BLOOD POWER

journey preparation

Seven years later,

" Wake up lazy bones"

" Leave me alone" I mumbled a reply before covering myself completely. How can someone be so annoying so early in the morning, I thought to myself.

" You still want your wooden sword?" the voice teased

" Can I not wake up?" I asked in a muffled voice

" No bread for you then, " the voice said sternly.

" Ah! What? okay then... don't be so mean" I hesitantly stood up and yawned.

" Eeeew! your breath smells like two week old garbage, go brush em'" my mother joked while dragging my covers away. I smiled embarrassedly as I strutted outside.

I stood akimbo on our compound and admired the bright morning sky. I've always loved watching the red rays of sun burn my skin, it felt comfortable and comforting at the same time. Someone would say I'm lazy by just standing there and staring at the sun but to me that was appreciating nature.

" Morning stupid, what's with the stupid look? " my eldest sister chuckled as she moved our produce to the cart.

" You are dragging a sack instead of carrying it, who's stupid ?"replied

" Wanna help?" she smiled

" I'm seven" I frowned " I can't even lift a bucket of grain"

" Well I saw you yesterday help..."

" Fine, I'll help" I said then helped her drag the sack. She smirked victoriously after blackmailing me successfully. If you are curious about what I did yesterday then you would be surprised, I was the one who broke the barn' s door so as to save a lamb which was being battered by a ram. I wasn't that strong as she thought me to be , the door was just weak and it needed repair anyway. She saw me break it with a kick and she offered not to tell anyone.

" Aren't you too young to go to the market?... There are bandits and a lot of vile people outside the village" Fraules who was my eldest sister said.

" I can take care of myself but thank you for the concern" I smiled

" Who will tell you stories before sleep while you are gone for more than a week?"

" I can sleep without stories…" I scoffed

" When you sleep out in the cold, huge men everywhere. When the night is so dark to see through and you only have the comfort of a worn out shelter to cover you. Are you willing to leave your warm covers just to sleep on a piece of cloth?" she said mysteriously making me to start evaluating my choice.

" Stop scaring the old man" that was Jack, my eldest brother rumbling. Just because I had white hair was the reason he named me an old man. He was bulky just like our sire and just as tall. He wore shiny green leather pants that made him look like some sort of a king's fool. He wasn't a king's fool anyway, he was our fisherman.

My father came by almost at the same time leading two horses. Two sickly horses, their years were burdening them. Good strong horses were always taken to the fighting legions. Infact, getting a horse was as hard as having a piece of silver. The horses were borrowed from one of the village elders, it was of course possible since father promised him silver after the market season, we were really poor. Nothing was free nowadays, almost everything was exchanged for something else, mostly coins. He harnessed the horses to the cart in a very professional way then winked at me. My father was my second favorite person in the family after my mother. He always loved to bring me little hares he caught in the fields while tilling. He was bare chested with brown leather pants. I visible scar ran across from his chest to his lower abdomen, he got it from the last market season while defending his farm produce.

" The caravan will pass by noon, let's hurry up " he said loudly. He was our man of authority, the ultimate voice in our small homestead. Sometimes we would argue for long about a decision but our father's word was the final. It was almost tyrannical sometimes which reminded me of our current leaders. Our lords and governor's, the way they rule us. Sometimes my dad's way of making choices is even better, at least he hears us out. Our lords and governors make decisions behind the closed doors of their castles, we just wake up to their soldiers enforcing extremely ruthless rules. The world was really rotten.

We ate our morning meal as a family. My mother had especially put a big bowl of steamed meat in front of me. I always had a large appetite , I even ate twice what my father and Jack ate combined. Even after all that eating, I was surprisingly thin but a bit tall for boys my age. My family had gotten over the fact that I was one weird boy. I left sucking when I was five months of age and started eating . I started walking when I was around one year in this world. To make matters more complicating, no one could stare directly at me for more than a quick second. My father said that my dark green eyes were bewitching, though I understood nothing of what he meant by bewitching. If you think that was weird then you'll chicken out when you hear the first word I said when I learnt how to speak. I said Aequitas. The word has been bothering my mind ever since I said it, I really wished I could have said something like papa or mama but not anything complicating.

My mother had brown coat sewn for me on my first journey with my father. It was so long it covered my toenails. With my white hair falling over my shoulders, I really felt now like an old man. No one would even bother to look at me.