Chained - A Jae-ha Fanfiction

Chapter 1

The morning air was brisk as Rensa shut her hut door behind her. The path through the village was still shrouded in the darkness of the trees, though there was a brightening from somewhere above as she shuffled along.

By the time she reached the fruit orchards the darkness was quickly making way towards the light of early morning, and she was already out of breath. Her arduous movements paired with the cool air made it difficult for her to reach her destination.

It was just the beginning of The Harvest, and her people had spent the entirety of the previous day collecting their produce to sell before winter came. They started at the far end of the orchards and worked their way back toward the village. She prayed to some unknown god that she could reach where they had stopped before the village awoke to continue harvesting.

She sighed with relief when the large baskets came into her view, some were filled to the brim with apples and other fruits sorted into separate baskets. She selected an apple tree closest to the baskets and slowly made her way over to it. There was a small basket at the base of the trunk, meaning someone had marked it as the next tree to be picked. There were a few branches that hung low, so she pulled the small basket to rest underneath them and then stared up at the bright red apples for a few long moments. Pursing her lips and shifting her weight completely to her other leg, she swung her crutch up at the branch, sending a bunch of apples tumbling into the basket below.

She repeated the action over again until the basket was almost full, and her leg began to shake from the effort of holding up her body. She pulled her crutch back to her side and rested against it before leaning down to gather up the basket. After emptying it into the larger baskets of apples, she sought out more hanging branches. It took her a little while to limp back and forth between the trees and baskets, but soon she had picked most of the lower branches clean of apples and pears.

It was when she was about to start on some nearby orange trees that she was stopped. She had just nudged an orange from its attachment to the leaves and was lowering her crutch slightly to do it again when she heard shouting. Turning her carefully balanced body she saw Markon running in her direction. He was a fast sprinter and reached her quickly.

Rensa opened her mouth to politely greet him, but he glared down at her and yanked her crutch away. It threw off her balance and she fell to the ground. She felt a rock dig into her knee, but she did not let him know that she was hurt.

"What are you doing?!" He demanded in his outrage, shaking her crutch at her before tossing it aside.

"I'm harvesting." She replied softly, kindly, hoping to calm him down some. "Is that not what we do at this time of year?"

"That is what we do, you are damaging the produce." He spat out and she could hear his teeth grinding together.

She knew he was right, though she collected the fruit into a small basket, the force of them falling harmed them. It was the best she could do, yet it still wasn't good enough for them. "I'm sorry, I assumed you could use more help. The harvest is plentiful this year and will take a while to gather." Rensa said politely.

"Stay away from our orchards, crippled woman." He hissed before walking away.

She watched him leave, saying nothing more. When he was through the trees and out of sight she slowly dragged herself across the grass to where her crutch rested. She was thankful he hadn't broken it, it was still whole and the wood was still sturdy as she pulled herself back to her foot.

Sighing, she made her way back to the village.

Just before she reached the town line, Rensa heard voices conversing a little ways away. They were unfamiliar, which confused her as the village was small and everyone knew each other. She followed the sounds and hid behind a trunk when she got close enough to see them. They were strangers indeed. Each wore a different style of clothing, and many of them had strangely colored hair. A few of them carried packs or bags.