Dreams Come True

A jarring shake rattles me out of a peaceful sleep.

"Come on Rodi! Its time to be up and out to the fields!"

"Fuck..." Trying to look around in the predawn grey made darker by the lack of light in the main room. "Wha. Ah damn, can't I sleep in?" I mutter as I grope in the dark for my boot wraps, sitting up and winding them around my feet slowly in the dark.

"Watch your mouth boy, your mother would have your hide for those curses," He laughs softly and pats my shoulder. "Your old enough to soon have your own field Rodi, and I'm proud of you, you work almost as much as me!" "You just need to try keeping your stalks alive!"

Sighing softly I tuck the wraps in and stand up, my eyes slowly adjusting, able now to make out my father standing a step away. His tanned, weathered face grinning. "Happy Name Day son!"

...Wha?

"You mean you STILL woke me up before the sun to work today of all days?!" I whisper viscously. ""Ha, my boy, the fields wait for no one and respect us only if we respect them." He chuckles and claps his hand to my shoulder. "We can celebrate with your mother later."

Grumbling good softly about having to work today, I followed him out the curtain over the entrance as we walk together out onto the dirt path, past our neighbors wimple wood huts. A brief pause causes my dad to look back at me as I turned for a moment to see if Sarah was out yet to care for the small gardens around the small chapel.

"Mhh, you're about that age now, maybe you'd appreciate it if your mother and I spoke to old Jeof about a match with his Sarah?" Red faced I hurry a step to pass my father on the track, "No, but maybe." "Could you talk to him about me learning to hunt?"

A pause and then his steps move to catch me, grabbing my shoulder gently and turning me to face him. "We are farmers Rodrick" "It is gods grace that we strive at our calling to better the world." A moment where I meet his gaze and look away. "I know, my boy. I know. It doesn't seem glamorous, or as important as a knights posting or the work of a soldier." "But trust me son. Please. A life of combat can kill the soul even if it doesnt kill the body. Try..Try and learn to be happy with the role God has already given you." "I don't Want to be a knight or soldier, pa. I just want.. More than to wake up each day to work in the dirt and earth. It's just hunting!" I know in my heart that I'm not being completely honest, with him or myself. But, still. There has to be MORE. More to life, more to me! Than just a farmer. Just a man who grubs in the dirt, sun in to sun down.

*sighs*

"Rodrick. Son." "I love you boy, so does your ma. We want you to be happy, and to be safe. To find fulfillment in the grace God has provided." "Let those thoughts go for now. We all go through this when young. We want to be different from the world we are familiar with it." "Come," With a forced grin. "Lets get to work for now."

Slumping my shoulder in resignation we trudge past the chapel and through the gate, my father waving to last nights watchman. To the fields. The dirt. The weeds. The sore muscles and aching back. Some grace this is.

-----

Heya!

Glancing up and cursing loudly as sweat slides down my face into my eyes.

A choking laugh as I try to wipe my hands then my face to see. A young woman in a priest gray robe, her brown hair in a long braid over one shoulder, covering a smile and her laugh with one had then other filled with a basket handle.

"Oh Rodi! Your Face!" Laughing happily she gives up trying to stifle that wonderful sound. "You look," She pauses repressed mirth audible in her tone "ridiculous!" My dad pauses now and looks up and burst out with his own guffaw. "Aye, that he does lass. Well he's done almost enough work for a good farmer, since I can't imagen you'd come down to the fields and skip your own work just to bring my boy a meal," He pauses looking sideways at her, laughing again as she looks away with a light blush "Take the rascal off my hands, he's just gonna cause me more work cleanin up after im while he stares at you." I can feel my own face heating up, and I know its not due to the heat of the sun.

With a grumbled thanks to my father I rush to stow my tools in the small shed next the field. Sarah waiting by the dirt road back to town smiling as rush up the small bank to walk next to her. She smiles and we start the short walk back to town.

