Rings, part one

To have a ring is life
To remove the ring is death

Every birth a ring is given
Every death a ring is taken away

Without a ring there is nothing
With a ring there is everything

One must not remove another's ring
or
Risk their ring being removed

To have a ring is life
To remove a ring is death

Chapter one

Raeca sat looking out over the fields she was not currently exploring. She hated class days. She just wanted to be out there. As it was of course she had to sit and listened to the tutor lecture and talk, and talk and lecture. How could he just go on like that? She didn't even really know what he was going on about today.

“So, should the government make the decision to remove his ring?” he said. Raeca pulled her attention away from the perfection of the field to try and participate.
Several pupils raised their hands in excited gestures of knowing. The tutor worked his pointed finger past the eager faces, until he inevitably came to Raeca as she knew he would.
“Raeca, what do you think?” he mocked.

She had finally one upped the man... for once. She sat up a little straighter.

“I think the government has the right to do as it pleases,” she replied proudly.

Tutor did not seem thrilled with that response.

“Apparently Ms. Raeca wants the government to control her life,” he told the pupils. There was laughter all around. Raeca felt her face burn bright red. She did not like being made an example of in front of the class. She felt the ring hanging from her chest. She twisted the ring around her finger.

Tutor turned back towards her, and was struck by visible anger. Raeca unfortunately did not notice.
“Ms. Raeca!” he nearly shouted as her hand slammed to her lap, “If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, don't touch your ring!”

She became a vacant canvas just that fast. One looking upon her at that moment might assume that she was blind, deaf, and dumb, and had been so all her life. She knew she wasn't supposed to touch and fiddle with her ring but she couldn't help it.

“Just for that...” tutor said and stood Raeca upon her feet, “Everyone, what is the law.”

There was an audible groan that rose through the pupils. Tutor barked and silence fell over the children. There was an obvious change in the pupils as they readied themselves to recite the laws. Everyone sat a little taller, everyone’s eyes glazed over as the reflexive recitation began.

“To have a ring is life
To remove a ring is death”

Raeca listened diligently to the verbal rebuke, but she had had it orated at her many times.

“Why?” she said almost reflexively, before she could think to stop herself.

Tutor was suddenly taken aback. He looked at Raeca as though she had sprouted a third eye. The children grew very quiet as the frightening little vein on the tutor's forehead began to bulge and pulse.

“What was that Ms. Raeca?” he annunciated carefully between clenched teeth. Raeca had the sudden urge to run very fast to the field with hope that tutor wasn't fast enough to catch her.

She gulped in a mouth full of air and searched her mind desperately for the question that had clattered out of her thoughts, “Why should removing the ring... be, um... death?”

There was a slight murmur rose from the students. Tutor could feel his power slipping. He needed desperate action immediately.

“It is, for the Law demands it!” he loudly declared, extinguishing all discussion on the matter.
The pupils sat watching the ground between their shoes very intently. Raeca looked at the satisfaction on the tutor's face at quelling the threat of hysteria, but he hadn't answered her question.

“Why?”

He looked down at Raeca as his left eye began to twitch. She tried to fight the need to run very fast because she really wanted to know. She started to worry as she thought she saw smoke coming out of the orifices of her tutor's face. She sat patiently awaiting her fate, hoping that tutor would be more lenient than last time when he boxed her ears. She looked up into his face with eyes filled with fear and wonder, and his rage began to melt.

                “Some things simply are Ms. Raeca, and must be observed with utmost diligence,” he said in a strained, tired voice, “Go home now. Class is dismissed.”

                All the pupils bolted from the learning grove before tutor had the chance to rethink this statement. Raeca watched tutor as he made his way towards his shack. Tutor never so willingly let her go when he had her in his grasp. She wanted to follow and ask more questions while he wasn’t in a striking mood, but she thought better of it. She went off into the field that had been calling to her all through the lesson. The grass was tall enough to brush against her waist, and she waded through it joyfully. She found a spot by the water of a little slow moving stream and sat in the glorious sunshine. The field seems to go on forever in every direction from here. She looked into the water only to see her own reflection looking back at her. She could see the ring sitting prominently in on the right side of her chest. The little iron ring with two copper gilded plates to show her regional origin and status. The copper showed her as a northerner, the first plate displayed the name of the town in which she was born, the second showed her status as an un-promised girl of marrying age. She ran her finger over the second plate and is spun freely of the first two. When she wed it would be replaced with a woman’s plate. She looked at her face in the water’s reflection. She pulled her fingers through her mess of mousey brown hair, over her tanned dirty skin, around her simple brown eyes.

                “Who would want to marry me?” she asked of her own reflection.

                She was startled when a voice replied, “Any man with eyes.”

                She spun around so fast she ended up knee high in the stream. Standing there on the bank before her was a young man. She looked around to see if there were others, but he was alone. They were alone she realized and she became very self conscious. She wasn’t allowed to be around men alone, it simply wasn’t done. She tried to make herself small, almost invisible, but it was too late the damage was done.

                She quickly eyes the man, he was very strange looking. He was tall and proud and strong. She looked hard at him, as though she thought that if she looked hard enough she would realize he wasn’t real. As she stared she realized that his rings were hidden beneath his coats. This made him even odder, because no one covered their rings. Not only was it not done, it was illegal in most of the country. This made the idea that he was a criminal from some obscure land come to mind, and the thought frightened her.

                “Your feet are getting wet,” he pointed out with amusement.

                Raeca looked down at her feet and remembered that she was still standing in the water. She stared at her water logged boots and felt completely defeated. They were her only pair of shoes, and now they would take hours to dry, and there was so much still to get done. She thought she might cry as she made her way back to the shore.

                The stranger offered his hand and she was so morose she did not hesitate to take it. They sloshed their way to a standing rock and sat down. She slid off her boots and tipped them so the water could run out.

                “Oh, dear,” was all she could manage.