From The Caster's Hut

Chapter 1

The sun hung low, spitting a warm orange mist across the horizon and through the towering company of grand trees and hilltops. Pink arches of cloud cast over the skies like steeds dashing over crystal waters as valleys of life began to stir in the fresh morning air. Leafy trees gave birth to calm flocks of singing Chittit birds, sending them forth into the heights to join the prancing clouds. Beauty envied mornings such as this.

Cassel was abuzz with eager, hard-working Taipe, an intelligent race with a focus on tradition, renowned for their admirable building skills and their welcoming nature. Not to mention some of their legendary Orble players.

Under the cover of luscious, emerald trees, fathers waved goodbye to their families as they each left their rustic yet homely wooden shelters to begin another day of graft. Be it in the mines, the farms or in the many small merchants and trades that allowed the village to thrive. One's trade was dictated by the sacred process of Tal Feltah, The Selection.

As fate would have it, today was the day of Selection, an annual and mandatory process for each and every Taipe entering their twelfth Summer. Those too young to have yet been assigned a calling were required to stand witness, observing and learning the rituals so that they would be prepared when their own time came.

The duty of preparing the candidates for their ceremony fell to the mothers, who had been pardoned from their duties especially for this reason. In each of the woodland houses hair was being fashioned and ears cleaned, clothes scrubbed and words rehearsed, all for the sake of perfection. Though most importantly, as means of tending to the Better nature of the Elders, the overseeing council who governed life within Cassel.

However, in one small house, a hut in fact on the borders of the village, under the shelter of a grand Erkwood tree, no such preparation was taking place. Instead the air rang with the grating snores of an elderly couple, happily dreaming in their bed, shuffling occasionally to better their rest upon the fresh mattress of purple straw. Though in a corner of the hut away from the draughty doorframe, lay a soft bed of cushion, the blanket tidily folded atop it.

This small bed belonged to a small boy, a Taipe named Kitt. Now entering his Twelfth Summer, today was to be the day for Kitt to finally have confirmation of his calling, his destiny. A promise such as this made sleep impossible for Kitt, who sought a purpose more than most.

To spare his grandparents the hardship of seeing him off to Selection, Kitt had taken it upon himself to bathe and groom alone, to take his first step towards independence and maturity.

Unlike the other younglings, Kitt had no father to wish him good luck and no mother to ready him for the day ahead. Were it not for his mother's own parents, he would have been left homeless. An orphan.

His grandparents did not have much to their name, even a bath was beyond their affordability, yet even in this Kitt saw the good. With something as simple as a bath at the hut, he would not have the privilege of bathing in the slowly sliding stream, under a beautiful sunrise on a potentially sour day.

This is something he smiled gratefully for as he stared up towards the waking sky, his long, amber red hair dancing with the flow of the crisp waters. With a deep breath, he plunged himself underneath, rubbing at his bulging cheeks and tall, pointed ears, being sure to wipe away any trace of dirt from the floor of the hut.

A bucket of water, heated by the blacksmiths flames, fizzed and bubbled with the remainder of the soap which Kitt had bought with his allowance, three days past. It had not been cheap, relatively speaking, and a small childish voice niggled within his mind.