Two Videos and a Story

Video is a little TOO quiet... but I hope you enjoy. 

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Rusdan Orinian, harsh King of Coriaer, preferred Darlandan slaves, as did his father before him. “Why should our people mine, or build, or risk their lives in the Tharsald when Darlandans can be used for those purposes?”

His son, Kin Lash Orinian, couldn’t have agreed more. “They are worthless... are they not, father?”

The king replied, “Less than worthless, if that can be.” 

Kin Lash was eight years old.

Such was the manner in which Kin Lash Orinian was trained from birth to manhood.

~~

 Sharizeen Cor walked the woods of the Darlandan countryside barefoot on an early summer day, humming to herself and taking in the scents of the morning.  The sun warmed the hills she so often enjoyed.  The wind shifted her sandy hair across her face.  She tucked it back behind one ear.

Sarie, as her father used to lovingly call her, was seven years old. 

She heard a twig snap in the brush about a stone’s throw away. She was instantly alert. It was a good thing too. A rock the size of her palm flew through the air and swished past her ear. She’d moved aside just in time. Had she not, it would have drawn blood.

"Boujh!" She shouted and touched a small scar on her brow from a similar instance in the past then narrowed her gaze determinedly on the place she had heard the snap. Boujh Cor poked his head up from the brush with an equally focused look.  Raising a large stick aloft he quickly crossed the distance between them and dove, swinging his would-be club at Sarie with what any onlooker would have taken for lethal intent.  He missed by an inch as she leapt up and over him, dodging the stick and pushing his face down into the loamy soil beneath the grass in the process. Boujh landed in a heap, and Sarie landed—almost gracefully—on her feet, laughing.

Boujh spun to his feet, wiped his face and took Sarie by the hands. He swung her up to sit on his shoulders, saying, “That’s my girl!” She kept a hold of one hand as Boujh started walking.

Wiping at the slightest hint of a tear, he said. “Father would be proud.”

“You really think so, Boujh?” she asked, leaning over his head and meeting his eyes upside down.

Boujh was fourteen and her only family. “Yeah. I do.” he said with half a smile and held her hand a little tighter. “Keep that up and no one’ll ever be able to hurt you.”

Such was the manner in which Sharizeen 'Sarie' Cor was trained from the year of her father’s death until her brother’s.

To Be Continued...