Bright Eyes

Chapter 2

"Soouuup!" His grandmother Vera called out for him, he knew their neighbours could hear and she knew he hated that name. Ever since he first emerged unscathed from the incident when he was four she had started calling him that. Eventually the whole village called him that too, though only him and his Grandmother knew the story behind it - no one else could ever know.

He emerged from their backyard which was littered with piles of root vegetables and chickens where he was lazing and stepped into their kitchen, a huge open room protected from the elements by large tanned hides tied to poles made from singular bones.

He was now 10 years old, an average heighted boy with a scrawny frame and loose sandy blonde hair, fair skin and deep brown eyes with no whites to be seen. Vera and Soup did most of the cooking for the village people as a team together, helped by a small handfull of locals.

Today was his first ever trip to The Markets to trade for their village's feasts.

"Yes Grandma?" He pouted.

"What are you doing laying around on today of all days?" She snapped at him, her completely dark brown eyes squinting at him.

"I'm just waiting for you!" He pushed back in an exasperated tone.

She kept staring. "Buffalo packed and harnessed? Coal well stocked for the stoves? Have you packed us food to last?"

"Yes Grandma" he beamed, bursting to go.

Today was the second biggest day in a persons life in the Animum villages. His tenth birthday recently meant Caseus was finally old enough to leave his village for the first time and travel with the group to The Markets in the Capital city Oculum. Most people in his village would leave and travel with them, bringing giant streams of buffalo for trade. Only a couple of dozen people from their village would stay behind to keep the fires lit and tend the buffalo, the beasts their village was known for. Most of the Animum villages - named after the solid coloured dark brown eyes of their people the Animus and the animals they kept - looked after herbivores and farm animals tamed through the power their eyes gave them - kinship with beasts. The outer villages kept almost exclusively carnivores and twisted creatures to be used as protection for the inner Animus villages.

He had heard stories of the Capitol city all his life, where there were endless sprawling markets where people of all eye colours converged to trade their skills, giant marble towers secured behind the market walls and what excited him the most, the Arena. Where Exotic beasts from The Rim captured by Warrior Animus would fight exotic eyed people in gladiator style combat. Caseus was so sick of seeing just Buffalo all day long. He had seen his fair share of scary looking tamed beasts when the warriors visited the village, but he couldn't wait to see beasts too valuable to be kept by his people.

As he climbed atop his favourite buffalo, Caffer, along side his Grandmother and her bonded Buffalo, he was nearly bursting at the seams.

"You realise we are going to take days to get there Soup?" His grandmother offered.

He deflated visibly. "Yes Grandma..."