3. Cassie Shepherd

Cassie Shepherd


  • login - Wolfhere
    name - Cassie Shepherd

    Ages ago, I wrote this background for character I never played on another server. With the advent of B9, I redid the ending to better fit with Narfell, and have presented it again. The story is entitled…

    Glimpse

    The sun slid lazily behind a cloud, casting a running shadow upon the field of clover. Several crows took off from the field, their large black wings flapping angrily at a disturbance. One of them cawed in alarm from the willow tree in the lowland. A man was running. He turned to look over his shoulder and tripped, tumbling in the field. He quickly got to his feet, and turned to scamper behind the tree.

    The bleating of the sheep returned. The wind came back, and I could feel the sun again. That’s how I knew it was another glimpse. Glimpses were still. Sometimes they had sound. Sometimes emotion. But they were always still, without any of the wind or background.

    It was the same one I had all month, so I knew the glimpse was important. Glimpses of a pot falling, or a visitor, or playing cards always happened right before. The important ones, the big forks in the road where your life went down one or the other, they happened a long time before.

    I don’t rightfully recall, but Momma told me that once when I was three, I asked what to do if the house was on fire. She said to get out of the house, and go meet at the oak tree in the yard. So I got up from the table, toddled out the door, and Momma asked me with a smile where I was going. Momma told me I turned around and said the house is going to be on fire, and I was going to the oak tree like she said. They all had a good laugh, all but Gramma. Gramma knew. She had glimpses too.

    Ten minutes later our cat Bigby knocked over a candle and set the curtain on fire. Daddy put it out with his coat.

    Glimpses. That’s what Gramma called them. Little peeks into things to come. She said her Gramma had them, and they skipped generations, so now it was my turn. Sometimes it just shows up as being lucky. Knowing where to be, being at the right place at the right time. A few, like me, can see. I asked her once when I was older if that meant we never had a choice about anything, but she said glimpses are made up of all the world’s choices. She also said it’s both a blessing and a curse, but I never understood the curse part until later.

    …and thus begins my story.

    I was born Cassiopeia Shepherd, but even now, everyone just calls me Cassie. I’m the oldest of three, Max and Alex my little brothers. Well, maybe not so little. Max will be a bear of a man some day, just like Dad.

    My family has been sheep herding since even Gramma could remember. It’s a right living. We sold wool and the occasional mutton to the village and local farms, and got food and necessities in return. We have a lot of land and then some, and aside from the shearing, it’s a quiet life, just the way life ought to be.
    I had been sitting on the side of the hill a good ways from the house overlooking the lowlands. I had my staff and my bow. Dad had always insisted on them, but I hadn’t had much occasion to use them until last year. The winter had been very hard that year, and more than one fellow had thought stealing a sheep would fill the belly. One man I practically beat to death with the staff. The other I hit in leg with an arrow. He was lucky cause I was aiming higher.

    Everyone thought they were for wolves, but most folk are ignorant. Unless they’re starving, wolves are cowards, and don’t like a straight up fight. The only problem I really had was with people.

    It had been quiet all morning. The sky was mottled full of clouds, and the breeze was gentle. The glimpses happened on quiet days like that. I had been staring at the lowlands, watching for poachers. Even when I heard them coming up behind me and sat down, I thought it was Max and Alex.

    …but it weren’t.

    I still remember the faces. One was lean and gaunt with a pinched nose, and dull blue eyes. His hair was already starting to go back on his head. His smile was crooked. His clothes where fine though. I recall noticing that at the time.

    The other had a broad face and small dark eyes. His hair was cut short, and there was a small scar near his right eye. His clothes were baggy, and he had something on him that smelled, like perfume.

    Did you ever notice that when you know something bad is going to happen, but it doesn’t right away, that parts of you feel cold? I remember that too.

    They sat down beside me, one on each side. One of them put a hand on my shoulder and told me how pretty I was. To this day I don’t remember which one. The one with the pinched nose started to run his hand through my hair.

    I knew what was happening. I remember panicking and trying to get up, but my ankles were pulled from underneath me, and I went down hard, tasting blood and clover. One of them tried to roll me over and pin me down, and that’s when I really started to fight.

    They say in the village that if you tussle with a sheep shearer, you’ll come up second best. Sheep shearing builds up a lot of strength, and I could even wrestle down Max until last year. I ain’t little neither, and probably go 12 stone.

    For a moment there I rolled back on top of the broad faced man, and hit him with my fist like Dad taught me until I was pulled off by the other. But he tripped and started skidding down the hill when my dress tore, and that gave me time to grab the staff. When the broad faced man tried to sit up, I gave him what-for with it to the head, twice for good measure. He stayed down in the clover. When I turned to face the pinched nosed man who was part way down the hill, he turned and ran.

    I remember picking up the bow. I remember the sun going behind the cloud, the shadow chasing him across the field. I remember the crows flapping away, and the loud caw from the one in the willow.

    It’s a good bow, a recurve with horn laminate from the war. It has a 70 pound draw and shoots an arrow over 50 paces a second. Ain’t but a handful of men folk in our village that can shoot it right.

    When I took aim I watched him turn to look at me, then trip and fall. I knew right when he would get up, how he would turn and make for the willow.

    It was a ridiculous shot. 70 paces and then some on someone getting up to move. But thanks to the glimpse I knew just when to shoot. I adjusted my aim and let loose.

    He got up and ran to the tree, but my arrow was already on it’s way to where he was going to be. The arrow caught him on his right side and went between the ribs, poking out the other side. He never made it to the tree.

    I don’t rightfully recall running to the house. That part of it is forgotten. I remember telling Dad. Alex was in the room, and Momma was out back fetching water. I remember Dad telling Alex to take the horse and go fetch the constable, and telling me I did right, to kill someone who would try to hurt me like that.

    Life ain’t that simple.

    I was scared. I remember being scared, but when the constable got there, I thought it would be OK. The constable was a gruffy old man who went by Gael, and knew dad when they was younger. In a small village like this, knowing someone all your life was just the way it was. Gael talked to me for a long time before he and Dad went to the field to clean things up. I sat in the house for a long time. When they came back, Dad wasn’t smiling, and Gael wasn’t neither.

    A good man we call Lord Chaucee owns most of these lands. The village is required to raise and keep militia for him, which Sir Derron the local knight oversees. The one with the pinched nose turned out to be Derron’s nephew, and the broad faced one was Lord Chaucee’s second son. They were friends it seems, and thought they could take liberties with the locals.

    That was 6 months ago.

    I’m standing in the streets of a city now, so far from home I don’t rightfully know which way to travel to get there. I miss my home. I miss Dad, and Momma, Alex and Max, and wonder if I’ll ever have the simple life I left behind.

    There is a large pass south of the city. I’ve told some folks here about great machines that walked and threw magic, catapults, and warriors, and the city in ruins. Most of them laughed at me. Another prophet of doom looking to get rich they say.

    But I know. Sometimes I hate knowing. But I had this glimpse for the last 3 weeks.

    Something awful is about to happen.


  • reviewed, xp pending