Kara

Chapter 1: The Kohtari Tribe

The violent call of my mother stirred me awake in my bed for the morning. "Kara!" she yelled from out my window. "Wake up, it's late and I scheduled you to check the river wheel. Garo is waiting in his shop, and I made plenty of pentis." She tossed my crumpled-up working poncho through the square hole in the wall in an attempt to make me rise faster. "Up up up!"

"Ai mama." I forced myself to sit up on the mat of soft, woven fibers and bent my knees up to make a tent with the blanket. My mom quickly walked off to continue her duties, since everyone in the tribe had their job. She did the laundry, and I was the gear smith. The wide decorated fabric with a hole in it was my uniform. The flappy surface was covered in pockets and little loops to hook tools and bags onto, so it was convenient to have. The pockets were deep too, so I could shove almost anything into them. Despite the rugged attachments I still made sure it looked nice, with a loose flowy feel to it.  I bounced up to my feet from the mat on the floor, to run over to the tool rack. It was just a stick held horizontally by another stick on the wall, but the tools each had a leather strap on their handles to hang them up by, so I wouldn't need to scramble through a messy pile. That was my first invention. I made it right after my painting ceremony so of course, it's really simple, but I made up for it with many other creations. Scampering through the house barefoot, I stopped at the kitchen to pick up the pentis. The whole house was one large room with clay walls, but the kitchen was divided from the rest of the house by a counter. My mother would cut vegetables or roll dough in here, but any fried or baked foods needed to be made in the fire. It was right at the center of the village, and the pavilion was just across from it, so that served as the main hub of the whole village.

The pentis were a jam held in a bowl of crispy bread and came in a wide range of flavors. Garo's favorite was blueberry so we would always pay him with that whenever I needed supplies. I grabbed the carrier box and in rushing out the door I nearly forgot my sandals. I slipped on the wooden blocks with straps that I called shoes and hopped out into the fresh air. I ran and waved at everyone I saw, the other kids playing and farmers who had nothing else to do. The fences could use some work but I still needed to think of a better design. Some pigs would always find a way to escape under the wooden frames, but none of our weavers had strong enough materials to keep them from breaking out of a woven net fence.

The ground was still wet from last night's rain, so each hard stomp I made with my stride splashed up some mud. As I approached Garo's shop, the path slowly changed from dirt to small stones, so I faced less and less mud. The clay homes around me had multiple rooms and more than one door. The rooves were still made from animal hide and leather but they were fortified with stronger wooden beams. It seemed like everything around Garo's shop was better. He made life better.

"Garo!" I skid to a halt in front of his shop. It was a simple tent with a desk in front where Garo sat. Everything there, he made himself and he made sure that was known by putting his name on it all. The front of the tent was kept open to display that the sides were covered in wooden planks, chairs, and gears; anything that could be thought of. It was all made from wood carved by a burly man in his 40s.

"Hey kid, you need to stop greeting everyone as your mom does, you sound too much alike." Garo was a sturdy built, but sweet, giant of the village. He wore a large straw hat to cover himself from the sunlight, but his pointy nose would just barely poke out.

"I need to wake up every morning with 'Kara' yelled in my ear so I thought you should too. I'm glad you think I sound like her though!" I said with a smile and slammed the carrier box on the desk.

"Ahh, so what's up with it this time?"

"Just a maintenance check. All I need is some oil right now, but I'll come back if I need some new gears."