Cassair Starling

Chapter One

Dinah Cassair Faulks and Family

Dinah Isn’t a small town, but it’s not a big town either, it’s just big enough to house everyone that works in the town of dinah, at the shipping ports the farms and the markets, a few taylors black smiths and handymen, there’s one construction team but they build what they want to build, they don’t take designs or requests as far how many rooms you might need or how big you want the kitchen, consequently there’s families with lots of children who live in homes with only one bedroom, and other families who very few children or even none at all who have so much extra room they don’t even know what to do with it. This led to Dinah’s second most popular festival, called ‘Shifting Day.’

There would be music and dancing and the markets would be filled with the smell of fresh baked foods. The actual swapping of the houses would be done by raffles ones the sun went down. The Mayor would come out into the center of the market and would draw names from two baskets, the one on the left hand would be family with too many kids, and the one on the right would be family with very few kids or no kids, and they would swap homes. After their names were drawn they would come up to the mayor in the center of the market, and the men of the house would drink an ale together and then would sign a paper drawn by the mayor saying they had both agreed to put their names in the baskets. The mayor would hold up the paper for everyone to see and everyone would cheer and drink and then they would begin drawing the next pair of names.

Shifting Day was made up by the mayor, since a construction team was originally the his idea as well, so he felt somewhat to blame for the poorly designed homes, the head constructor was originally a painter and the mayor thought by putting him in charge that the homes in Dinah would start looking more sophisticated and draw more well to do people to its borders. But for the most part the only people that came to Dinah’s borders were the merchants that sailed into the western ports and wagons leaving the eastern side to devy out the imported goods to the surrounding towns and cities. So Dinah slowly became a beautiful town on the outside with the big and small house built around the edges, and as you got further inward you would begin to see the homes built by the merchants as they had moved into to work and they were off kilter and unbalanced and the wood was swollen and rotting. Despite Dinah’s rotting wooden homes their people were not rotting, Their teeth might be but the people themselves were relatively nice people, as long as you stayed away from the western side of Dinah you would always have someone offering you food or a place to sleep.

The West side of Dinah was Paved with new cobblestone, the sidewalks were kept clean, and there were no vendors or tents set up along the street to peddle merchandise. The homes lining the streets were tall and wide, they had clean white picket fences along the front lawns. Built from treated woods imported from Greenwood Harveston. They were painted with clean bright colors, back when they first painted anyway, now having sat seashore for so many years they were dirty and the roofs were covered in seagull droppings. But the west side of Dinah was where the owners of the merchant ships stayed and the high politicians, the ones running the town behind the scenes, even higher than the mayor. It was also home to the Starling family, most natives to Dinah referred to the Starlings as the founders, although this wasn’t true. The starlings were descendants of Kane Starling. Kane Starling was one of the last users of Starling power who had settled in Dinah, the family name was unknown for generations, they had the power of the Starling. Specifically the Starling is a legend of a man who fell to earth from the sky earning him the name Starling by witnesses nearby. He had many powers, the ability to do almost God-like things. Now Kane Starling is believed to have been a descendant of The Starling himself, since Kane was able to manifest the Symbode Seed. Which was a hard but flexible, gray almost metal like substance that stemmed from the back of his neck and fed into the ground, giving him massive amounts of strength, agility and power, it shaped itself into weapons in his hands as needed and he was able to save and then defend the town of Dinah from Cetus, a creature brought to the shores by gang long disbanded and almost made extinct after fighting Kane Starling. After his Heroics He was given a mansion on the coast high up on the hill overlooking the entire town, and there he stayed and started a family. He disappeared after a few years, his wife stayed behind who bore a child and that family line remained in the home as the starlings.

