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The sun is starting to rise and I can't believe that I fell asleep last night, but I'm alive so now I'm forced to check if I was robbed last night.
The first thing that I notice is that I'm somehow still sitting down and my book is still on the ground where I left it last night, not only that but the girl is sleeping on top of the dead grass.
Normally a person would check on her to see if she was okay, but I have no reason to do so, but I have no reason to do so.
Thankfully I have so few things on me that it's easy for me to get everything ready but as I'm about to leave I hear the girl say something in a language that I've never heard before.
I can only watch as she points at something towards the left and I can only imagine that that is the direction of her tribe or town.
I can't risk drawing attention to the city, but at the same time, I can't risk not knowing if there's another settlement close to the city.
I'm forced to listen to her as she raises her voice to the point where she is almost shouting at me, but in the end, I'm forced to accept that listening to he is the right choice.
I follow her as she retraces her steps and unfortunately for me, I'm forced to cut down even more grass because even if she had broken several tres of grass while she was trying to escape whatever was chasing her last night, she is still smaller than me.
We find ourselves standing in front of a field of gold wheat, or I would have called it wheat if the plants didn't turn to look at us when we came near them.
For the first time since I started this journey, I'm able to write something interesting that I've found.
No, I have two things that I need to write down, after all, I did end up meeting someone last night.
The sound of something falling to the ground catches my attention and I find the girl staring into something that isn't there, and from the dead look in her eyes I can figure out what happened.
She was left behind, either her companions didn't know she was gone or they thought she had died and kept on going to wherever they were going.
I was about to turn and leave when I noticed something not too far from our location, as I walked closer to it I found myself reminded of just how dangerous this world is.
there is a praying mantis in front of me, but the creature is larger than I am, and its arms are a pair of Scythes.
Itap the blades and from the sound that they make it's clear to me that the creature has somehow managed to make metal grow out of its body.
I grab one of its arms and use it to cut one of the giant pieces of grass and I can't help but be pleased with the results.
I quickly and carefully cut the creature's arms off and used the same piece of giant grass that I had just cut down to wrap its arms so that I didn't get any blood on me.
My final act is to hang the blades from my increasingly heavy belt.
I turn to look at the girl who hasn't moved from the spot where she stood when I found the giant matise.
"Come on." I said to the girl but she didn't react to my words she just kept staring at something on the ground.
I looked down and I noticed something that I hadn't seen before tracks, and footprints none of them were human, but the things on the ground were footprints, and a lot of them.
Thankfully I didn't cut down the grass that covered the path that I just made there wasn't any risk of anyone finding their way toward the road that I was ordered to make.
I couldn't help but grab the girl's hand before I lead her back towards the road I've wasted too much time on this and while I'm not in any hurry, cutting down the grass in front of me, somehow makes the time go faster.
...Change...
I've always been unladylike.
When the girls of my village were practicing sowing or playing with their dolls, I was happily helping Papa gather clay and I always had more fun playing with the boys when we threw clay at each other.
Whenever one of the boys hit me I always hit them back and before I knew it none of the older women wanted to talk to me, but that was okay because I didn't want to talk to them either.
Little did I know that my reputation was getting worse by the day.
I didn't do anything bad, I always kept myself clean and never let anybody touch my hair. I always made sure that no one saw anything else besides my face and hands, but still, people grew further and further away.
And before I knew it only my family would talk to me.
My reputation soon became a problem when no one agreed to marry me, papa tried to show off my good points but I always ruined it.
I tried to keep myself from saying something that would anger the boy or his father, but anything I said just made them angry and they would refuse to continue negotiating with Papa.
I tried to dress up to look more appealing and I did what mam said, but I became so nervous when the boys said anything to me that my face looked like I was angry at them when I tried to answer them.
Over and over again, I failed to find a husband, most ten-year-old girls would already have someone who was waiting for the day that they came of age but I had no one.
Papa and Mama told me not to worry about it, but I could always see their worried expressions whenever they tried to comfort me.
I was a failure of a daughter and an even bigger failure as a woman, I knew that because no one wanted to be with someone like me.
All of the embroidered clothes that Mama and I worked so hard on over the years would be meaningless, my dowry was worthless to everyone after all even the ugliest girls can use theirs to find a husband.
A few months ago our village was visited by one of the tribes that live in the wild lands, and they told everyone about an isolated city that they found.
Whenever the barbarians came to trade all of the towns women would hide less they caught the interest of the barbarians who would always take her by force.
It was my Papa who told Mama and me what the Barbarians told him and the rest of the elders.
I could see the frustrated expression that Papa made as he retold the story.
From what the barbarians said they had found the city in ruins and it was only because a herd of beasts that they were tracking had attacked the city that they even found it at all.
They thought that the city would be an easy target, but it was heavily defended, which made sense because it needed to be well protected considering where it was.
Papa's face grew even angrier because the barbarians had said that the women in the city were amongst the most beautiful that they had ever seen.
And then Papa's face grew worried because the Barbarians said that they were insulted in a way that they never thought would happen.
the people in the city had taken several of the men and women who had attacked the city as prisoners, but then they let them go.
It was as if they believed that the tribe's men and women were beneath them.
It was true that they had lost, so it was the defender's right to take as many of the barbarians as they wanted and do what they pleased with them.
It didn't matter if they decided to kill them or use them to regain the numbers that they lost, because the defenders had proven how strong they were.
And yet their people were thrown away like trash.
the leader of the group was now heading back to the tribe with the disgraced members of his group to ask the elders for help in getting revenge on those who had insulted his companions and tribe.
It was only after one of the elders suggested that it was perhaps a difference in customs, and that was the reason why the prisoners were let go.
This caused the leader of the group to calm down and think if the city was isolated, then it was possible that they didn't know what was expected of them to do.
Her Papa seemed to worry even more because the barbarians said that they would come back and this time they would bring their elders with them.
Even she knew that this was bad because the Barbarian Elders only left their village whenever they were going to negotiate something rare.
Barbarians didn't bargain they took whatever they wanted and it was only when things were good that they bothered to negotiate at all.
The only reason why her town was spared was because they were so close to the wild lands that it was pointless to attack them. After all, doing so would attract the attention of the creatures living in the area.
There was another reason why the elders would come here and that was to negotiate a peace treaty.
She knew that there was no such thing as a peace treaty with the barbarians because even her town risked being attacked by them, all of the women that the barbarians had taken by force were proof of that.