Nail, a thirteen-year-old on the cusp of his Naming, stood in a village market, near Jeremy the berryman’s stall when the baker’s young son, Fin, bumped him out of the way, running toward the berryman's table. The older boy watched the child snatch a handful of berries and run off into the crowded village streets. The berryman shook his fist and called after the boy. Nail couldn't help but laugh, recalling his own troubled childhood, as he walked up to buy some berries.

The morning sun was just rising above the thatched rooftops to the east and the mulling villagers had already begun to pollute the sky with kicked up dust, oven smoke, or cook fires. The world seemed to move around Nail even as he approached the berryman. Merchant guards marched past, goodwives hung morning laundry, tradesmen went from shop to shop pestering apprentices for their needed supplies. For example, Nail saw the weaver annoying one of his brothers at the forge for the loom reeds they'd been working on for days. A merchant guard nearby flirted with one of the baker's older daughters, and two motherly women gossiped about something Nail couldn't discern from as far away as he was. All around him, the world marched on as he stepped forward to buy some berries. Buy, he thought, right! Coins. A pouch was tied to Nail's waist, between his scabbard and waterskin, where he dug through his coins and pulled out a selection. He counted out enough currency to pay for the berries, and a little extra.

"Fin!" The berryman raised his hand and made like he was going to chase after the boy, but Nail watched him take inventory of the line forming behind the thirteen-year-old with coins in his hand, and shake his head. Dropping his hand, Jeremy returned to the table and rubbed his hands together, chuckling. That berryman smile that Nail knew so well returned to the older man's face hiding whatever frustration the baker's son had caused.

"Do you remember being that age, Nail?" the berryman asked.

"I was just thinking about that, actually," Nail said.

"Ah, of course." Jeremy took the coins Nail was holding out. The man counted the denominations and his eyes widened.

"My mother wants three jars of your preserves, all strawberry, and two medium baskets, one blueberry and one strawberry," Nail said.

"Coming right up." The berryman got to work grabbing the right jars and setting out two medium-sized wicker baskets that would hold the requested fresh berries. "You know, boy, you really should remind your mother to order her own strawberries in the spring. She would save a near fortune." Nail appreciated that about Jeremy, he always had the best interest of the villagers at heart. He wasn't like the traveling merchants who came through with trinkets and what-nots from far away places. Those men were only in it for the silver.

"I've told her, but she complains that her preserves never come out as sweet as yours. Besides," Nail said, "she says we can afford the 'good stuff' because my father is the village blacksmith."

"Yes." Nail watched the berryman fill the baskets with berries as he spoke. "I have always been amazed at how much your father earns making nails and hinges for the farmers."

Nail shielded his eyes from the morning sun as it glinted off a passing merchant guard's armor. "He always makes extra sharpening swords, repairing armor, and fixing bridles and axles for strangers this time of year."

"And then your mother spends it on berry jam, a very efficient family you have, Nail."

Nail took Jeremy's baskets and a small canvas bag full of the jars he had asked for and enough padding to keep them from cracking each other while he walked home. When Jeremy tried to give Nail his change, the older boy waved his hand. "I remember five years ago, when I was eight, like Fin there." Nail pointed in the direction that the baker's son had run off. "Keep the change, put it on the baker's tab if you still want to punish the boy, but I'd say just let him off this time."

The youth took note as to how the berryman's eyes changed, going from soft and friendly, to hardened like a grizzled elder back from a vicious hunt. "No." Jeremy's voice sounded like Nail's father's hammer hitting cold steel. "The boy will pay for them the same way you did."

Nail accepted his change back from the berryman without further contention. "Of course."

"If you want to help, why don't you hop back here and help me get through this line." The warmth in Jeremy's voice had returned.

"I need to get these things to my mother, berryman, she's making her last Naming Day Pie," Nail said. "But I'll stop back by before I head to the library for cleaning duty."

"It's a shame they make guardsmen clean that old place on top of everything else you already do." Jeremy waved as Nail left.

"It's an honor to keep the village presentable." Nail waved and called, "Until Caesar returns!"

"Until he returns." Jeremy addressed his next customer.

Nail turned from his old mentor and friend, destined for home.

