365 Ficlets - Day #214 ~ "Changing of the Guard"

The soft morning sunlight slowly trickled over the village like soft golden syrup as the sun came up that morning. From above the village, it looked to Peter as though someone had opened an unseen blind, slowly, and light had spilled across the landscape, like paint from a tin carelessly kicked over.

He was glad of the light; soon he would be in his bed and his younger brother would be about the task of watching the sheep. To many it might seem to be a dull existence, the life of a shepherd, but that night alone he ahd chased off two different wild dogs and less than a week before he had been required to face down a family group of wolves who seemed to want to eat his sheep. When not protecting the flock from the local fauna there was plenty of time to think and contemplate the world, and even to read. His father had been adamant that he learn to read and now he was almost never away from home without a book in his knapsack.

He could hear Tom coming up the hill, and so he got to his feet to greet his brother.