Jilsea smiled. She loved selling fish. This was only her second time to market to sell, but she felt that she was a good sale-girl. Selling got her out of the house, where her mother said a proper girl would always be to wait on her father and brothers, as well as the husband she would someday marry, when he came along. Jilsea protested this. She wanted to travel, to see the world, and all that was in it. But this mattered little to her parents. She thought that it wasn't fair that Ceavar and Ithamar got to go out fishing. True, it was hard work, but they was out in the sun, and this made it possible for them to travel around a bit, and meet lots of people, though most were just other fishers. With wavy hair the color of Ithamar's, reaching her mid back, and the same green eyes, no one could mistake them for siblings. True, she didn't see herself as anything special, with ordinate features, and a strong, yet rail-like, but she'd always been taught that outer beauty was only skin deep, but that true beauty came from within. That didn't help her much, not when she saw all the girls with the curvy figures, with men flocking to them left and right. Her green eyes and wavy hair was her appeal, and she couldn't complain too much. After all, the last time she'd been at market, shopping for her mother, she'd attracted the attention of a few young men herself.

"Jilsea!" her mother barked. Jilsea's head snapped up, at her mother's order. She looked up to see her father's partner's wife, Grisine, glaring at her angrily. "What is the meaning of this?? I bring you to market to sell, not to stand around and daydream. Grisine tells me that just let three customers walk by without so much as announcing that we've wares to sell. Get with it, or you won't be back!!" Grimsine, as Jilsea secretly called her, smirked at the young woman, as she blushed scarlet as passerbys stared at her. I wasn't cut out for this, or for house-keeping. I'm a mess. What am I going to do?? If I mess up anymore, I'll be confined to the house until the day I marry, if that ever happens. She wasn't sure what to do. She felt like a failure quite often, and, without Ithamar there to convince her otherwise, she might have been just that. She couldn't wait to see him now. He was teaching her how to throw a javelin, and how to handle a sword and knife. She smiled when she thought about how he'd learned.

Blue Ridge Hold had been around forever, as far back as anyone who lived there could remember. And they had always been a sea-town, with fishermen, ship-builders and famous captains, and some of the best lobsters around. They were known for their unique, seaworthy yet fashionable water crafts. No one here knew how to fight, how to use weapons. Just about everyone had been born here, and most would live their lives here, giving birth to children, watching them grow and have their own families, and then they would pass on to the other world from here. There were a few strangers, whom all of the children were taught to stay away from. Just about everyone obeyed this rule . . . everyone except Ithamar. The lad, at six foot three inches, was a giant, and feared no one. He'd secretly visited a retired soldier now for four years, and he'd mastered the javelin, and had been taking Jilsea with him now for six months. He knew of her desire to travel, to be someone besides a wife and mother. Yes, she wanted that, but she also longed for adventure, for a chance to make something of herself, to be remembered, so that when she was gone, people would still talk about her in years to come. She didn't want to fade from memory as everyone else did.

Now, she sold the fish in earnest, infuriating Grisine, who had trouble selling. Jilsea had a gift with people, for charming them, as well as being such a kind person that they couldn't help but buy from her, and her mother knew this. She was always sent to market, because she nearly always could get a bargain, which, of course, saved money. But she was always accompanied by a drudge, as though she couldn't take care of herself. Her parents weren't wealthy, but they were well off, and they had enough drudges that, when Jilsea went to market weekly, she never had the same companion, or baby-sitter as she called them, twice in one month.

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