Fan Fiction

Taking a Step Back

To truly understand how I became the person I am, you have to understand my past. I was abandoned at an orphanage as an infant but was quickly adopted by a kind couple. Though this may not sound so bad it has a certain effect on any young child that still leads me to not trust people. I grew up on a farm in the outlying fields of Divinity’s Reach where we were living a modest life though it always seemed there was not enough food to eat. I guess my parents were always concerned with a possible drought so they were always trying to prepare for it. The field we owned was on higher ground which made it more difficult to get water to the crops when droughts came. From our field there was a gradual slope leading to the Deane’s land as well as the Terhun’s land. Our house was made with stone walls and flooring with a thatched roof. The inside of the house had only two rooms, a kitchen and a room for all of our beds. We used weaved grass for all the rugs, the furniture was a sturdy but rough wood as it had been created by my father. John was clean shaven with short brown hair and he had a stronger build from all his time working in the field. Though we didn’t have the nicest house, it was always clean as Natalie, my families true daughter, was always cleaning the house. Natalie was one year younger than I, though she was almost as tall as me and she had shorter light brown hair. Sarah, my mother, worked in the kitchen cooking meals or preparing the wheat for sale that we had harvested. Sarah was a slender and fairly tall woman with bony cheeks and brown hair that was slightly messy.

We lived on the most basic of foods, mostly eating breads and vegetables as we were only allowed apples from our orchard if they were damaged. Whenever we collected enough acceptable apples Sarah would take them to Divinity’s Reach to sell them to the locals. With the drought lasting most of the summer, meat had been limited as our family didn’t have the money to purchase it from the market. Of the few neighbors we had, we always looked out for one another when drought or some damage came to one of our crops or orchards. However, our family had never gotten along with the Deane family since I can remember and I didn’t help with our neighbor relations. Throughout the year apples seemingly disappeared from our apple tree until one evening when my father got suspicious and stayed awake during the night watching, hoping to catch the thief. What he saw was Patrick, Greg Deane’s son, sneaking into our orchard taking apples and placing them into a brown sack. My father ran out of the house with a stick and whacked the child once or twice as he ran away. The Deane family was having a rough year with the drought and had lost a lot of their crops which drove them to stealing from neighbors since they thought we would never help them out, which they were right.

After this incident I felt it only fair to get revenge, though I knew my parents would never allow me to steal so I decided to keep it to myself. Normally around lunch I would sneak into the Deane’s orchard and take an apple or two and eat it before sneaking back onto our property. The advantage of this was that I was taking such a small amount they would never know I was even taking anything. I was following the normal routine when all of a sudden my foot slipped into a hole where I ripped it out and heard a loud buzzing noise. Without thinking I ran from the orchard screaming. Just as quickly as I was running I saw Patrick coming at me so I quickly turned from running to my home and began running for the woods. Patrick was nine years old, only about a year older than I but had quite a bit more muscle and was quite a bit taller than I. His face was stern and he had dark brown mopped hair covering his forehead almost to his eyes. Patrick looked quite a bit like his father except for Greg had a long straggly beard as well. Before I was able to get to the woods Patrick tackled me to the ground and I was barely able to breathe as he held my neck asking me what I was doing in their orchard. Right after, Greg grabbed me by the arm and lifted me up as Patrick let go of my neck. Greg asked me, “Why the heck are you on my land?” I answered, “Getting our apples back that you stole.” It must not have been the right answer since he struck me so hard across the head I blacked out. When I woke up I was laying on my bed and Sarah was watching me. When she saw my eyes open she called John in the room. John came in and looked like he wanted to beat me as badly as Greg had done but he just told me, “If you want to get better food cause you aren’t grateful enough to eat ours then go and work for it, if you steal again I will beat you worse than Greg ever could.” I thought about telling him why I did it but then I remembered how well that went with Greg and just shook my head that I understood.

I didn’t have many friends as I was very defensive and insecure when people criticized me. I always told Aidan Terhun, my only friend, that it was not my fault I was unwilling to accept an insult as I had been abandoned by my parents and nobody knew how that felt. Aidan was willing to accept me for the person I was and enjoyed learning from me as he was a year younger than I. Since I didn’t have many friends I spent most of my free time alone in the woods that was near our orchard. I often thought about what my father had said after I was caught stealing, that if I wanted to get better food, I would have to work for it. I was going to show my family that I am just as or more useful than them. I used my free time in the woods creating holes in the ground and laying mesh over the holes hoping to catch a deer or even just a rabbit. Once I completed the trap I checked it every morning hoping for a catch. On the third day I saw the big hole I had dug but nothing was inside, the animal had clawed its way out of the hole and escaped. For a few days I felt discouraged as I sat on a fallen tree looking at the leafy ground with all the insects moving about. After awhile I came up with an idea for a spike trap so I modified the trap with a layer of spiked planks in the hole flooring to cripple the animal so it wouldn’t escape. I moved the layering over the trap and left. I checked it for about a week before I went to the hole and saw a wounded stag unable to move. At this point I ran home and called my dad to kill the stag and bring it back to our house. After this event I knew I would be able to catch anything and would become one of the greatest hunters.