Denial of the Whisper

Chapter One.

Chapter One.

"Are you done here?", the angry voice the merchant used was intended to shy me away.

I was used to that tone. Well, almost.

Biting on my lower lip to keep myself from grumbling back at the old man, I packed the remainders of the herbs and balms I had laid out, back into my little bag, my fingers holding onto the few coins I had gained that day.

One lind and twenty- six lun.

I've counted it earlier, noticing that it was barely enough money to buy me a piece of meat for the next days. Some potatoes would have to be enough. Cheap and stomach-filling.

Picking up my woollen bag, I glanced to the other market stands, quickly made my way over to one of them, purchased what I needed and left the little square as fast as I was able to.

I hated it. The people were weary around me, although I had never – really never – showed any signs of anything unusual before. No power was emanating from me, and yet, they still went silent as soon as they spotted me. In the past, I didn't bother and my sharp tongue had gotten me into some stupid situations in the past.

But not anymore.

I've gotten quiet like a mouse the last months, the loneliness and lack of someone responding to my questions, the lack of laughter in the small hut I lived in, had taken its toll on me.

It was quiet.

I never liked the quiet.

But I had gotten used to it, eventually, and soon, I became as quiet as my own four walls, no questions, no answers. Nothing.

Life had gotten hard for me and I knew it wouldn't get any easier. I had made it through the last winter.

No one could assure me, that I could make it through the next one.

My old bag slung over my shoulder, the remaining coins tucked safely in the hidden pocket, stitched inside of my dark pants, I headed home.

The warm sun rays where soon shattered by the thick branches of the high trees, blocking most of the first hot day of the year. I took a deep breath, let the dark, smooth scent of the forest fill my nose and my mind.

Today seemed like one of those days where the forest was a bit louder than usual, the singsong of the birds, a rich symphony of various breeds, settling like a smooth mantle around me.

The forest. Some were afraid of it, especially of those things that lived in there.

Like me.

People always feared things they classified as different, or humans they classified as different. Even though nothing about me was different at all.

I looked like a human and I definitely felt like one, even though I knew – or rather had been told – that I was not full human.

A part of me was something else.

And that was why I was barely tolerated in the small village outside the forest. If it hadn't been for the herbs that I sold there for a bargain price, they wouldn't even notice if I starved to death.

I couldn't even blame them. I couldn't even hate them for it.

Maybe it was only natural, maybe it was only their instinct.

But nevertheless, I behaved as if I was fine with that. With the children, who avoided me back then when I was just that, a little child like them, wanting to play by the nearby river, skimming stones. Some simply ignored me, the meaner ones simply skipped stones at me.