TOSKA | Sihtric Kjartansson

𝐈.

SETTLEMENT IN THE CARPATHIAN BASIN NEAR THE RIVER DRAVA [874]
— located at the Borderland of modern-day Croatia and Hungary

      THE SUN BURNED MERCILESSLY THAT DAY, the heat finding its way through the tall grass through which two children were chasing each other, their laughs travelling to the nearest huts whose roofs were made out of straw and whose walls were formed out of clay to keep the heat out.

      Women were standing in front of crackling fireplaces, sweat running down their necks and their voices were drowned in the excitement of children that had gathered around the settlement and had conquered the grassy fields.

      No one knew how many children truly belonged to the small village — it could have been twelve, could have been twenty; some stayed, some strayed and some simply left to be never seen again. Some of them belonged to someone, to a family, whose mother was watchfully sitting in front of a hut with her hair covered under a veil of embroidered wool and with necklaces dangling around her neck that accentuated her tattooed chest.

      The girl that was running the slowest through the tall grass belonged to someone too; to a mother that always hummed and sung her songs, to brothers that were always away and to an older sister who was always running faster.

      Her sister's legs carried her through the grass as if she was flying, her hair swaying unbound behind her and with sweat making her tunic stick to her chest. Not that the younger sister could see that with her eyes as white as freshly fallen snow that were constantly unfocused and twitching in her eye-sockets.

      Blindness and strangeness engulfed the very being of the small girl; cursed child, prophesied child, seer, angel, devil, sweet one.

      She had many names but for her older sister she was always just: "Zora!"

      Her older sister had turned her head and slowly began to walk back towards her.

      "Come!"

      She gently took her sister's hand into her own, guiding it to her chest so that her sister could feel her. "If you don't keep up you'll miss all the fun!"

      Other children were laughing further down into the field; boys and girls their age with the same woollen tunics and embroidered vests; no one could've seen that the sisters didn't truly fit into the group.

      Her older sister began to pull Zora behind her, guiding her through halms of grass that left red marks on their skin, shoo-ing crickets away that fled from their boots and wiped away cobwebs so that Zora wouldn't accidentally walk into them.

      Birds were chirping up above, looking down at the children in the field as they flew over it towards the settlement where the river was near; their beaks slightly opened as they watched the fishermen while they stood in the riverbed, their nets spread in hopes of another catch.

      The birds didn't look back as they left the huts behind them, they would not know of the fate that would befall these people; the blood that would stain the grass plains, the wails that would shake the earth and the desperate attempts to save a life.

      And neither did the older sister know, the one that had watched the birds — crows they had been — fly away, her neck strained and her eyes wide open in awe as she watched them disappear into the clouds while Zora squeezed her hand tightly.