If you don't try you'll never know

A small sigh left Alyssa’s mouth as she looked at the hay bale. It looked emptier than it did yesterday, which wasn’t a surprise because their cattle still needed to eat, but sometimes she wished they would just take it a bit slower. Life in the Agrarian Ring was hard enough as it was and she had seen her parents struggle with their money more than once. She had offered to sell one of the jewelry her fiancée had given her to spare some money, but her parents would have none of it and even got mad at her for suggesting such a cruel proposition. She found it more cruel if they would starve another day because day couldn’t buy any food, but who was she to judge? It would be another lost meal added to the pile of meals she had not eaten. Her bones were almost showing through her skin and she ate barely enough to still look a bit presentable. How could her parents choose appearance over basic needs anyway?

It wasn’t the first time that Alyssa ventured out into the Agrarian Ring to look if she could trade with someone. Usually it wasn’t very hard to find a family who had it a bit better than them and could lose some of their hay. She would trade it for food or a couple of coins, but sometimes the families took one look at her bony frame and would give her the hay out of pity. She despised it when that happened, because she felt like she didn’t need any pity. But she wouldn’t let her pride take over in that moment and would just accept it. The rich family in the Upper Ring, the parents of her fiancée, had promised her parents that they would send them money soon enough and Alyssa wondered if it was all just a big, vile fairytale they were trapped in. She hoped so. She definitely didn’t want to marry that man.

It didn’t take long until she reached another farm. She stood on her tippy toes to check the other side of the fence. To her luck, a boy around her age was standing there. ”Hey,” she yelled, waving her hand in the air to get his attention. ”Can I make you interested in a good trade?” If he wouldn’t take the bread she had with her, she was going to give him a piece of jewelry. She didn’t care. The cows were so close to slaughtering and she didn’t want to lose the opportunity of selling good meat because they hadn’t eaten properly enough.

Alyssa blinked confusedly when the man spoke his words. He was definitely older than her and fairly attractive with his dark hair, dark eyes and beard that he seemed to manage just fine, but Alyssa wasn’t interested in all of that. Although she wasn’t happy with her fiancée, she wasn’t looking for another man either. How could she? Her parents would absolutely murder her if she would fall in love with someone from the Agrarian Ring. And it wouldn’t last anyway. She would have to marry that horrible man at the end of the year and there was nothing that could be changed about that. She forced her mind to avert itself back to the words he spoke and when she understood what kind of trade he thought she was offering, a blush crept upon her cheeks. Her hands balled themselves into a fist and a look of pure rage appeared in her eyes.

The man had approached her and Alyssa made it a point to take a big step back. ”I’m not that desperate,” she snarled at him, as if she hadn’t just called him attractive in her mind. She put her hands on her hips and pouted her bottom lip, clicking with her tongue to make a noise of disagreement. ”I don’t mean that kind of trade. My parents would murder me if I would go around the Agrarian Ring like that,” she spoke, a bit calmer. Then she showed him the bread she was holding, furrowing her brows. She hoped he would at least have the decency to look ashamed of himself for even thinking about such a thing.

”Our cows are out of hay and we… we don’t have any money right now to buy ourselves a new hay bale. I was wondering if I could trade this bread for some hay,” she spoke. While she had lifted her head and tried to look proudly at the man, it was clear that she felt ashamed of asking him something like this. But still… it was still better than selling her body, she thought bitterly. If she stooped as low as that, her parents might as well murder her. She wouldn’t have been able to live with the shame either way.

Alyssa felt a small hint of satisfaction when she saw how his eyes widened, hearing the apology that immediately came after. She was annoyed that he would suggest that kind of thing, like she was some cheap slut or something. ”Don’t tell me you have received those kinds of offers?” she asked, her eyebrows slightly raised. Were there really girl who were desperate enough to do such kind of things? Well, she wouldn’t be surprised if they were. Life in the Agrarian Ring was hard and not cut out for everybody, but if you were able to lower yourself to that measures, you might as well just go to the Lower Ring. You would have far better luck of people accepting that kind of invitation than you would have in the Agrarian Ring. But then again, they wouldn’t be able to do the kind of trades you were looking for. It would never be a win-win situation anyway. Some people had it good in life, some not and you’d just have to deal with it either way.