Cassair, born into the Starling name, second born son to Barrett and Joanne Starling his father Barrett Starling Married Joanne White after her mother struck up a conversation between the two of them at the Dinah Dinner Hall, they would marry and have their first child and slowly her love became transparent as a ruse to get into the starling mansion and sizable wealth. She started using her name to get into special functions you could only get into with the right name and right amount of money. Barrett was the head of all merchant trade, employed by the town of Dinah he oversaw what was allowed in or out of Dinah. Seemingly a simple job, but it took him away from his family most days, as there were many rules and laws in place to protect the ecosystem of Dinah. If a ship were to bring certain roots or livestock if they were not tested and proven safe they could turnout to be aggressive and attack the soil and farms of Dinah causing famines or starvation. With those duties along with his name he and his forefathers had obtained a substantial amount of wealth. Occasionally he would have his older son Hassan coming to work at the harbor, teaching him the ins and outs of import and distributing merchandise and supplies. While they were doing that Cassair stayed home with his mother.

Joanne was born into a wealthy family as, and although they weren’t at the same standing as the Starlings she would try and surround herself with only the finest names or brands. After she married into the Starling she worked her way into the best book clubs, breakfast clubs, stitching clubs and baking clubs, this way she could stay up to date on the latest gossip that she could use as an advantage to get her social standing even higher. As a result, Cassair saw more of his father often than his own mother, she had no time to talk or play with Cassiar as a child, not to miss the next runway show for the newest designed clothes or the next event that would help her climb the social ladders of Dinah. She spent all her time in her gossip circles plotting for this or that trying to influence the political or the social flow of the higher class to gain her a higher seat in the eyes of her peers.

His older brother wasn’t much better. He seemed to garner the most affection from his parents, what little they had was spent long ago on the first baby high that young adults have holding their first child. It quickly dissolved of course, and it became more of a habit than anything, so his older brother got all the attention while he was left to fend for his own emotions and growing pains of youth. While the rest of his family would go off to Gallas or dinner parties he would mostly stay home and read books and would eat dinner by himself.

He had learned to take care of himself early, he wasn’t much of a good cook but he had learned how to make soups with water and a few vegetables by watching the homes chefs cooking away in the downstairs kitchen. He spent a lot of time with the staff. They tolerated him but were fearful that they would get in trouble with Cassairs parents so a lot of their kindness was out of fear rather than willingness. They weren’t necessarily bad people, but they had kids of their own and responsibilities and couldn’t afford to risk their own jobs to support a kid that in their eyes had everything a kid could possibly need, rich parents, his own bedroom, bathroom, hundreds of toys. But what the staff didn’t understand was that the parents had stopped going into his bedroom once the nanny started to feed and change diapers for him as a baby, he had his own bathroom only because the house had thirteen bathrooms and only four people lived there, and all his toys were used dirty and broken hand-me-downs from his older brother who would throw them away after each birthday and Cassair would climb into the trash hauls and fish out his new toys.

Once Cassair, a few days before his tenth birthday, approached his mother and wanted to make sure his mother and father had ample time to get him birthday gifts as good as his older brothers.

“Mother? I was wondering if we could go shopping so I can pick out some new toys for my birthday, which is in a few days!” He told his mother with his fingers clenching each other behind his back.

“Oh..” she said, turning in her chair away from the table seated with four other women approximately the same age if not a bit older than his mother. “Uh…” she said, snapping her fingers and closing her eyes tightly looking down at her lap.

“Cassair?” said Cassair letting go of his fingers and letting his hands full to his side, he knew what this meant.

“I simply don’t have time for such things, don’t you know I’m in charge of planning the Dinah dinner hall event? Everyone who’s anyone will be there.” she said, she refused to make eye contact with Cassair and turned back to the tables’ conversation.

Cassair could feel the lump swelling up in his throat, he didn’t want anyone to see his eyes tearing up so he looked down and walked calmly out of the room. As soon as he knew he was out of sight he couldn’t hold it back anymore, his little boy emotions got the better of him and he ran up the stairs to his room and shut the door, he sat on the foot of his bed and began to sob looking down at his open hands, he had begun to think about how if he had never been born, he wouldn’t be this sad, or if he could only go back to where he was before he was born, that maybe he had someone there that cared about him, but upon further compilation he decided no one from where he had come from before he was born could possibly love, otherwise why would they allow him to come to this place alone?

