Ok, so, as always when I start these things, I have ideas. The difference, is all of these excursions are relegated to my numerous paper filled notebooks. So, the optimistic building of bones...
Our first disregarded and overlooked protagonist. Hers was a hardscrabble life. Born third into a family of five boys, she was just assumed to fill the role of all the women in her family history. Be obedient. Be submissive. Know your place. But she always strived for...better. Sure, her two older brothers were basically stronger, but not necessarily smarter. Life lived off the land is not an easy one. But any idea for making things easier, even marginally, were dismissed with prejudice. Until one of the boys parroted the same idea. Then they were showered with praise. This happened not once, not three times, but too many to keep count. This left her with a great amount of anger, and anger unfocused is problematic. After one such idea of how to optimize crop growth was yet again stolen from her, she decided to make a trap, a type of procedural management for the better of the homestead. Such a small thing, she thought, it really wouldn't be that detrimental in the long run. While it is a blessing to understand your environment so fully, one can forget the enormity of the male ego. It all seemed so simple..sure, one field left fallow every year to minimize arid field conditions. No dust bowl honeysuckle. They had five plots. Mention to the brothers, two would make for a lean year, but the following would provide that much more, at market time they would have a whole field to sell at said market. Unfortunately, the father, not seeing a fault in their sons' logic, went ahead with the plan. Oh, she knew the outcome, and spent the cold months and following growing season before the next year waiting. However, when the fall harvest left them at the edge of starvation, all her brothers said it was all her. They wanted to 'give her a chance'..never disclosing all their 'ideas' were always hers. The rage in not only her father, but also her own mother, and the very violent abuse she was subjected to broke a tenuous grip held to her kith and kin. That night, bleeding from a copious amount of belt strikes, and inhumane verbal torture led her to come to one conclusion. Stay, and suffer, and be miserable, or just leave. Having the hope she might survive. But, regardless, better to die to animals, or humans that are almost animals, then the family that should have cared you were alive and a part of. Off she went, no idea, no direction. Just..away