Episode 1: Pran’s Story — Swear

We swear on lots of things. On our honor. On our life. Time was, before the Dying, people used to swear on pieces of cloth with stars and stripes on them. I swore I'd never tell anyone what I'm about to tell you now.

But some stories have to be told.

And love has a way of conquering all.

The first time I saw her, I thought she was kind of proud-looking. My father and I were driving the herd up from Saddlers Kot to the Rykdom to trade. And there she was.

Too pretty. Too confident. Too full of her own sense of self-importance. Like everyone from the Rykdom.

"Enjoying the view?" my dad asked me when he saw me staring.

"Just getting my bearings," I replied.

"This world ain't for you, Pran," he told me, coldly. And trotted on ahead on his Plains Pony.

We'd traded with the Rykdom since before I was born. We had ponies. They had seeds. The good kind. The kind that led to actual food crops nearly half the time. The kind that grew intyo plants that didn't drop seeds of their own, of course. So we'd come back. Again and again. For more seeds.

Lately, there'd been a lot fewer seeds. And they wanted a lot more ponies. That was why we only brought a few this time. To negotiate. To talk. To trade.

I didn't get to go into the negotiations, of course.

"This is man's work," my dad would tell me.

So the men gathered round inside a fine, large house and beat their brows and their chests with equal measure.

While outside no one saw what was really going on.

"You're from Horsetown," this girl said to me. It was the same one I'd been staring at. The proud-looking one. She'd come up on me unawares while I was roping the ponies.

"Saddlers Kot, ma'am," I replied. She looked like a Ma'am. I could tell. She didn't have shit on her clothes for one thing.

We talked for a while. Said her name was Yale. I never heard of a Yale before.

But the more I talked with her, the more that pride and arrogance from before melted away. The more I thought she was just like me. Good. Right-minded. Head screwed on the right way.

I never expected to fall in love with her. Or all the stuff that comes with that. We were just two kids. Shooting the shit.

*

When my dad came out of the negotiations in the fine-looking house he wore a look that could sour milk.

"C'mon boy," he exclaimed. "We're leaving."

I went to unrope the ponies that we had brought with us to trade.

"Leave 'em," my dad ordered.

I did as I was told.

Then he said something that threatened to squeeze all the good out of that girl, something that gripped the new found feelings in my heart and pressed them like a vise.

"Be seeing you, Miss Barclay."

"You're Yale Barclay?" I replied. "Daughter of Dives Barclay?"

She smiled, hands in her pockets and all innocent-like, and nodded.

"Tell your father we'll be coming back with the rest," my dad added.

"We're — wait —" I cried, unable to process the feeling that the idea of coming back gave me. "We're coming back?" I finally uttered.

"Day after tomorrow," my father growled, unroping his pony.

Yale moved over towards me and reached deep into the pockets of her black pants. I couldn't believe what they came up with.

Seeds. Hundreds of seeds. Spilling through the cracks in her fingers.

She held them out for me to take.

"A down payment," she offered. She never said on what.

I cupped my hands and she poured them in. I loved the feeling of them. Cool. Small, but bristling with potential. Linked to something eternal. I loved the feeling of her skin too. The smoothness of the back of her hands as they brushed up against the insides of mine.

"You always carry seeds in your pockets?" I managed, at last.

She looked at me and replied coolly, "Seeds are life."

"That they are," I breathed back, smiling.

"Put 'em in your damned belt-pouch and let's go!" my dad screamed.

I crammed as many as I could fit into my pouch, careful not to spill any on the damp ground.

Then I unroped my pony and headed out after my dad.

So that was how it started. The first time with Yale Barclay. A chance brushing of skin against skin. A fleeting, momentary contact. A churning feeling somewhere deep inside of me.

A mild-but-happy panic.

I knew I had to see her again.

We passed the rest of the journey home in silence. I didn't need to ask how the negotiations had gone. We'd left the few ponies we brought to the Rykdom and returned with only a handful of seed. Not enough even to grow a week's crop for one pony. We were coming back to the Rykdom with more ponies. We'd get the rest of the seed then. I felt sure of it.

*

About nightfall, just as we were nearing the edge of Saddlers Kot, my dad turned to me to speak.

Something he'd been musing on the whole journey back. Something he made me swear I would do. So I swore that I would. And when he swore me to secrecy — for family, for honor, for Community — I swore to that too.

Then he trotted on ahead and into the Kot.

And, under my breath, I swore.