“Creeeek.” The other side of the bed made a soft squeaking sound, Cassair was familiar with this squeak, he had heard it hundreds of times while climbing in and out of bed, it was the sound of someone sitting down on the other side of the bed, right behind him. He spun his head gasping for air, and for just a second he swore he saw another little boy sitting on his bed indian style on his pillow, he pinched his eyes closed hard and wiped the tears in his eyes away hard with his wrists and looked again at the bed, but this time no one was there. He sat quietly and completely still for what felt like an hour looking at the pillow which still had an indent on, it looked like had been sitting on his pillow. Finally his stomach broke the silence, he was starving and really needed to eat, and crying had left his mouth feeling warm and gooey. He slid off the bed keeping his eyes on his pillow and scrambled toward the door as fast as he could to get away from the bed out of fear something would grab his ankles from underneath his bed.

Cassair would go on to see that boy in the corner of his eye or fleeting glimpses while bathing or pulling a shirt over his head. He had started getting used to him, he would start calling him Faulks. He got in the habit of saying ‘hi’ to him whenever he would notice he was around. Several times he had tried chasing him and tried to catch him but he would vanish from sight too quickly. This had gone for six years, he had grown into a quite reserved young man, nothing had changed, after that day before his tenth birthday and he had swore never to let his mother make him feel that way, he knew his father and brother were capable of it as well, so he would sneak out, well not that was much sneaking since no one really paid too much attention to him, he would go out to the market. Cassair wasn’t poor or starved nor was he under clothed, he lived a decent life in Dinah upper class, but just to risk a little danger and the chance of being caught he had started to steal from different counters; food, clothes, toys, even tools.

Cassair got to be comfortable on those streets in the market playing with the boys from the orphanage that was in an old run down school building outside of town on the eastern border. In fact he had become so comfortable he started spending several days on those streets with the orphan boys, without returning home, only returning after his load of stolen goods was too great to keep hidden. He never kept those items for himself, he would actually bring whatever he didn’t need and drop it off on the front steps the orphanage for boys all the way across the city from his house, it took several hours to walk there since it was detached from the town itself and tucked about a mile into the trees down an unpaved road. He would sneak under a wooden fence and up to the door late at night and drop off any spare clothes he didn’t think he would wear himself and the toys he didn’t think he was interested in. He was always quiet there and only went in the dark of night, he wasn’t afraid of boys in the orphanage since new a few of them that were delinquent enough to sneak out of the property and run around and play games in the market. But he knew that stealing was wrong and if the keepers of the orphanage ever caught him they would probably make him go to church and pray since that’s what they made the orphan boys do when they were caught doing something bad. But one night he had stopped to drop off three shirts, one pair of shoes and some toys he had picked up over the course of a few days, but one of the toys, a hand carved wooden horse slipped out of his hand, fell and clanked on the wooden steps at the front door. A split second later he would see a light in the window next to the door and it was getting closer beginning to leak under the door onto the steps at his feet, he had turned to start running but he only got a down the steps when the door slammed open and he could feel huge hard hands grabbing his arms and pulling him back and down onto the ground.

“So youre the one leaving these here, I recognize you, must have ran away a while ago.” said a gruff voice pulling him up off the ground. “Common’ back inside, I understand boys have to get out but it’s not safe out there for someone as small as you are and young as you are.” Cassairs heart started to pound; he felt weak, his knees were shaking, he had been caught, and they were dragging him inside, to pray most likely.

“Please, I don’t belong here, I was just dropping off old toys and clothes I’ve grown out of!” Cassair pleaded, trying to pull away from the man’s grip.

“We’ll settle that in the morning, in the meantime who would I be if I let a lad like you go off this late by himself?” He had successfully got Cassair up the steps in the front door, it was warm and smelled like a strange combination of good food and dirty laundry. He looked at his surrounding, glancing for windows ne he could escape through quickly to get away, but before he could

“Cassair!” called a boy’s voice with excitement.