My First NaNoWriMo

Chapter One: Mali

I walk through the village of Gi're to my home village of Ranus, better known as Ground Zero. Our village is the furthest from Torlin and the capital, the least protected and the first place slavers come and bandits and raiders and anything bad you can think of. But it's home, no matter how crappy it may seem. It's where my best friend Tor is and my family of eleven lives. I don't think they'd notice if I never came home since I am the youngest of nine but I always come home.

As I leave Gi're I pull my shawl around my shoulders and head tighter as the wind tries to tear it from my grip. I put the basket over my arm and use both hands to hold it as the wind tears through my clothes and chills me to the bone as if they aren't there at all. It's nearing winter and Ranus is also the furthest from the Fire of Life, the source of all the heat in our lands. Those in Torlin never experience winter. Torrin does but nowhere near as extreme as Torwin and Torzin do.

Comes with being upper-class I suppose.

I hurry along the road towards home. It'll be another half hour before I reach home and I'm already freezing. Since my head is ducked against the wind I don't notice the three men approaching me from the other way. I barely avoid walking into one of them. I dodge away and mutter an apology and continue on my way but one grabs my arm and pulls me back towards him.

"Is that how you apologize for running into my friend here?" The man says with a taunting smile.

"I'm sorry for running into you sir, can I go? I'm needed at home," I reply with a sigh in my head.

"I don't think she means what she's saying, what do you think boys?" He asks his companions.

"No, maybe we should make her," the other replies with a tone that I know means only one thing.

I pull away sharply and run. I'm a fast runner, I've been running my entire life. It's the only way to survive as a woman out here in the Land of the Damned. I can barely hear them coming after me but they quickly lose interest because it's too much work for not much of an award.

I slow to walk again and make sure to keep an eye out for other people. I don't need a repeat of that. It's so damn cold. I finally make it to Ranus and I loosen slightly, ever so slightly.

I tense again when a man appears from the shadows but I loosen again when I recognize the cowled man as not a man, but my best friend who is two years older than me, Tor. "You scared me Tor," I greet him.

"Why?"

"You appeared out of nowhere. Why are you out here? It's freezing!"

"I was waiting for you, I was worried. I don't like you going out alone. You're a pretty thing and no one would hesitate to..." Tor trails off. It doesn't need to be said, everyone knows exactly what everyone with a penis around here would want to do to me, probably the prettiest girl in town.

"Well, I can take care of myself," I reply.

"Says the bruise on your arm, did someone assaulted you?"

"He grabbed me but I got away before he did anything more than touch my arm. I've been doing this for years," I reply as I head to my house.

Tor matches my paces and says, "Tomorrow's the Tests."

"They're just damn formalities," I reply. "There's no way they'll take any of us. They hate Zeros. Firsts aren't going to let Zeros taint their ranks."

"Just crush my dreams some more why don't you?" Tor says with a playful glare. He's heard this all before and he knows I'm not changing my opinion on these Tests.

"You know it just as much as I do," I reply as we reach my house. "Don't do it Tor, you could die and it would be for nothing. You have much more to do with your life than die in a pointless Test."