As the first rays of the sun teased the once starry sky, with the wind and the birds carrying the whispers of morning, my household would long be awaken.
We live in a small house located in the outskirts of Thousand Sword City, a settlement named New Opportunity. Although simple, it is a good life. Father works both as a tailorer, even if most of his work is patching holes and fixing dresses, and farmer, tending his crops with the same warmth he shows when caring for me and Mother.
Father is an elegant man, each of his movements seems as if he was a stream of water, steadily reaching to his goal, gentle and unrelenting.
On the other hand, Mother is a little more rigid, sometimes even distant, with a sturdy body consequent to her years working as a blacksmith and artisan, crafting from swords and arrows to jewellery and accessories. Holding a imposing posture, some might be afraid of her, but Father always said that she was as a resting volcano, "calm and controlled on the outside, extremely passionate and fervent on the inside". That was a fact, her eyes always shine when looking at the forge or craft table, but they always shine brighter when looking at me or Father.
However, as we have lived in peace for more than centuries, most of the demands Mother meets are for farming tools, repairs for the woodsmen or a special necklace that some lovestruck person wanted to give as a surprise to its sweetheart.
As you might have guessed, our house has a workshop annexed to it. Actually, it might be more accurate to say that the workshop has our house, instead. Father's fields extend themselves from behind our house, flooding the nearby scenery with many different colours and aromas, sometimes enough to make one lose itself in time.
What about me, you might be asking, well, I do my best to support my parents in our workshop, taking the opportunity to learn bits and pieces about everything that seems useful, from gathering different ores, what kind of wood to use, to growing herbs and fruits. Well, I dream of becoming an apothecary and learn to concoct different elixirs and pills, so that I may help the sick, but I now this is a distant dream, since one needs funds to buy the cauldrons, books and ingredients in order to practice. Not to mention the deep knowledge on the Newman body and it's diseases.
Nonetheless, in order to make this distant dream not so distant, I decided to learn the ins and outs about the market, how to negotiate and turn one coin, into two, three, four and more. And since I am responsible for delivering and picking up the requests we receive from our village and the surrounds, I offer to carry goods in order to earn some extra coin.
Whenever I have the time, or we have a special client, I walk a few hours in order to reach the Sword Mountains, where the Thousand Swords City rests. The legends says it was dug from white marble through the punches and kicks of the first cultivators, to work as a haven and watchtower for our people, a simbol of strength and hope that faces the South, being bathed in the light of both the rising and the setting sun. I actually don't know how much of it is true, but that's what Preacher Yan always says.
Coincidentally, he is the reason I, and many others, walk this daily pilgrimage. We want to attend the Open Preaching, one of the few opportunities people who can't afford a private teacher have to learn about a myriad of fields. Although the imperial decree passed by the first Thousand Sword Emperor guarantees that every children born has the right of learning to read, to write and basic accounting, the knowledge of deeper fields are a privilege to those that can afford it's price, or are fortunate enough to stumble upon old books or masters willing to teach for free.
Nonetheless, the travel both ways are never boring, my friends from the village, and the friends I made at the city are always ready to liven up the surrounds, by singing, telling different tales or teaching how to play new games and fabricate toys, to pull pranks on the guards and merchants, although they are almost always caught instantly. This serves as a proof of the strict training the guards had in order to maintain public order and the citizens safe from wild beasts and criminals.
Well, that is my routine. A simple life, undeniably, a good life.