[Dream] You Stupid Dek (Open)

[Taln]

Timestamp: Summer 41st, 511AV The copper haired man lay wearily in the straw behind a stable, hidden by some rickety hay bales. The hot sun beat down in the height of summer, adding more heat to the growing fever. Blood seeped sluggishly from the open wound at his right side, while the injured leg finally slowed and stopped. His right hand had a couple broken fingers to match the couple of broken ribs that made breathing a bit tense. 'Just have to make it until dark and then I can go. Just another five bells or so.' Mosquitoes and biting flies settled on the sores and Taln drifted uneasily into a blazing unconsciousness. "Taln, you big, stupid fool! What part is it that is real? Should I trust that you are just a mindless, ungrateful brute like they say you are..?" Yelled a little black raven hopping angrily around on his arm. It kept flying up at him in short bursts, lunging its sharp beak at the gaping sore on his ribs. For some strange reason, it held a threaded needle and was trying to sew up the wound! The bird with the snapping black eyes continued to scold him as it jabbed at his sores again and again, sewing a trail that looked like a crow's foot prints across his inflamed skin. Abruptly, the tiny, dark bird flew off in a rush of wings, cawing, "Just stay away from me for a while." The air grew more humid and languid, the pungent scents of horses and blood overpowered the sweet, almost delicate fragrance of fresh hay and overturned grass. Several voices murmured nearby, the sounds overlapping as the words all conveyed the same general message. The insults blended together through different voices, memories joined, old and new until it was a deafening clamor. "Idiot" "Dumb, mindless brute" "Fool" "Stupid Dek"

[Taln]

The voices changed to an older woman's tone saying something similar. She put an impatient hand on the eight year old's head and nearly shoved it into the ground. The alphabet was clearly and concisely written in the sand in impeccable penmanship; and it was very very small. "Are you really that much of an idiot?!" Asked the nurse scornfully. The boy squinted hard, trying his best to make out the blurry letters but the effort was futile at best. "No! I just can't -see- the lines Chiet!" he choked out in frustration, getting angry at this unfair treatment. "It's just dumb squiggles in the dirt! That's all it is!" She cuffed him upside the head for mouthing off and shoved him toward a far off corner, effectively dismissing him from any further attempt at literacy. There was no way of knowing that it would be the one and only attempt at something so vitally important. "Go sweep a floor then, you mindless fool! You'll be a good for nothing Dek the rest of your short life." Taln stuck out his tongue at her defiantly and brushed the curls from his eyes. He picked up a broom but instead of using it, he twisted off the bristled end and held it like a talon sword. With youthful imagination, he pretended to be a great hunter, holding back some savage prey with his broomstick/sword. The cleaning tool grew longer and rougher in his hands, giving him multiple splinters. He looked down at the broom he held, but his hands were larger, and the floor seemed much farther down. The memory came on him like whiplash as the crowd of Yasi taunted him. He would be fifteen by dawn and they knew he'd be officially a Dek. And this was their welcoming party for the tallest of them. They murmured the caste in chant, making it sound like an endless epithet burned into his mind for a lifetime. They'd backed him into a wall and he held only a broom in his hands. He hadn't been formally taught any sums, but he knew the group was enough to be called 'many.' The teen was right about that; a dozen could easily fit the term many. Someone in the back passed a quick malicious whisper, "He's practically blind; go for his eyes!" Those kinds of things never ended well.