Chronicles of the Soveriegn

Chapter 1: The Start of It All

“Ari! Ari! Wake up!” I woke to the sounds of Tristan calling my name.

The sun wasn’t even up yet! I turned over and covered my face with the pillow, trying to ward off the coming day. “Mmgroffffmmm,” I mumbled as I pushed him off. It was too early to get up.

“Come on Ari, it’s my birthday!”

I squinted, attempting to look annoyed so he would leave me alone. “Aren’t you a little old to be celebrating your birthday?”

“Oh come on, fifteen isn’t that old, and if Father will still let me go on a special hunting trip tonight I’m going to celebrate it. And, if he lets me go I’ll take you with me.”

“Oh fine, happy birthday Tristan, are you happy now?”

“I guess so,” he said, seeming halfway satisfied.

“Tristan,” whined Leena from the bed next to mine. “Would you be quiet?” I rolled my eyes as she started on a rampage of yelling at Tristan. I knew better than to try and interfere.

Tristan threw her a disgusted face and ran down the ladder of our loft before she could nag him anymore. I struggled to get out of bed. Sleep still seemed to be tugging at my eyelids as I rummaged through the trunk for work clothes. I dressed quickly in order to avoid Leena, and then hurried down to the hearth for breakfast. Mother and Father were already up of course. Mother was tending to the biscuits at the fireplace and Father calculating debts and profits of farm work on an old scrap of paper. Tristan was bouncing around like his usual self, except that he was a bit more rowdy because of his birthday. It seemed impossible that he was merely a year younger than me; he still acted like a child (and still does).

“Tristan, settle down and get some work clothes on,” Father complained in an unusually gruff voice. I frowned, figuring that the calculations he was working on weren’t adding up. The last few years had been especially hard on our family. King Filkras had raised taxes to an unreasonably high price, and the economy of the whole country was hitting a hard time as a result of them. Even the wealthy were having difficulties, but it was worse for poor farmers like us.

After breakfast, the entire family (save Mother) walked to the wheat field. The dew was still fresh and the sky a silky dark blue. It was harvest time and we were going to be working from sun up to sun down threshing and bundling the wheat to be hauled back to the barn.

Everyone seemed to be rather obnoxious that particular day. Leena started complaining only a few minutes into the morning about how hot she was or that her arms were tired, and Father had to scold her for her rude behavior multiple times. Tristan just rambled merrily about how happy he was that it was his birthday, and all of the plans he had made for the hunting trip that night.

However, Roland was the worst one in the bunch. He was seventeen you see, and was courting a young girl in the village nearby. He couldn’t stop talking about her. It never ceased to amaze me how many times he could compliment Tirana and never become sick of it, for I certainly did. Tirana was the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and was a rather beautiful girl of sixteen. Roland had been courting her for almost six months. Whenever he could scrape together a few thits, he would go out and buy her something, and once even saved enough money to buy her jewelry. It wasn’t real of course, but I’ll admit it was pretty. They had just been promised to be married, so Roland was always busy talking about their plans for the marriage.

The idea of marriage was not appealing to me. There were several young men in the village who had expressed their interest in me. I didn’t return any of their offers for courtship. Father and Mother both encouraged me to accept the offers, for the men were all rather well-off farmers, but let’s face it; no one wants to be in a courtship with an unattractive, snotty twenty-year-old who thinks he’s better than you. I figure that if you don’t like someone, you’re probably never going to love them, and so it would be entirely pointless to marry them. Father had threatened several times that if I didn’t accept an offer sooner or later, he would arrange a marriage for me, but we both knew he didn’t have the heart to do that.