Chapter 3: Restless

[If anyone can guess what movie scene this chapter is modeled after, I will give you a button :D]

Akire burst through the doors, her eyes bright. "Mother!" she called. "Guess who's looking for a new assistant?"

Ryda Flickerclaw looked up from the steaming pot of stew she was scooping into three bowls. She was a short, slender woman, with wispy yellow hair, done up in a shawl at the moment, and clear blue eyes that took in her daughter's excited expression. "Is it a gypsy caravan?" she asked. "Because with your hair in that state, that's all you'll amount to."

Akire ran her fingers through her short, brown hair quickly. "Nope," she said. "It's Healer Dawkins."

"Healer Dawkins?" Ryda asked, though she knew full well who he was.

"Yes, Healer Dawkins," Akire replied, coming over to stand by her mother. "He's the one who travels the villages, healing people and giving them medicine. He's the one who told me that I would make a good healer someday, and now here he is in town, looking for an assistant!" She smiled widely, but Ryda's face was stormy.

"Akire, you can't be his assistant. Xerin needs you in the fields, and we can't afford to pay for other workers," she explained, stirring the soup and avoiding her daughter's gaze.

"But, Mother--"

The back door opened, and Xerin entered, stamping the mud off of his boots. "The pumpkins are almost ripe," he announced, and then saw Ryda's face. "Ryda, what is it?" he asked quickly. Akire opened her mouth to speak, but Ryda beat her to it.

"Akire wants to go off and become a Healer. Apparently Dawkins is looking for an apprentice," Ryda said, then sat down at the table and began to spoon soup into her mouth.

"An assistant," Akire muttered. Xerin lowered himself into a chair and addressed his daughter. "Akire, you know that I need you, especially right now. The harvest season will be here in a week or so, and I don't have anyone besides Ryda to help me."

Akire sat down, her face as chaotic as Ryda's. "You could ask Cadahn," she suggested.

"We have no way to pay him back. We need all our crops for either money or provisions for the winter," Xerin said, sipping the soup off of his spoon.

"Dad, I am twenty-four years old now. You can't keep me here forever! Athan is already married and has a child!"

Ryda looked up sharply, "So what you're saying is you want to go off and get married, do you?"

"No," said Akire loudly. "The men in this village, and probably on this whole planet, are stupid! None of the people I've met understand me," she sulked.

"Well, the Ancestors aren't going to send you a husband anytime soon, and one isn't just going to come and rescue you*, Ryda retorted.

"Then I'll just die unmarried!" Akire yelled, standing from her chair. "And the Flickerclaw line will end with me! Is that what you want?!"

Dead silence.

"I'm going outside," Akire said quietly. She stalked off to the back door, slamming it and leaving her stunned family, her dreams, and an untouched bowl of soup behind.

*hee hee hee hee remember that line later on [hint hint]