Jessamine
Twenty lashes, I think as I put my left foot in front of my right, refusing to let my head hang in shame as the crowd watches me in utter silence.
Each beating, I had taken, my screams muffled by the bit. Twenty.
Ten more than mother gave everytime I ran. Very early in my life, I came to understand pain and fear.
My mother...she loved me. Too much. I was wild and free. I would run the expanse of the woods, threading places even warriors didn't.
She didn't understand why I ran to the wasteland and marshes. She didn't know why I spent hours sitting on the tallest tree, watching, waiting. I would return home, covered in small cuts and bruises, and I would reek of smoke and ash.
My mother was scared that I would run one day and never return, like my father.
So, she locked us
