2 Those early years

Life began and slowly I became more aware of the emotions around me. Loved by my mother and doted on by my father, the rest of the village was wary of me eyeing me suspiciously. 

The children didn't like me much.  They too watched me with suspicion and fear. The whispers and the name calling began as I knew it would. Things were thrown at me. I was tripped up, pushed over. The bullying happened most days. I would run to the smithy and hide behind my dad clutching his strong leg. He would wrap his huge hand around my head and look down at his dirty scrap of girlhood with a pained smile.

"How can I keep you safe little one if by going outside you invoke trouble." Tears shone in his eyes but he knew he was powerless.

I was beaten and kicked by kids much older and stronger than me. It was an unfair fight. I was still no more than a toddler but already I saw the brutality of my kind. As yet, I hadn't learned the art of fighting back. I could hear their emotions and was afraid of the vehemence towards me.

As I grew I learned my greatest friends were the animals around. I was accepted by them and felt at ease with them. Listening to their thoughts I understood their view on life; Take each day as it comes. The sun rises, the sun sets and life happens in between.

Slowly, I pulled away from the village children and ran and played in the fields. I met rabbits and sheep and horses and ducks, chickens and snakes, all with their own agenda. I respected that and by the age of five, I understood the world in ways other children hadn't a grasp of. 

A voice in my head accompanied me and he talked as I walked. We talked of people and pain, fear and anger. He showed me how this would or would not play out in the natural world. He showed me insights into animals lives and talked of the power of the elements.

"The sun rises each morning and sets each evening. Days are sometimes longer, sometimes shorter but they are just days and what we experience during those days are just that, experiences."

It was around this time my mother died. She succumbed to a coughing disease which had taken so many in the village. She started vomiting blood and slowly faded away. My father, being the man he was, needed a woman to run the house so, as was custom, took in a widow and her children. 

She quickly established herself and placed her children ahead of me.

I was still his little Niao but he was rarely home to comfort me. 

The smithy was producing armory for the local manor and his brief was large. He was unaware his Niao was being pushed out, but I was happy as long as there was food by the hearth and Aunties to hide with, when my step mother wanted to beat me. 

I slept in the wood shed and spent the day in the smithy. Watching. Learning. A part of me knew this was important, so I watched and did the chores I was allowed to do. My hands were rough and blistered, my skin covered in scrapes and cuts. My face showed signs of being too close to the fire. I was not the demure girl I was expected to be.

Time past this way and by the time I was nine years of age, I had learned how to operate the bellows, maintain a fire and make a block of metal ready for hammering. I was strong both physically and mentally. The other kids couldn't bully me in the ways they had,  so it was reduced to name calling and ridicule.

My step mother all to quickly tired of my lack of conforming to expectations, even if she beat me black and blue. I was always dirty from the forge and becoming stronger each day. She was all too aware one day I would fail to submit to her lashings and turn on her. She was frightened by me and seeing me as no more than an inconvenience, an embarrassment, a burden to the house she started talking to my father about marrying me off.

As is the custom, the family of the bride pays to get her married off. Usually it's an alliance between two families for mutual profit but in this case my step mother was not willing to spend any money on me and couldn't face the embarrassing process of "showing me to prospective suitors". Her decision to send me to work in a boarding house seemed both logical and speedy.

She contacted a large establishment in the next town where the lady of the house was always willing to take on strong girls for the cleaning and running around. 

I was sold to the lady. 

My step mother was delighted. 

My father was spun a story of a family out of town and I was to be collected. 

Tomorrow. 

No! 

This would not be happening!

I decided to leave.

So on a night not dissimilar to that on which I had been born, I gathered together what few belongings I had and headed towards the smithy. There, I took a knife I had made and a rectangular block of metal I had beaten and stepped out of the village.

Turning around, I looked at it one more time. I would never be back but no-one would notice, only general relief that the weird child had finally gone and they could get back to their normal lives.

I hitched my bundle over my shoulder and walked away into the woods I had come to know so well.