She shrugged when he asked his question. ”We sell meat, not milk. If the cows don’t eat properly, we won’t make a lot of money. It’s just what it is,” she spoke, her voice having a sharper tone to it than she intended to. But she actually looked relieved when he held his hand out over the fence for her to shake. She took a step forwards and shook his hand, nodding at him and giving him a small smile.

”How much hay can you spare?” she asked. Her piece of bread wasn’t that impressive, so she guessed she would have to comply with whatever amount of hay he would give to her. She was also wondering how she was going to find the strength to bring it all the way over to her own field. She hadn’t eaten properly since a few days ago, which she definitely felt when she steadied herself after climbing over the fence to his side. Black spots were dancing around her vision and she had to clamp the bread tightly in her hand to prevent it from falling to the ground, taking a few steps back to steady herself and blinking quickly to get rid off the black spots clouding her vision.

The man didn’t want to linger on the subject any longer and to be fair, neither did Alyssa. It was bad enough to know that girls were desperate enough to make such suggestions, but hearing it was another thing. The fact that he kept his mouth shut about it said enough already and Alyssa tried to suppress the empathy she felt for those girls. Empathy would get her nowhere in the Agrarian Ring. She knew that, but she also knew that every fiber in her being would try to help a girl like that, even though she didn’t have much to offer herself. She wouldn’t be able to afford money and food, even though a better life was approaching fast. Well, better… With a fiancé like that, she was pretty sure that it wouldn’t turn out for the better. But maybe it was still better than starving, right? Right.

Springing over the fence wasn’t a job that was accomplished properly; Alyssa flinched when the man grabbed her elbow to steady her. Frustration and gratitude both flared at once inside of her and she didn’t know if she wanted to scowl him for touching her without permission or thanking him because he had steadied her. She decided to do neither and just nodded at him. ”I’m fine,” she spoke firmly, shaking her elbow lightly so he would let go of her. The lighter touch added to it would hopefully unconsciously let him know that she was grateful for his actions, but that she just had too much pride to show it to him properly. ”Just give me the hay. I can take care of myself,” she reassured him, but her feet started to feel like lead and her head was still spinning. Her stomach started to rumble and Alyssa coughed to cover it up.

”That’s a large field you’ve got there. Do you manage it by yourself?” she asked the man to distract him from her rumbling stomach. She didn’t want him to pity her. She just wanted to make a fair trade and to get out of here as fast as possible. The fact that he had seen her stagger was enough humiliation for her to go through right now. She didn’t want to add another thing to the growing pile.

Alyssa almost bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. He didn’t make it seem like it, but she knew for a fact that he was pitying her. Almost everybody who had it better than her would pity her and it was annoying. The Upper snobs who were about to become her family didn’t pity them and that was a release. They didn’t let their son marry him to her out of pity, but purely out of business. There was no love involved, which the Upper snob had made very clear to Alyssa when he showed his darker side to her. She was pretty sure that her parents knew of that – because come on, a bruise appearing out of nowhere on her cheek could not be missed – but that they just decided to ignore it because the Upper snobs were a solution to their problems. But her father was starting to get more and more sick and Alyssa wouldn’t know if the snobs would still want to marry her to their son if he became so ill that he wouldn’t be able to provide them with his business anymore. It was all so complicated and just plainly annoying.

Alyssa focused her attention back on the man when he spoke his words. Sometimes I have some boys working. That meant he had enough reasons to pity her, because if he was able to pay those boys, he surely didn’t have anything to worry about. ”What about your parents?” she asked before she could give it a second thought. Then it struck her that it could be possible that they were dead and that she had just asked a sensitive question. Alyssa bit her lip for a moment, but decided to just go along with it. She couldn’t change her question anyway, so why revel in a guilty feeling that might have been not necessary anyway?

