Legends of Belariath

Varisanna

Life in the small clan was great if you were born into the regular castes, an alliance with one of the city’s leading to a great deal of wealth for the rural outcasts, an abundance of food for the slow seasons and money to be had during the better seasons. The warriors were strong because of this to leaving the city quite safe from outsiders, the problem was this was only true if you were of the regular castes, for a pataj in this small town there was no greater nightmare. No town meant no central law so there was any uniformity in how they were to be treated, the flow of food and coin made the sithian grow fat and lazy, and the soldiers grew agitated as few had the power to give them a challenge. All these things turned on the pataj of this clan, and this was the life Varisanna grew up in.

She grew to love the feel of grim and dirt against her coils that was when she was safe, out tending to the fences on the border, or tending to some of the attempts at gardens that had been made in the region. It was when she felt either wood or steel below her that the sithian would remember the meaning of fear. The wood was the panels of a house, something only a higher class could own, a pataj being asked to enter one of these houses rarely led to the pataj having something to talk about when they were dragged back out. The steel was for a pataj who tried to talk too much, to claim they did not want to be given a gift, or to ask questions of the higher classes, even a elongated conversation with another pataj would lead to be being place within the steel forced to suffer for ones wicked ways.

Time was not the ally of the clans pataj either, as it progressed the towns aid came less and less, soon the fattened lazy slobs grew restless and the clan began to move about with no clear path simply finding food and settling down until they destroyed it too lazy to go back to the old ways now. The steel would be left behind too now, the pataj that spoke to much simply disappeared. The thinning numbers did not slow the mistreatment of the pataj down either instead making the encounters happen more regularly as there were fewer to pass the burden around too. The final straw would be when another sithian the only one varisanna had grown close to in this little clan was executed right in front of her eyes. It caused something inside her to snap as she simply fled the clan seeking a better life out in the world beyond their borders.

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