The sun is shining, the ground damp with dew, the small city of Thuma is waking up. Distant merchants shout greetings to one another and boast of their business prowess. The enthusiastic bells of returning fishing boats can be heard bringing in the night’s catch of crappy and bass. Link-boys are hurriedly extinguishing street lamps up and down the block, so they too can get to the study before first class.
After three blocks the houses become smaller, closer together with narrow alleyways snaking between them. This is one corner of the area called Downwind and contains the fish market, the smell making that apparent to anyone nearby. Luscin was told by both mother and Father to never enter Downwind because that’s where bad people live. But Luscin knows bad people can live in nice smelling houses too.
Despite the smell and being part of Downwind, Luscin always stops here at the corner store that goes by the name of Sir Jenkins Mart, because this is where her friend Sir Jenkins lives. Luscin presses her nose against the glass door, shielding her eyes with her hands to reduce the glare of a rising sun. She sees some movement and anxiously hops from foot to foot. Through the glare of glass, she sees her friend wandering towards the door where he flips a sign around and turns the lock lever. Luscin doesn’t wait for him to open the door, she pulls the door open and rushes in and hugs her friend.
“Sir Jenkins!”
“Good morning little bunny,” Jgorg Jenkins knows not to hug her in return, a light pat on her shoulder is all she will tolerate from anyone. Luscin likes being called a bunny, because they’re imaginary, magical creatures from stories that do wonderful things for children.
Breaking off her hug, “Do you have any work for me today?”
“Of course, I do; there’s always something that needs to be done around here. I need my books balanced, how are you doing at math?”
“I can add sums real good, but you know I don’t have time for that. What’s something I can do before study starts?”
“I need to settle accounts with my restaurant customers, maybe one day you’ll do that for me. Well, you smudged the glass on my front door; you might as well clean all my glass.”
Most mornings go like this. Luscin darts behind the counter and grabs a rag, takes it outside and wipes away the smudge. She looks up and down the rest of the windows and sees a few more spots she can reach and cleans those too. Finished she returns the rag where she found it.
“My work here is done, time to go to study,” she says while pretending she’s turning to leave.
“You forgot your payment little bunny,” Jgorg reaches into a nearby bin and picks up a pear and tosses it to her.”
“For me? Thank you, Sir Jenkins,” mumbles Luscin around a mouthful of fruit.
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“See you tomorrow, princes.”
Now she is really leaving, she darts out the door, leaving a smudge of pear juice where her tiny hand pushed the glass door open. Turning away from Downwind, she rushes towards the study. As she draws near her destination, she begins seeing other students heading to study, she looks around to see if any of her friends are near, sees none, and continues to the study and heads to class.
Classes were typical, a lot of repetition, her hand is sore from writing letters over and over until they look right. History class was her favorite today, the instructor talked about historical events. The part about Defenders of Cenoika interested her the most. They were founded by the Free’er 1,003 years after the Cataclysm started. Their battle against the hordes of marauders, power lords, and necromancers and to protect people lasted almost 2,000 years before the Cataclysm was declared over in the year 2965. Now it’s the year 6981, making the Order of Defenders almost 6,000 years old. Much of their history is documented in libraries at studies with Defender master’s as instructors. Luscin wishes her study was one of them. She asked her instructor if there were any Defenders in North Cenoika, he didn’t know and said not much is known about the civilizations of North Cenoika because they are primitive and hostile to most trade.
Classes last around four hours, it’s now a little after high noon, she needs to stay away from home until an hour before dinner so she can finish her cleaning. She should go now but then she’d have less time to play.
“Hey Luscin! Boring history class today, huh?” says Wendy, while running over to Luscin’s side.
Wendy is Luscin’s body opposite in every way. Wendy is average in size for her nine years, her post-pubescent sudo-human body is already developing the curves of a fully grown woman of fifteen. In another year her parents will likely arrange her a marriage. Her blonde hair looks like gold in the right light and her orange eyes project warmth like a banked fireplace. People feel at ease around her and naturally trust her. Luscin knows her better than anyone and doesn’t trust her one bit.
“Hey Wendy! I liked class today. I want to be a Defender and protect little people like us,” Luscin over shares like that a lot. Other kids would feel uncomfortable knowing her private desires. Wendy accepts Luscin as she is, that makes her other qualities forgivable.
“Our parents have to do that, the Free’er tells them to,” asserts Wendy.
“Yeah, well... parents can’t protect us all the time. What if we were to go into Downwind and some bad person attacked us?”
“That sounds like a dare,” Wendy claps her hands. She delights in taking chances and getting into trouble.
Luscin should have chosen her words better, “Um, that’s not what I meant.”
“Too bad, I dare you to go into Downwind until you see a bad person.”
Luscin isn’t opposed to the idea, she likes doing Wendy’s dares, “Ok, but only if you come with me, I dare you.”
Wendy puts her left hand behind her back and sticks her right arm forward. Luscin does the same and grasps Wendy’s hand and gives it a squeeze; Wendy squeezes back sealing the dare. The left hand behind their backs is a mutual signal that they don’t trust each other.
The last dare they did was to sneak onto a fishing boat to steal a fish. They made it on and off the boat but didn’t realize until they got onboard that the fish had been unloaded as soon as the boat docked. The worst trouble they got into was the time they sneaked onto the estate of a rich merchant and got caught. The house master made them do chores until after sundown. They both were punished when they came home late. Luscin wouldn’t tell Wendy what Father did to her, she missed ten days of study before the marks were gone.
The child and preteen turn with the wind to their backs and head into Downwind.