The man introduced himself as Thiago and Alyssa smiled for the first time. ”Name’s Alyssa,” she spoke with a slight accent. Thiago. She liked the name. In fact.. She quickly glanced at him. He wasn’t bad for the eye, with his beard, light-colored eyes and curly hair. He surely had a charm hanging around him that not a lot of men in the Agrarian Ring had. ”Have you lived your whole life in the Agrarian Ring?” His name sounded foreign, but she could be wrong. She didn’t know what was outside of Ashmoor because she had never left the Agrarian Ring anyway, so that would be just purely guessing work.

Alyssa bit her lip when he spoke the words that were actually quite clear to her before she had asked her stupid question. Of course his parents were gone. ”Sorry,” she apologized quickly. ”It was stupid of me to ask anyway.” She would have to keep her mouth shut about it for the rest of the conversation. Even without him hinting at it, she knew it was a topic he wouldn’t want to discuss. If her parents had passed away, even if it had happened several years ago, Alyssa wouldn’t want to talk about it as well. So she kept her mouth shut about it, hoping that he wouldn’t blame her for asking. It didn’t seem like he did, but it could also be the case that he was quite good at hiding what he was truly feeling.

”Likewise,” she immediately answered when he spoke his words, smiling at him. Little dimples appeared in her cheeks and her mouth showed surprisingly white teeth. Although she was living in the Agrarian Ring, she still cared about personal hygiene and tried to keep herself as clean as possible. Now that the rich upper snobs had given her some extra items to make that possible – apparently they wanted to keep her clean as well, probably so they would feel comfortable with her walking next to them if she were to ever move to the Upper Ring – it wasn’t so hard to keep up with smelling nice and… well, just personal hygiene overall. ”Me too,” she said softly. Then her eyes hardened. ”But I’d rather have that than having been born in the Upper Ring, looking down upon others and not knowing how to fend for myself at all.” Was she judgmental? Maybe, but weren’t they all? If those snobs in the Upper Ring looked down on them, why couldn’t they be judgmental as well?

Alyssa was surprised by how big the barn was. ”You have my respect. Keeping this clean and doing all that work can’t be easy,” she spoke, but her eyes narrowed when he told her that she should get up there to push off the hay she needed. She guessed he was trying to keep her from the hard work, which she didn’t like. But another wave of dizziness told her that it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, whether she liked it or not. So she just shrugged and climbed up the ladder, almost making her knuckles white with how tightly she was holding each step she went up.

The amount of hay the brothers possessed was impressive, but Alyssa reminded herself sharply that she had only given him a simple piece of bread. She couldn’t be greedy now. One stack of hay it would be. She walked to the hay bale she could reach easily and started to push it off. Pushing the thing off was heavier than she thought and black spots danced around her vision again. The climbing had exhausted her as well and even if Alyssa wanted to push more off, she couldn’t. So she sank down on the ground, waving her hand in an exhausted gesture at Thiago. ”I’ll be down soon, but I need a minute,” she wanted to yell, but it came out softly and Alyssa closed her eyes as black spots danced around her vision again.

This wasn’t going the way she wanted it to.

Alyssa averted her eyes to the side when he spoke his words, nodding. Yes, that was one way to put it. ”If only it were that easy,” she muttered as he said that he tended to ignore them. She would have done the same were it not for the fact that her parents had already planned her future with the rich Upper snobs. The whole thing with that marriage was probably the reason why she hated the Upper Ring so much. She wanted things to stay the same, but that seemed to be impossible. Yes, she was basically fighting for their lives and every day was a battle, but least that was better than living together with someone who wouldn’t want to take care of her properly. And where she couldn’t be herself because she had to watch her every word and move.

”Believe me, there are worse farms out there,” she told him, returning the smile he gave her. Up until now he had kept a more serious look to him, so to see him smile like this reminded her of how handsome he was. But to be fair, most men around here weren’t that ugly. They were a far stretch from the men in the Upper Ring, but they had a handsomeness to them the men in the Upper Ring could never compare themselves to. Alyssa was dragged out of her thoughts when she reminded herself where she was here for. She climbed the ladder, but after pushing the first hay bale, she was reminded of how weak she actually was. She hadn’t eaten properly for days and the lack of sleep was also playing a huge role. Black spots were dancing around her vision and she shouted to Thiago to give her some time, but her voice would never reach him because she was so weak. The world started to spin around her and the black spots clouded her vision. She felt how her body fell backwards with no way for her to control it. And then nothing.

