Ninaide Village, Twotoo Kingdom

  As Barza laid in bed, tucked under many layers of warm blankets, she dreamed of adventure.

  To her left, Odan slept soundly, a woodcutter’s son she was promised to wed on the morrow. Sampling one of the few joys of married life before the promised day, Barza now felt even more conflicted about a soon-to-be gone chance to pursue her dreams.

  Stealthily getting up and starting to put on her clothes, the girl started counting mentally what shall she need upon her journey, were she to undertake it.

  It was pretty cold in Ninaide village, the snow being a constant sight during winter and parts of autumn.

  Winter clothes were a necessity, as was a pack of rations - thankfully, almost everyone had jars full of vegetables, and salted meat was also sometimes available.

  Next would be the methods of defense, both from wildlife and highways brigands - thinking quickly, Barza went to the kitchen and took the necessary supplies, including a large meat cleaver and a well-used wood axe.

  Hopefully, it would cost Barza’s family too much anguish to smooth over her wanton acts of thievery that she performed while at her betrothed’s family hut - that and the young man, Odan, being vindicated by the good time they shared.

  After all, there was no privacy for Barza at her own house, where she had three other sisters, all younger than her and always disquietingly-interested in her personal affairs - hopefully the example that she was about to show wouldn’t mess with their chances at acquiring a good groom.

  Going out through the back door, the young woman had quickly shushed a guard dog tied there, of a big build with lots of long, shaggy fur.

  “Don’t you dare bark - who’s a good boy, won’t you like this crunchy?” - expertly dealing with a dog Barza knew since he was a pup, she had to part with a juicy piece of jerky in exchange.

  She strode forward, snow crunching under her feet audibly, as the temperature was low enough to freeze even big rivers.

  Barza looked around, as she passed the various houses of her village, that she spent all of her life at except for a few visits to the nearby town of Iv.

  A potter’s house, a mason’s, a butcher’s, her own house - it was difficult to pass by without saying a words to her own siblings, parents or grandparents, but deep down, Barza knew that were she to dawdle, she would never recoup her courage to attempt something like this again.

  After all, it has been already some summers that were talks about Odan and her getting together, fuelled not just by the feelings of the two, but also by the benefits that the families of both would reap.

  The hearsay was that their Kingdom was busy building a new capital somewhere in the boonies, for one reason or another, and lots of cheap, easily-transported material by the waterways being in a great demand.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  This way why felling wood turned into quite a lucrative process - even if Odan quietly admited that he was more interested in becoming a woodcarver than a woodworker, the difference honestly lost upon Barza.

  She was more of a weaving girl herself, and an adept hand at cooking, cleaning and general housekeeping.

  Barza also knew a few of the fighting moves, where to hit and when to run, especially when the Monsters appeared.

  Her father, a retired guard who moonlighted as an adventurer before losing his hand, had told Barza to be beware the Monsters - wildlife that adapted to rich mana conditions, and had set their sights upon settlements of humans.

  The Ninaide village was located in a middle of nowhere amongst the lands long-settled, and it was at most a bear that didn’t hibernate that presented most danger, but the more one moved towards the frontiers of civilisation, the more active and present Monsters become - the most famed of them being Dragons, who were a breed of lizards, flying or not, that breathed out plumes of death.

  Finally, it then that Barza had soon reached a village wall - more a collection of dug-up earth and sharpened logs.

  In the middle of the night amidst a cold winter, there was no one manning the gates, and the dogs recognised the young woman’s scent - she waved at them, standing on the village border, a final step towards her new life not taken yet.

  Barza had just come of age this summer, and was considered a pretty lass, sporting a boisterous temper and having all the right skills for tending to the house.

  A redhead, with green eyes inherited from her mother and her very noticeable and fiery hair sheen being from her father, Barza cut a very noticeable figure, being considered at the moment the most sought-after girl in the village - and maybe that came with her family’s affluence, and increased influence in the community for the groom’s relatives.

  Looking almost forlornly at the house she left in the middle of the night from, Barza’s heart ached at the thought of leaving Odan behind - she cherished him as a person, and as a man, often dreaming when she was younger about how beautiful their own house would be once they married, as they chased one after another in the meadows.

  But, what Barza wished for the most wasn’t her own personal happiness - she desired to experience a sense of wonder at discovering new places never before seen, to complete feats of indescribable difficulty, or even to slay terrible monsters, helping out the suffering populace.

  Honestly, Barza blamed her father and his tales of adventure - some of them were clearly embellished, and for some of them the narrator frequently got hit on the head with a ladle by her mother for including unnecessary details, especially about how the two of them met.

  And she was about to discard it, for surely, when Barza would be nowhere to be found the next morning, a panic and then a search would ensue, probably led by her own parents on horseback at her chagrin.

  Her sisters might get upset and worried, that isn’t to say what kind of influence it might have upon Odan, who was a too soft for his own good, and his family who were already planning to expand their forestry by next summer.

  But, they would manage, Barza was sure of it. Thinking quickly on the run, the young woman grabbed a burning torch from a wall, put it into the snow, sizzling, and then started writing upon the wall with still-wet soot, literacy being something she considered to be the most difficult skill she ever learned.

  ‘Going out to adventure for the capital, will return next summer. Sorry, and I love all of you. -Barza'

  Satisfied with her work, she finally took both her final step out of her old life, and a first step towards her new one, filled with uncertainty, danger and self-doubt.

  At the very least, Odan might sulk for a summer, and then settle down and choose another girl - after all, he wasn’t a maiden that could wait for her knight, years on end.