"Here Rodi, you look like you need this!" Sarah smiles as she hands my a strip of cloth. "Thanks" I muttered taking it and trying to wipe the dirt and sweat off my face. "Did you bring food?" I glance down at the basket in her other hand as we walk. "I might have brought a small snack for someone for his birthday!" She laughs and its one of the most pleasant things I've ever heard. With a grin, "Is that what they call it among the priests in their fancy chapels?" With a dramatic wave, "We lowly farmers have Name Days!"

..

She glances over at me and seemed a bit startled, and I felt badly for a second for teasing her after she came out to bring me something. Then with a slightly odd smile "Oh? Then you don't want this Honey bread?" "Also I'll have you know, I know a lot of things! Not just about what my dad has taught me about being a priest!" She stops ahead of me slightly and then pauses and looks back blessing me with a gentle smile. "Now lets have a snack!"

We sit in the grass to one side of the road, laughing as we talk about our struggles, me with the fields and how I can't seem to keep the stalks alive to produce the grains we normally eat, and her about having to learn to read. "Well I'd trade you Sarah. I'd trade almost anyone!" Laughing gently she hands me a small roll. "Well I wouldn't! I've never had to do field work outside the chapel herb garden!" Grimacing, "yeah, its rough and honestly.. I want something else." With a nod and her eyes she motions me to speak up. "I don't want to farm Sarah. I asked my father if he might speak to Jeof about me being taught to hunt instead." With a sigh I continue, "He gave me the same old talk about how farming is our given grace and how we should be happy with it." Louder now and with more bitterness than I meant, "I want a choice! I want to be more than a man shackled to a field of dirt and weeds!"

"Well, if you dads words are anything to go by..." "You be lucky to have the weeds!" She burst out laughing. Jerking my head down, "Yeah, laugh it up. but this is my dream!"

"I'm sorry Rodi, I know. I believe in you." she says reaching out to touch my hand.

I know my face is red now, and its not from the sun again.

"Now lets get back" "With a smile of my own now, I stand up and reach out to offer her a hand. "Of course fine lady, can I escort you?" I tease gently. "With a grin of her own she takes my help to stand and I carry the now empty basket for her as we tread back towards town, the sun setting slowly behind us.

----

I saw her home to the chapel she shares with her father, I made my home slowly walking through the village. Our neighbors shouting greetings as I pass them on their way home from the fields and other places. This. This can't be my life. I cant wake up like them, work in the fields, or grain press, or the chop wood all day, only to come home and repeat it all again. I can't.

But.. What choice do I have? The priests tells us our grace. and unless there's some reason you aren't fit to follow your families way. This is it.

Sighing I make my way home, down the hard packed dirt path. To stand in front of the tiny two roof wood hut.

Pushing the woven reed curtain aside I walk in to heat of the small fire place under the only window, its own reed curtain open to let the smoke out.

And stop.

My parents are sitting on mats near the fire, but so is Jeof.

Normally he doesn't visit a house unless there's a crime or an illness. I stop my mind blanking. My parents can't be sick.. Mother was fine yesterday, and I was with dad all morning and he's fitter than a horse! So then..

My heart sinks and I stumble slightly as I step fulling into the house. "I.." I can't form a complete sentence, my thoughts roving back to my talk with my father and Sarah. Maybe someone thought I was speaking against the grace of God, or that I was refusing to fulfill it...

In s stern voice that brought me back to my time sitting at a desk before him as he lectured, "It is your 14th Name Day today Rodrick. And your parents tell me.."

I clench my jaw, waiting for the decree of guilt and the sure beating to follow.

"That you wish a matching with Sarah!" He finishes, his face like stone.

"I.. But.." "I hand't."

My father falls over laughing loudly as my mother turns her face, biting her lip.

Joef stares straight into my eyes for a moment and then gives up, cracks forming in that icy gaze as he smiles and laughs gently. "A possible talk for another time and more serious consideration boy." "Come, sit!" He pats the mat next to him. Stumbling and my face burning, my eyes still watering from my panic. I sit.

