Bastion took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, but the strange smell of manure and freshly cut barley did little to soothe his nerves. He opened his eyes again and took a second look at his father barley farm where he had dumped Bastion. Not to be the overseer, or the steward, or even a foreman or a chef or any of the other things fit for a Lord's Son, a Lord's Son that had spent the last twelve years at the finest academy in all of Midgard. ‘But then again, this was Lord of Estyria we were talking about’, he had to remind himself, ‘And the rules are different here.’, as his Father had reminded him.

“Sure, if you had spent the last 16 years here, things would be different! Because you would be different, my boy! In Estyria, it doesn’t matter who you’re Father is. You have to make a name for yourself.” His voice was gruff, not quite mocking. Bastion could tell his Father doubted he would be able to do this, and his Father knew that a look of disgust was hardly concealed in his own eyes. Their first meeting in 16 years and neither one of them was exactly thrilled to see it come.

Bastion may have had the same broad shoulders, squared jaw, and the same intense blue-gray eyes as his father, but that was where the similarities ended. Whereas the Lord of Estyria was broadly built and stocky, Bastion was long, lean, and almost wiry. Where the Lord was gruff, calloused, and hard-edged, his son was willowy, articulate, and polite.

None of those manners showed today, as Bastion glowered around himself. Some of the workers stopped to see who was coming out of their Lords carriage, but when they saw no one but the boy, only the most gossipy of the bunch continued to peer over in curiosity. The sun baked laborers may have been about two of Bastion in girth, but not a single one of them stood even to Bastions eye level. A warm gust blew his golden hair back off his high forehead and squinting from the sun, he watched as a stout foreman scurried his way up a rut between sections of the field, leading to the dirt road.