The days were getting longer.
Before the city had walls, the people of Wyseff had giant fields, bursting full of wild daisies and poppies, and lakes that glistened like mirrors. The summer was the longest season, full of muddy adventures and flower crowns.
And then the war happened.
In summer now, the children had school year-round because learning was the only thing they could do. There were no flowers except for the ones that grew through the cracks in the cobblestones. The guards and soldiers brimmed in the streets, doing what they could to protect their city.
The only spot of color was the sky, a big, beautiful, blue patch of freedom. Ferll's only way to relax was to lie on the wall (which few people were permitted to do) and gaze at the sky and imagine what it looked like in Natura, in Northern Rodän, in anywhere except for this walled city.
Ferll was probably claustrophobic.
It didn't help that he could see the grey-and-blue army of Ulrem two miles away from when he perched on the wall. They had their own fort. And they were just there, planning something, and it made Ferll shudder to think how they were taking over city after city and Wyseff was next.
That's why Ferll only looked at the sky, not the old, sad fields around Wyseff that used to be full of joy and love and were now marshes of war.
Ferll looked one last time at the clouds and slipped off the wall onto the ladder. It was difficult to climb up and down the ladder, because there was a fifty-foot drop to one level, and another fifty-foot drop to the ground level of the city. The people were just glittering, gray beetles underneath him. Ferll was all right with heights and had the balance of a cat (and the general approved of his fighting and rank in the army) so he was permitted to climb on the wall sometimes.
Other people weren't supposed to, at all, and nobody was allowed out of the city.
Slowly, steadily. Ferll's hands felt rough from the texture of the wood ladder by the time he was near the bottom. He skipped the last rung and dropped lightly to the dirt ground.
He'd dawdled enough today. It was time to see how his father and brother were doing.
~385 words~
YOU ARE READING
the people who sang like birds
FantasyFerll is having a totally normal day, normal as one could expect with a day full of work and war. The war has dragged on for a year now, with no signs of slowing as this army takes down city after city. He's overworked and worried about when his cit...