"So then. The reason for my visit Rodi." Jeof pauses while my father manages to wheeze and sit up again and my mother smiles faintly, patting him on the back while staring at me gently. "Your father tells me you're completely un fit to farm." With a serious gaze he drops this stone into the silence, and I hear a sharp hiss from my mother, her smile gone and a glare that would have lit me ablaze now focus on my father. "I.. uh.. try to excel at the grace I have been give Sir." I stutter quietly.

"Mh, a wise and virtuous effort young man." "Sadly, some of us are not meant to follow the path of our parents Rodi." I'm trying to meet his serious gaze, but I keep glancing at my parents, my mothers gaze still locked around my fathers neck, and his face a mask of twitches as if he's been bitten.

"I know Sir. I remember your lessons." I grind out between my confusion at my fathers increasingly pained look and the serious gaze of Jeof. "I want to do well, but I can't seem to keep the stalks alive to make the grains" "I am truly sorry"

Jeof finally smiles softly and grabs my shoulder as I face him. "There is no shame in honest effort Rodi. Not everyone can do everything, but most graces run in families. Nothing is wrong though if yours is not the same as your fathers." "Now my boy, I know it must come as a harsh shock to know you this but I must tell you. Your father had hoped you would do well and earn a field of your own to tend. But.." He pauses his tone and eyes saddened. "I can not grant you a field Rodrick." "Not when you can not use it for the grace of humanity."

Worried now I finally realize I might still be in trouble. "But... Sir. What can I do? I can't.." I shudder "I can't be without a grace.. How will I live? Where will I live?" I glance at my parents, panic increasingly evident on my face. I grab Jeofs hand tightly. "Please!" "Let me keep trying to help my father!"

Gripping my hand gently he sighs shaking his head. "No Rodi. I can't. Your father has his grace. Should your efforts hinder him further it might harm our villages ability to eat." Nodding his head and patting my hand. "That's not to say you are graceless Rodi. Your father and I spoke at great length this afternoon, and he reminded me of your childhood when you would run streaking through the village like a hound and how you used to be so good at your lessons that you didn't even need to focus in my lectures." Here he pauses to give me wry look, to which I glanced down as if to avoid that small reproach. "Now in two days time when I go the garrison fort you'll be going with me to meet the commander. There I will ask that he agree to have you tudor under the forts hunters."

I hear again the angry death like hiss from my mother and what sounds like a whimper. but my eyes are glued to Jeofs face. "Re-Really?" I whisper breathlessly. "Yes Rodi. Your father suggested it actually. Saying that while you might not be able to tend a field to provide food for humanity, maybe your grace revolves around production in a different way." His smile gone now "No mistake my boy. This isn't an easy path or grace to learn and if you fail at this you really will be graceless, so if ever you've given your all to a task for God and humanity this should be it."

" I will!" "I will Sir!" I almost shout. He smiles gently and pats my hand. Very good then. Now I best leave before your father expires.

He stands up and I walk him to the door, almost lost a cloud of happiness.

Looking back to my parents a grin stretched across my face.

I pause.

My mother, this small gentle woman. I can see the side of her jaw clench tight and grinding, and her other hand behind my fathers back where she had helped him sit up before, still there, her arm taunt as if gripping something with all her strength. My father sitting like a statue unmoving, his face red, his eyes wide and watering.

with a heavy sigh my mother stands suddenly and my father lets out a cry that reminds me of an injured dog. "You." a tone so cold I feel winter might snuff out the small hearth fire "will be sleeping outside. Dear" She stomps off to the only bedroom of house, separated by a second woven curtain.

My father now crying silently, still sitting. "Happy" "Name" "Day" "Rodi" pained words as he falls over, I can see his back, his shift is bunched up tightly where I think my mothers hand was...It looks...like there's holes there.. from finger nails?