further, her bottom lip curling over her top lip. "But, I don't like sh-shoes."

"Put on your shoes," her mother told her.

Huffing, Selena resultantly walked away from the door to the corner they kept the shoes. She sat down and wiggled her toes freely in the air one last time, before encaging them the hardened leather. Once the shoes encased her feet wholly, Selena stood up and faced her mother, who was sitting quietly mending the leg on, Selena's older brother, Garrow's trousers. "May I go now?" she asked.

"Go on, but stay out of the woods. And, please, Selena, leave the men to work in peace." Her mother said, not looking up from her work.

Selena nodded happily and ran out the door, smiling widely as the golden sun kissed her face. Running past the dry fields, she waved mischievously to the red faced Garrow, who glared at her and said something to their father, and into the barn.

The shading of the barn relieved her little of the scorching sun's roast, and she wiped the small droplets of sticky sweat from her face. Breathing in deeply the stink of the barn, she walked to the rope ladder and placed one of her hands on the coarse cord. She heaved herself up the latter, losing her footing halfway up and she kicked at the ropes madly until she found gripping, then she lifted her body up to the storeroom.

The second story of the barn was a small vaulted space used for the storage of silage for the family's few farm animals. It had a large framed opening that Selena's father used to haul straw and grain up with a pulley system. Her father, Selena knew, took pride in his pulleys as him and his father were the ones to shape and fasten it on the barn before the old man died.

Selena jumped into the straw and waded through the itchy strands towards the porthole, her shoes breaking the thin reeds with a satisfying crushing noise. At the aperture, Selena leaned her head out, gripping firmly to the framing and glanced around at the farm; the browning greens, and the leaning building that was her father's cobbler hut, and the three figures of her father, uncle, and brother laboring under the sun's intense rays. Leaning back inside, she sighed happily before grabbing ahold of the knotted rope her father used for his pulley system. She looked down at the ground to check on the weighed litter, it was still piled with straw and a small sack of grain that her father put out that morning.

Selena tested the pulleys, leaning her body completely out of the hole but keeping her feet inside as she didn't wish to fall. When the pulley groaned from the burden she forced on it, and the rope moved downward, Selena straightened herself and stood back. Then she smiled wickedly, and jumped out of the opening to ground.

The pulley groaned unhappily as she sailed through the air to the ground below. Selena laughed and leaned her head back. For the moment she did not think of what her mother would say or of what her father would do to her as a punishment for this behavior, she was lost in pure delight of the wind tousling her hair and pulling the skirt of her dress flapped up around her thighs.