Right before I closed the door behind myself, Walter hollered: “Ey! Ken, remember the suggestion you made for improving my store”
I turned around and said: “You mean the map?”
Walter ignored me, or he had trouble hearing me from the door, so I walked back in the room.
He was busy rummaging around a leather pouch, he grabbed from one of the many crates.
“Ah, here it is.” He took out a thick piece of leather with markings on it.
“The merchant I bought my materials from had it on display. He sold it to me for a single piece of silver. ”
I moved closer to Walter’s ear and said: “Yeah, that’s a great deal, considering you, estimated a decent map to cost at least five pieces of silver, or even a gold coin. Are you sure that it isn’t fake?”
“It’s pretty worn.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure!”
He placed the map in front of me on the workbench and I unrolled it.
http%3a%2f%2fgoogledrive.com%2fhost%2f0Bze1Bf_Uia2...Tg%2fMap.PNG [http://googledrive.com/host/0Bze1Bf_Uia2QQzltYzRfVlhtTTg/Map.PNG]
“Where is Ascot on the map?”
“It’s the one that’s closest to the forest.” Walter said while pointing at it.
“Wait a second, Is Rockfell really this large?”
“No, the hunter who made the map was probably guarding the city wall. That’s why he included the different districts and since it’s hard to make tiny details on a map like this, some of the sizes are wrong.”
“This should help lure travelers to your store, especially if they’re lost.” I said while slowly backing off towards the door, with a grin on my face.
“You cheeky brat!” He hollered after me when I walked out.
Suddenly remembering something, I turned around and yelled: “Don’t forget the harvest festival later today. Hilda is going to be furious if you don’t take her.”
I walked back towards the village, with my bow over the shoulder and the iron pot with my waterskin inside, fastened to my back with leather strips.
I noticed a sudden movement in the corner of my eye, I stopped and sidestepped to left. The stone flew narrowly past my head.
When I turned my head and looked towards the source, suddenly there was a stinging pain on the right side of my back.
The ones that had thrown the stones were a group of girls in their early teens. They were grouping together and were giggling, and then the last member of their little clique emerged from a bush.
She was undoubtedly the one who hit me with the rock.
I recognized her. Her name was Beth, she was the daughter of the newest farmer in the Ascot, and the other girls probably pressured her into doing it, due to her unstable social position.
That way she would the one to take the blame if the stones had harmed me seriously. It was a very real possibility considering I was seven years old, while some of the girls looked like they had reached their marriageable age, which was fifteen.
Nothing I could do about it, if I took my revenge on one of them it would probably turn out to be the wrong one.
In fact, the person that orchestrated these attacks was most likely the nun working as a servant for the old priest.
She was in charge of educating the young girls in the village, at one point I had asked her to teach me how to read. She had looked at me as if I had suggested killing someone and told me that only people of the temple or nobles could learn such a thing.
At the time, I tried to argue my point, but she ignored me and banned me from entering the temple for a week, she even talked with my parents.
When the older girls of the village began attacking me a few days later, it was hard not to notice a correlation.
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“The price of being the first to go against tradition, I’m just glad that I wasn’t older when it happened. They would’ve probably beheaded me.”
Ignoring the girls, I kept walking back towards the center of the village, while keeping an eye on my surroundings and listening for the characteristic sound of someone throwing a rock.
I was afraid of turning my back on the group of girls, but on the other hand, I wanted to deny them the satisfaction of achieving their objective.
Assuming that they were not attempting to kill me.
***
The temple was a building made from wood, with symbols painted on the outside. The villagers maintained it, but the only person allowed to repair and clean the altars was the priest himself.
I kneeled down in front the altar dedicated to Arica, the others from the village were joining me as well.
The priest stepped in front of the altar and started preaching: “This great day lady Arica has granted us a plentiful harvest. Thus I will recite a prayer in her thanks.”
Last year I had been bored out of my mind during the entire mass, but at the same time, I noticed something crucial.
The priest was reading the prayer from Arica’s altar, perpetuated in the stone.
If I could remember the entire prayer, I would be able to inspect the altar afterwards and learn how to read by analyzing the writing.
Therefore my eyes were hanging on the priests lips during the entire service, trying my hardest to remember every word.
The mass concluded after the priest burned a few of the plants, cultivated on the fields around the village.
I left the temple together with the other villagers, only to circle back around a nearby farm and entering the temple again.
The temple was empty and I could hear the sound of the harvest festival through the walls.
Keeping my face expressionless, I walked closer to the altar. The altar itself only consisted of a block of stone with writing on it, but wooden planks with paintings on it adorned the sides, they were added by previous generations in thanks to the goddess. There was a good possibility that another one was to be added this year.
The symbols one the stone seemed mysterious at first, but after watching the priests head while he read them, I noticed that the correct way to read them was from left to right. This helped immensely.
***
I felt something dripping from my nose, looking down I saw a small pool of blood in the sand. When I tried to turn my head to look around, I felt a splitting headache.
“What happened, did I fall into some kind of trance. I’m starving and I really need to pee.”
When I exited the temple, the sun was standing low in the sky, meaning it was late in the day.
I could hear panicked screaming, in the distance.
“What the fuck is happening now?”
I ran towards the sound.
***
Suddenly something hit me in the side, the world spun and the next thing I felt was my body hitting something hard.
When I looked up, I saw a beast with snow-white fur, nearly twice my height standing above me and looking down at me with tiny red eyes.
A single word in a, to me foreign language, flashed past my dazed mind.
“Bunny?”
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Author note: The reason why the pacing is this fast, is because the MC can't remember every small detail at the time when he tells this story. Also, I hate boring myself and my readers out of their minds.