Free The Fire and the Fog by David Alloggia

dreaming
of a tall, black-cloaked man, who brought justice to the lands with
lightning called from his fingertips, and wielded a flaming sword
to do away with wrongdoers.
    He was righteous of course, he protected the
weak and punished the evil, and he cared so much for the little
people. And most of all, he could do magic.
    He was a prince of course, with a large black
stallion, and she rode with him, her arms clenched across his chest
and her face buried in his strong, muscular shoulders as her hair
whipped behind her, and the horse beneath them moved and stretched
like something not of this world, flying swifter than the wind. It
rode into the sky, and then flew from cloud to wispy cloud, its
hooves barely stirring the soft white clouds as they galloped
across the heavens, gazing at the infinite expanse of stars above
them.
    It was a good dream.
     

III
     
    When Erris woke the next morning, she was
sixteen. She opened her eyes and lay staring at the ceiling,
watching as dust motes danced and twirled slowly through the shafts
of morning light that shone through the window. The sunlight cut
sharply through the darkness of the room, and she found herself
wondering why it really mattered.
    A birthday was just a number, after all; an
arbitrary means of measuring a person’s age and maturity without
taking into any consideration the person themselves. Nothing
concrete was gained on a birthday. No life altering lessons were
imparted when you woke, magically one year older. There was no
swift increase in height or chest size or intelligence. A birthday
was simply a number, a number that realistically meant nothing, yet
technically meant everything.
    She knew from her books that some people
never really grew up, never matured, but they were considered
adults because they were older. Why were they allowed to make
decisions and vote, and she wasn’t? She was certainly smart. She
had read more books than almost everyone she knew, and weren’t
books the source of knowledge?
    As she lay motionless in bed, basking in the
warmth of the sun, and the day, Erris knew her logic was sound. A
birthday was not really an important or meaningful occasion. She
wondered, then, why she found herself so excited.
    Still, she thought as she closed her eyes
against the bright morning light, thinking about the uselessness of
birthdays wouldn’t help her at all. What with the trip to the
village later in the day, chores for the morning would be reduced,
and mostly done by her brothers and sisters, so maybe if she just
went back to sleep no-one would notice. It was her birthday after
all. Birthdays might not mean anything in the grand scheme of
things, but if she was allowed to stay abed, they might not be as
silly and useless as she thought. Erris smiled as she rolled over,
curling around and hugging her warm covers to her chest. She was a
butterfly, wrapped in a cocoon of warmth and serenity.
    Unfortunately, the extravagance of having a
few more hours of sleep never manifested itself. No sooner had
Erris rolled over and snuggled herself comfortably into her
blankets than she was hit in the back with a flurried tangle of
arms and legs.
    ‘Erris! Erris! You’re ooooooold!’
    Joahn dragged out the syllables of that last
word, using a piercing pitch that should have been impossible for
human vocal chords to reach, to further draw out the pain of being
called old. As bad as being called old was, being denied sleep was
worse. Erris shrugged and struggled as her youngest sister, now six
years younger but still strong and agile, tried to wrap her arms
and legs around Erris in her covers in a perverse, unwanted sort of
bear-hug.
    As Erris tried to free an arm to swat at the
troublesome rodent clinging rat-like to her back, she heard a noise
in front of her face that made her snap her eyes open immediately,
already glaring at the visage in front of her.
    ‘Erris! Erris! You’re oooold!’ Serah
whispered, her round face taking up all of Erris vision while