The Grower

Ch. 1 (Lilly)

I woke up with sun, as I always do, to help my mother with the crops. However today is different, today is the choosing. No one will work today, not even me, we all have to wait for the procession of the King's men, who will bring the Seers, to come and see into our futures, to find the ones who are the strongest and who will aid in the fight against the Aeron Empire, and bring us to train at the School of Wielders. It is considered the highest of honors to be chosen to go.
I slowly get out of my bed of hay, thoughts of how today is going to be are filling my head. I walk to my small, hole in the wall closet and pushing aside the vines that keep it hidden. I look at my three sets of clothes. All the same loose brown trousers and sunwashed green shirts, I grab out the cleanest pair I own and put them on. I don't have any shoes, we don't have the money to buy them or the resources to make them. I put my light brown hair in a loose braid and walk out of my room and into the cooking area, following the smell of cooking bread.

We live in a hill house, where many people in my village live. It's carved out of the side of a large hill, with dirt floors and vines hiding one room from another. That's the only good thing about being a Grower, we are able to design our houses as we wish, weaving new materials and making new things.

I walk into the cooking area and take a piece of hard bread out of the basket on the table. The table woven out of the bark of a century old tree my grandfather grew and the basket the last thing my grandmother wove before she died.

I see my mother sitting by the cooking pit, moving the coals around to make the fire hotter, a look of worry deepens the lines on her face and makes her look ten solstices older than she really is.

"Lilly?" my mother asks in a worried tone, effectively gaining my attention. "I have a bad feeling about today."

"Today is just like any other day, Mother." Her eyebrows scrunch up even more when I say this.

"No, my dear, today is different, something is going to happen," the worry in her voice increases until she sounds so faint that if I hadn't moved closer I wouldn't be able to hear her.

"I'll be fine, Mother," the rest of my sentence cut off by the loud blaring of a horn, signaling the arrival of the King's men, and most importantly, the Seers.