Baseless

I - Tall

Chaptous 1 - Tall

Direwolves and Smilodons screamed in the best of night. A cool breeze passed, carrying dry leaves enveloping pine needles and fat bacterium awaiting their prey. A babe's bawl traveled amongst the howls and roars, as the robed farers sat huddled together, soaking every little droplet of warmth they could afford in that wooden cart.

The Sinomté family were a small weary group of nomads with half a dozen rag purses full of khroen and a banishment from the popular villages. In their poor health, they had managed to pass into the isolated village of Naületh. The full moon overhead, the Sinomtés gathered their' short wealth of khroen and bought a plot of land to settle on.

Immediately, they started work, and in less than a week they built a hut to support the

Eventually, they settled and became one with the native lifestyle of Naületh. They had little khroen to spare, yet they were full of hope.

Soon a Winter had passed. Evalengina, of the Faerïns, took bondage with Arthun of them Sinomtés, and soon they bore a young lad.

His eyes gleamed with tears as his wife cradled the quaint silent babe, humming a child's melody. "O' Eve, to what will be his name?"

Her voice almost singing in the tune, she answered, "...Wilburt. To the iron will he bore, to not cry in the night when he was first given."

"Oh ryalth... how will we support this youngling?! We dunno anythin' about a materhood!"

She chuckled, humming as she watched the mute baby. "Don't worry darlin'. We will manage; we'll be fine." She pecked him on his cheek. "We got this far, didn't we?"

- - + - -

Barnkeeper Falher entered into the dormitory, each footstep he took as harsh as a bearmole's ruptures. The stench of ryalmoos crept around walls and entered the noses of some boys, select ones audibly crashing from their beds in shock.

"WAKE UP, yer dirty 'lot of youse!" he barked through the halls, finally waking up the "dirty 'lot of us".

I itched open my eyes, yawning at the dull "grey" sight. Grey-t. It's an overused pun anyway.

I had suffered a growth spurt within the last few months. Before, I was as tall as 3 tree stumps; now I stood 3 heads taller than the magistrate, who was at least 5 feet in height. Everyone looked up at me with this despising awe; this jealousy... why? It was a curse to be "tall." I was doomed to sleep on the hard stone floor, with only a ragged towel or two to withstand my lanky length as I stirred heavily in the night.

Lywred had the same fate as me, though he was barely a hand taller. Strange. I wondered if he'd ever consider me elvish or trollian, considered my soft pointed ears and dirty blonde hair. He greeted me with a mumble, "Arsen'falk."

"Arsen'falk," I replied drowsily. My body ached like always, and I wondered how Lywred managed to sleep so fine, so peacefully, dreaming stiffly and waking like some perfect automation. When were those beds- nothin' royal, just wooden - coming, those special ones meant to fit our heights?

I took off my cropped tunic and replaced it with a cleaner long-sleeved tunic, light in color. I rummaged through my pack to find my flask of rueberry tonic - a simple mixture of the bitter berries from the small ruem tree growing inside, and water I collected and cleansed - and gargled it, all while simultaneously slipping on the dark shawl with a large insignia stitched in a shiny thread, of a pyramid with strings of energy slipping from the object. I constantly told Lywred to make some rueberry tonic for himself, but he displaced me by responding with his infamous "you're an alchemist Will - I can't do that."