”Alyssa? Her mother’s eyebrows were furrowed concernedly as she looked down on her daughter. No. Wait. That didn’t sound like her mother at all. Alyssa moaned softly as she came to her senses. It had felt warm a few minutes ago, but now fresh air was blowing towards her. She opened her eyes, seeing a man above her waving his hat at her with a concerned look in his eyes. It took her a minute to realize who he was and where she was. ”Thiago?” she asked softly, then looked around her. She remembered where she was and what happened. And the instant she remembered, her cheeks reddened horribly. ”Oh no…” she moaned, hiding her face by putting her hands over it. ”This is so embarrassing.”

She had passed out in front of a guy who she barely knew after claiming that everything was fine. And now she was acting like a fool because of it. She had to fix this. And so she tried to do just that, pushing herself up quickly in a sitting position. But as her stupid body wasn’t accustoming herself to the situation, she fell just as hard back. But not on her back. No, she had to make the situation worse by falling in Thiago’s direction. She tried to soften the landing by pressing her hand to his chest. ”S-Sorry,” she stuttered, trying to regain her composure again. But her body wouldn’t listen, so the only thing she could do was lean awkwardly against Thiago while she was scolding herself and desperately wishing she was somewhere else right now.

Alyssa wasn’t sure what kind of thoughts should be going on and on inside of her mind as she fell against the man who was trying to help her, but she was pretty sure that it shouldn’t be that fact that he seemed to have some muscles hidden under that shirt. That thought was so ridiculous that she wanted it gone. She had passed out for crying out loud and she was currently like fresh washed laundry in his hands, leaning helplessly against him while she tried to regain her composure. She felt even more awkward as he spoke that one word, his voice sounding more deep than she remembered. It sounded… masculine. Like something she had never experienced before. She was once again reminded of the fact that he was handsome and that she really shouldn’t be lying against him like this. Oh God, how she wanted to get out of this situation fast.

Alyssa felt her heart lurch when he put one hand on her back and one beneath her leg. Oh no. He wasn’t going to lift her up, right? That would be utterly embarrassment she would never recover from. But all he did was shove her against a haybale. Alyssa tried to shot him a fierce glance as he told her to stay put. ”It doesn’t look like I can do anything else right now, does it?” she hissed at him, but it was barely a whisper and she was fairly sure he hadn’t heard it anyway. Alyssa felt dizzy as she tried to regain her composure once again. She knew she wouldn’t be able to control her footing if she tried to stand up now, so she couldn’t do anything else than wait for him to come back. Oh, how embarrassing could a situation become?

”Thank you,” she spoke softly, her voice sounding more fragile than it had sounded for a long time. Even when her fiancé had hit her she was fairly certain that she hadn’t sounded like this. It was like with Thiago all her bottled up feelings became exposed and she didn’t like it one bit. But she was grateful and she gulped down the water fast, averting her eyes toward him, only to see the gentle look in his eyes. ”Don’t look at me like that,” she scolded him, but it sounded nothing like her firm voice from earlier. ”You make me want to spill all the secrets I want to keep hidden forever.” She gave him a soft, playful nudge with her shoulder. But she couldn’t completely avert her stormy grey eyes from his blue ones.

After a short silence she forced herself to look away from him. ”I’m not usually like this,” she told him, being glad that her voice sounded firmer than it had just a while ago. ”I’m usually way more composed. Or at least I try to be.” She had to, giving the fact that she was living with parents who were becoming sicker everyday and a fiancé who didn’t give a shit about her, which he showed every time she was with him. She didn’t have time to be weak. So why did she allow herself to be like this with this unfamiliar man? It didn’t make any fucking sense.