Little Boy Of The Mountain B

--B--

It was noon, a day of low clouds in Autumn - the moon would be waxing nearly full that night.

Upon the heights below the cliffs the boy embraced his father, who had been telling him of his thoughts about the profitability of cheese-making, and of his plans to build a new storage shed. The lad ran down the steep path from the fields, his hair streaming behind him, and descended to the house, which was built of the fine pine wood of the mountains - just big enough for the three of them.

Their home had a square floor plan, with it's door to the north and big bay windows looking south. It was divided into two partitions, the living and cooking area on the west, and the sleeping area on the east. The boy slept in a cot against the north wall in a smaller 'room' delineated by a curtain.

Life was not complicated, but for the little boy it was never dreary. He was clever, and knew how to occupy himself. His parents loved him dearly, but it must be said that they thought him somewhat peculiar. He did not really take after either of his parents in looks or physique. He remained rather small and lithe for his age, and his hair had traces of copper at the ends. His eyes were hazel, or rather, a strange green-tinged amber, which did not reflect the bright blue eyes of his mothers' people or the dark brown of his fathers' folk. Furthermore, the child had begun to speak at an unusually early age, and his mother also noticed his hands were strangely wrinkled even in early youth, as though they were the hands of an older person. Besides this (only noticeable on close examination) he was a beautiful child, and well-mannered, and healthy. He showed love and respect to his parents, but he was never clingy. He did not tend towards tantrums and other unruly behaviour, and seemed an able judge of danger - being perhaps more cautious in his adventuring and climbing than one might expect of a child of the mountains. And thus his parents trusted him to gallivant in the hills and at the feet of the cliffs behind their abode.

In his interests and ambitions too, he was wayward, being ever prone to flights of fancy and extended daydreams. Almost every sentence, his father complained, began with...

"Imagine..."

His parents worried a little, what the future would bring for him. He struggled somewhat with some of the practical mundanities of running the farm and even of the simplest things. There were unusual dichotomies in his aptitudes: he was good at carving and toolwork, and could build finely crafted wooden toys, and sketched well on parchment, but he was clumsy at certain simple tasks, such as opening and closing containers, and often spilled his drinking cup as though he was a drunkard at the tavern. He could throw and catch a ball well, but in laying something down on a shelf, would often miss-judge the movement or distance and see the item crash to the floor. His mother said that the world was not quite the right size for him, or that he must have been bigger in a past life. His mother believed in past lives whilest his father was skeptical of such things. The boy did not concern himself greatly with these notions, for his life had really only just begun. Of his occasional clumsiness, it might be said that the boy was obstinately and selectively lazy in certain areas of daily activity, even down to mundane spatial awareness, but not in others. Indeed he struggled with routine... unless it were his own. He was gently wilful. He was shabby with completing his chores, and liked to stay up late, loving the quiet nights of stars and bright moonlight. He adored sitting by the fire into the tired evenings listening to his parents' talk. And one tale was never enough before bed.

There were no schools in those days (except for the secret and hidden schools of wizards, but this boy and his family knew nothing of such things), and as such he learned what he knew from his parents, and from his few friends and what he saw of their lives. He was unlettered, for in the olden days, the letters had not yet got out and about.

...

And?