A Tale of Time: The Malice of Men

Chapter 5: Strife

                                                            Chapter 5: Strife

Strife is spiteful. Strife is sorrowful.

Strife is destructive. Strife is opportunistic.

Strife is snake-like. Strife is open war.

Strife is a dangerous thing to all.

Robert positively hated it. Having a sibling elder to you by age was the greatest curse possible. Rayenna always got away with whatever she did. If Robert so much as breathed in the wrong direction, he would have it, and he did not like having it.

For some unbeknownst reason, his parents seemed to have deemed it fit to favour their only daughter. Wherever she went, whatever she did, she was always forgiven.

Only the week before, she had 'accidentally' broken the crockery of Mrs' Joanna, widow of the late toymaker. It was an open secret that she hated her, especially after she had passed a reproachable comment or two on their pet cat Percy and Rayenna's horrible taste for animals.

Father didn't even blink when he heard Robert tell the story as he had witnessed it. Rayenna had gone to bed without even being tut-tutted.

On the other hand, Robert could receive a box on the ears even if the water he had provided for his father's bath wasn't hot enough, and the hands of a blacksmith were rough. Mother was more comforting though, less partial. One day, one day the scales would tip in his favour.

Right now, Rayenna was running ahead of him, laughing, taking the joy of the sun in. Robert brooded along, hands in his pockets, wondering who the twelve year old was. Granted the sight of sunset amidst the hills was breathtaking, but it gave him no cause to be so merry and gay as his sister was right now. It was like that every time she came to the green hills overlooking their town, the tiny town of Umberta with a population of no more than five hundred.

A statue of Malinor stood at the centre of the town, impassive as the rock that it was. The only road that connected this town to the outside world was the one which led to the highway, although they called that rode the 'highway road.' News of the outside world came in that way or food if other towns were kind enough. In times like this though, the former was more likely.

Unless it was that time of the year when they had to pay their dues to the throne, life went on unhindered.

Sometimes, Rayenna would slip away, threatening her brother if he so much as thought of telling to mother and father. Where she went to, Robert could not tell. Rayenna always made Robert turn away, close his eyes and not to open them until he had counted to a hundred, For fear of Rayenna's tales causing their desired effect, Robert always obeyed, not even daring to listen to footsteps.

Today seemed to be one of the days when would slip away. With the same smiling, laughing face unflinched, she turned to Robert.

"Now little brother, turn around before something bad happens to you." She said. That was her style. She loved to give threats with her sweetest voice without giving the slightest hint as to what 'something bad' was. That sparked her victim's imagination to work in the most frightening of directions.

As always, Robert turned away. It would not do for 'something bad' to happen to him. This time though, her sister tarried a while to stare at the shivering little thing before her. "Poor, poor Robert." She crooned. "Always the victim, the maggot for the crows."

Something in Robert snapped on listening to those words. The dam of fear could not hold back the forceful waters of resilience anymore. The fire in his eyes was as yet hidden from his sister, as she was not facing him. Now, he turned to give her a good, long stare.