Chapter 8. Two Childhoods.
1131 Words
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Here we are going to compare the past of two characters from this book.
To start, let us call them, for now, Child (A) and Child (B).
One had an idyllic life full of luxury and comfort
While the other child suffered hardship and pain.
These little backstories are NOT just mere “Filler”.
They are instead a teasing gift from me, the author to you, the reader!
These little backstories are going to be huge hints of the large amount of deadly smelly crap that is about to hit one of these peoples personal fan!
And it will also give you a glimpse into the unmovable object of one person personality that is about to hit by the unstoppable force of the other person’s core nature!
In a different time and place, they might have been BFF’s. (Best friends forever!)
But they did not meet at a different time and place!
Fate did not deem to be that kind!
Instead, they met under THESE extreme circumstances!
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This was NEVER going to end well, for either of them…
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… Or for anyone even remotely close to either of them!
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Child (A)
She went to the market with her father and remembered him pleading with the stallholder to sell him some food.
There were raised voices and the stallholder was frightened
Her dad had a fist full of money and was waving it in the stallholders face.
She was only young, but she still knew that it was far more money than that food was worth.
But the stallholder still would not sell them any food.
Why did this keep happening?
She was so hungry.
Any other child this hungry would have cried
But this little girl had become used to being this hungry now.
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Child (B)
She never had to go to the market.
The whole wide farm was her free-market and playground.
She should spend hours a day just joyfully running under that planets beautiful purple sky!
She would happily graze as many snacks as she wished straight of the vines or fresh out of the ground!
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Teenager (A)
She ran home crying
She really thought that boy had liked her.
But a city guard had come up to them and looked at all their identity stuff.
The City guard had told the boy that if he talked to her again that his family might get harmed for daring to speak to her as an equal!
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Teenager (B)
The Empire was very far away.
Some of the people of the nearest villages were Imperial citizens by birth or marriage and some were not.
Out here, no one cared about such rubbish.
Through her teenage years, she danced and romanced whomever she chose.
Life was nothing more than a constant, soft, cute, romantic drama.
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Young adult (A)
Fucking stallholders and shops still would not serve her family, again!
It was hard to be mad at them when you saw the fear in their eyes.
The city guard always quickly looked away from her when she glared at them.
It was a stupid law!
She was sick of feeling ill from hunger all the time!
She was sick of struggling in rags all the time!
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By imperial decree, there were four levels of being
Non-imperial citizens who you could torture in a public street and it would be perfectly legal
Imperial slaves, that enjoyed the legal protection afforded that of any valued property.
Normal citizens who could own slave but these citizens could be tortured and killed in public by any member of imperial royalty and that would be perfectly legal.
Normal peasant citizens could only eat normal or fair quality food.
The very best food, medicine and services could only be sold to royalty.
Giving, selling or allowing a person of royal status to be lowered to eating or consuming that which is only worthy of peasants would have your entire family put to death for heresy!
And then there was Royalty!
Those with even the smallest amount of the emperors magical or genetic bloodlines in their veins!
But Royalty with no income had a problem.
Because if you were dirt poor royalty, no one will dare sell you the cheap food and medicine you could afford.
If you were royalty then normal citizens, like cute boys, were never allowed to show any interest in you.
Cute peasant boys were never allowed to show any interest in lonely royal blooded girls, who were above their station.
Lady Karren Teste was sick of being a member of suffering royalty.
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Young adult (b)
Terisa had a wonderful life.
Wonderful friends and family.
It was an idyllic arable country setting.
It was a good life!
A happy life!
In her whole life, she had known, love, acceptance, happiness, and good health.
Unlike Karren Teste, She had never gone hungry or without medical care.
But she was not an imperial citizen.
And some off-world slavers had started to hear of this little settlement!
They had heard of a large amount, of free to grab, not under the empire protection, sentient flesh that there was there to take!
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Over the next four years later…
Lady Karren Teste had to scrape and steal and constantly travel from royal event to royal event.
She had to leave home after her father died of a curable illness.
But even though they had the money fo save his life three times over with normal medical care, they have not been allowed any normal medical care!
They could not afford the Royal Medical Care that they were allowed.
They could not even afford the Royalty Level doctor to even take a single look at her father's case!
Or afford the Royle Level of painkillers!
The death had taken weeks.
For days at a time, always hungry, Karren tried her best to live in a house full of her beloved father's screams!
So now she constantly travelled and she hated it!
Each royal event had food and shelter and maybe the odd jewelled ashtray or golden toilet brush that no one would miss.
Karren would then sell this stuff at a fraction of its value to get enough money to travel to yet another royal event within reach.
There was always some kind of royal event somewhere.
This was the only way Karren could survive!
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Over the next four years…
Terisa lived in blissful ignorance of the hell that would fall upon her and her family.
By the end of these four years, she would be in chains and sold!
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Now, One of them was on an Imperial Royal throne,
While the other was in an Imperial Royal held hell!
Great novels start here
- Writer
