In the Forests of New France
You come to consciousness in a clearing. The woods around you are thick, dark, foreboding. It's nearing evening, and you search your mind for any hint as to where you might have been, how you might have gotten here. The failing light makes it a bit difficult to see, and your vision was never perfect anyway, but you are quite certain that this is unfamiliar ground. Frightened, sweat runs freely down the back of your neck. In a nervous gesture, you smooth the rather wavy dark hair back from your forehead, taking a deep breath.
It doesn't help. You're still lost, and as you become more and more aware of yourself, you realize that you are more than a bit worse for the wear. Your shirt is torn, your skin covered in scratches you can only assume came from the underbrush of the forest. The distant, still-clear voice of a wolf sends another sharp pang of fear through your limbs, but you know the shiver comes partly also from the cold wind that somehow reaches even between the trees, reminding you that night is falling. If only you knew how to get home...
The most recent memory you can dredge up suggests to you that you've been gone for the entirety of the day, if you've not been in a state of incomprehension for longer. Last you remember, it was mid-morning. Severin had announced that he was riding into the city, and you had begged him to leave the horse at home. She was a plow animal anyway, unlikely to be much of a mount. You knew he rode the old mare from time to time anyway, but the coarsely built little bay was not the sort of horse one rode into the city. He had smiled, turning toward you condescendingly, and told you that he did not expect you to understand. He, after all, had been the one to seek out tutors and contact with the outside world. Then he delivered his final blow, before turning on his heel and leaving the house.
"Etienne, my brother! You will never be anything more than you are, but some of us have aspirations that cannot be fulfilled by walking calmly behind the plow!"
You had burst out the door a few minutes after he left, hoping to intercept him, but he was already farther down the road than you cared to run. In anger, you had turned toward the fields and the forest that lie beyond. After that, you remember nothing clearly until now, huddled in a clearing, scratched and terrified. You long for a rest, as it feels like you've been running for far too long, but the sounds of the woodland are still to loud, too near, for you to really relax. But fatigue still drags on your limbs, on your mind, on your senses themselves...
It doesn't help. You're still lost, and as you become more and more aware of yourself, you realize that you are more than a bit worse for the wear. Your shirt is torn, your skin covered in scratches you can only assume came from the underbrush of the forest. The distant, still-clear voice of a wolf sends another sharp pang of fear through your limbs, but you know the shiver comes partly also from the cold wind that somehow reaches even between the trees, reminding you that night is falling. If only you knew how to get home...
The most recent memory you can dredge up suggests to you that you've been gone for the entirety of the day, if you've not been in a state of incomprehension for longer. Last you remember, it was mid-morning. Severin had announced that he was riding into the city, and you had begged him to leave the horse at home. She was a plow animal anyway, unlikely to be much of a mount. You knew he rode the old mare from time to time anyway, but the coarsely built little bay was not the sort of horse one rode into the city. He had smiled, turning toward you condescendingly, and told you that he did not expect you to understand. He, after all, had been the one to seek out tutors and contact with the outside world. Then he delivered his final blow, before turning on his heel and leaving the house.
"Etienne, my brother! You will never be anything more than you are, but some of us have aspirations that cannot be fulfilled by walking calmly behind the plow!"
You had burst out the door a few minutes after he left, hoping to intercept him, but he was already farther down the road than you cared to run. In anger, you had turned toward the fields and the forest that lie beyond. After that, you remember nothing clearly until now, huddled in a clearing, scratched and terrified. You long for a rest, as it feels like you've been running for far too long, but the sounds of the woodland are still to loud, too near, for you to really relax. But fatigue still drags on your limbs, on your mind, on your senses themselves...