The Sotry

Chapter One

"Oy there Cedric, 'tis five after four, you've slept in again. GET UP!"

Cedric rolled out of his bed and onto the cold stone floor as his father, Wilum, strode away grumbling about the worthlessness of his youngest son.
"All 'is brothers woke up b'fore the cock crowed. Sleeps too much and dreams all day...........................such a lazy, worthless worker..........................."
On the floor but still tangled in the coarse burlap blankets that he'd slept in, Cedric listened until he heard his father's footsteps fade away. With that, he sprang up, but, entangled as he was, promptly fell back down again. He extricated himself and pulled his clothes on; a green tunic, brown breeches, and worn shincor boots. He ran a hand through his loose brown curls in an attempt to untangle them. Then, in an uncharacteristic effort to be helpful around the house, he tossed his blankets back up on the hand-made oak bed which he shared with one of his six older brothers. Pleased with himself, he tip-toed to the entrance of his bedroom - a crude doorway covered with a linen cloth that served to separate it from the rest of the three room house. Lingering cooking smells from the breakfast of eggs and potato cakes the rest of the family had eaten a half hour ago drifted past his nostrils. He could distantly hear the whooshing and thwacking of his father and brothers harvesting the summer potato crop in the fields, along with the occasional braying of their reluctant horse, an old shaggy mare called. He sighed, feeling a bit regretful for not helping them. He was, on the whole a well meaning boy; it was just that farming potatoes didn't interest him. Cedric dreamed of glory and knights and dragons. One day, he would be a hero. But, until then, he would neglect his household duties every morning to wander off into the forest separating their farms to meet his friend Jack.
This morning as Cedric borrowed a slice of potato bread and a hunk of cheese from the scarce supplies the pantry had to offer, and ran off into the lush shade and soft moss of the forest, his mind no longer lingered on his guilty conscience. Instead, his thoughts floated back to the broken shards of a dream his father had rudely interrupted him from. Cedric couldn't remember all the parts of his dream - and what he remembered didn't make much sense. It was like taking a finely minced potato and trying to make it whole; most of the pieces were there, he just didn't have the knowledge to assemble them.

"Oh well," Cedric thought as he sat down on a large boulder covered in green moss, "all the pieces will eventually fit themselves together."

With that, he tried to dismiss the dream from his mind, but it was to no avail. The whole thing was mildly fishy, in that, the dream had something to do with fish as well as fire and a girl with strange eyes. As Cedric had never seen the sea, and had only heard of fish from his father, who had traveled to the ocean once as a small boy, he was perplexed as to why these strange images were haunting his subconscious. While Cedric sat pondering the shards of his dream and their significance in his dreary life, Jack appeared through the trees, running at a dizzying pace, dodging hanging branches and hurtling roots.
"Cedric!" He cried in desperation, "Cedric! My parents are sending me away!"