It was an early morning, and the sun had just begun to rise when I woke up to the old rooster crowing. He never failed to wake me up, and I was soon out of bed and dressed to do my morning round on the farm.
"Good morning, Dawn, I was just about to wake you up," My father, Albert, said when we ran into each other in the hall.
"Good morning, Father; I believe old Cuckoo was a little faster this morning," I answered with a smile, and my father sighed. "Yes, Old Cuckoo never fails to wake us, not even with his old rusty pipes," I giggled in response, and we left the house to do our rounds at the barn.
The cows mooed when they heard the gate to their stall open, and my father and I began milking them one by one before letting them out into the fields.
We fed the chickens, collected the eggs from the henhouse, and finished the round by throwing hay to the horses.
"It's so nice to enjoy the spring harvest finally," my father said, gesturing to the milk pails and basket filled with eggs. I nodded.
This winter had been brutal on the village, and we had nearly died from starvation. Each year left us scraped after the troopers of the capital came and collected most of the crop in the fall.
Thankfully, after weeks of complaining, the headmaster acknowledged our struggle and delivered supplies from the capital to keep us fed until spring.
We went back inside, and my younger sister, Summer, greeted us in the kitchen and gestured for me to help her prepare the breakfast.
We were a big family, and we lost our mother years back when the auction for the year took place. She was considered past breeding age and suited to be sold and enslaved to the capital.
No one in the village knew what enslavement meant in motion since we would be punished if asked.
We only knew that women in our town of breeding age were demanded to have baby after baby. Choosen ladies from the capital documented their birth while closely watching the mating households to ensure they kept breeding and didn't accidentally have incestuous relations.
"Do we have any plans for the day?" Summer asked while she put the eggs in the boiling water. "Yes, Father and I will prepare the soil in the field to plant the first seeds of the season," I replied,
"That's good. But I think that is a man's work, Dawn." She added, and I frowned, "But we have no other man in the family? It's just father and us six girls. We can't let Father do all the hard work himself," I replied, and Summer soughed.
"In that matter, you are quite alright, sister." I smiled, and we began setting the table with bread, eggs, and a can of fresh milk.
"I am so hungry," Little Snow stated in a dull tone when she entered the kitchen. Snow was the youngest of us siblings and had only been nearly a year when our mother was taken. My other sisters entered the kitchen after her: Daisy, who was twelve; Oakley, who was fourteen; Rain, who would be sixteen; and Summer, who was seventeen.
We were all named after something that symbolized our birth year for our mother. I was the oldest and was born eighteen years ago during the break of dawn in spring, while Summer was birthed on one of the hottest days of the summer.
Oakley was birthed under an oak during spring in the horse's paddock. She was eager to come out, so our mother had no time to spare.
Then came Rain, to whom our mother gave birth on the rainiest fall days.
Daisy's birth year was blossoming and beautiful, and little Snow was born on a cold winter's day while the snow fell heavily outside.
I loved my family deeply and was frightened, knowing that this year would be my first breeding season.
Soon, the ladies from the capital would take me away so I could begin breeding children in another village since women were not allowed to stay in their birth families after eighteen.
"Dawn!" Father called out as he ran into the kitchen.
"Father? What's going on?" I asked and felt my stomach turn when I saw the unsettled look on his face. "They are coming!" He said in a beaten tone, and my eyes widened in fear of my unknown future.