Without hurry, the older boy stepped along the path which led to his father’s house. The village that surrounded him had been almost all he'd known. There had been that time where he'd wandered a bit deeper into the forest than he needed to in order to win a game of hide-and-seek with his brothers, but instances like that were few and far between. The thatched rooftops of the homes he passed were like fur on the back of a familiar animal, the windows like eyes that watched over him, and the wooden doors like arms that opened to embrace him.

Several smiling faces caught his eye while he passed them. There was the cobbler's daughter, almost a year his junior, named Analise, who waved and smiled at him as he walked past her whilst she hung laundry from a wire line with her mother. One of his friends from Letters, Beathan, waved to him from a rooftop where he, and two of his brothers, worked at repairing some damage the place had taken in the late-fall storms.

Finally, third from the end of the street, Nail's own home stood ready to take him in its embrace. He walked up to the door and kissed three fingers before placing them on the tip of the statuette of a gnome they kept just outside their door. Nail was at the age where he had begun to question a lot of the stories his mother told him when he was young, but the story of the house guardian and his friend the gnome, just seemed so plainly obvious that he never questioned it.

The lad pushed his way into his father's house and stepped through the entryway and into the kitchen where his mother was pulling a pie crust out of the oven. "Oh, Nail, be a good lad and set those down on the counter there." She placed her pre-cooked crust on the stone island in the middle of the kitchen before letting her apron fall back down to her thighs. "You're just in time, me boy." She stepped to him and gave him a hug whose warmth came only slightly from the apron being recently used as a hot-mitt. She smelled of lamb, herbs, flour, and a hint of rose perfume that Nail's father liked. Nail found himself pressed into her neck where her auburn hair fell in a single tail.

"Mother—" he managed to pry himself free, "—you're smothering me."

"I can't help it, lad." She put her palms on either side of his face and turned his head so all he could see was her. Her eyes held a sheen which betrayed the tears that Nail knew would come next. His mother’s eyelids fluttered while their charge produced fonts of salted water.

Nail felt his heart melt. "Please, don't do that."

"Me last boy, all grown up." She pulled him close and stuck her lips to his forehead. With a kiss she said, "The gods they be favorin' me, I be the envy of women."

Kenna stood with Nail wrapped in her arms for another few minutes. Silently they detatched from one another and the goodwoman turned back to her work. The boy watched his mother crack the seal on a jar of jam before emptying it into the crust that she had prepared. After that was done she put the whole thing on an open windowsill so it could cool.

If there was anyone Nail felt like he could confess his apprehension towards the Naming to it was his mother. She was understanding, warm, loving, kind, but she was devout too. Her loyalty was first to her gods, who were believed to have given the edict of Naming, hundreds of years ago; then to her husband. Hermod, the village blacksmith, had gone through the same naming ritual as everyone else, just like Kenna, just like all of Nail's brothers, but the smith's oaths were more eventful than most's if Nail's memory served. They had told him that there was a great deal of pain and fear wrapped up in his father's oaths, similar to what the boy was now dealing with, but how could he tell any of them that they'd have to go through it again. The training with the guardsmen had bolstered Nail's strength, true, but he still felt substantially weaker than his father. When that man had been his age he had worked at the forge for years already, his muscles were like iron, his lungs were steel, and the fire of devotion to craft and village was alive in his eyes, that's what Nail's mother would say, anyway, it was what made her fall in love with him.

His knees felt wobbly as he just stood in the kitchen for too long. He wondered, "Mother?" He moved his feet and stepped towards a cupboard where they kept a broom, he could at least make himself useful why his mother labored so lovingly.

"What be on yer mind, me boy?" She was milling about, washing counter tops, brushing scraps off dough, scrubbing utensils, and stepping around Nail to put away ingredients.

"You've told me about the fire you saw in father's eyes-"

"Devotion to craft and village," she nodded, "yes, what of it?"

"Do I have it too?"

The woman stopped her work and turned her head to him. Nail had been staring at the ground where he swept in an attempt to avoid his mother's eyes.

"Look at me," she said.

Nail raised his head and met her eyes. Kenna studied his eyes and sighed. "I see something... but, in truth, since my own naming day, I haven't been nearly as good at reading people as I was in my childhood. I haven't seen that fire in your father's eyes, for example, but I know he still has it." She stepped closer to the boy and her eyes felt like spears ramming into his soul. "Yes," she said, sounding almost hypnotic, "there is something there. I just..." she let her shoulder fall and turned away with a mournful sigh. "I just don't know what it means or what it is, not anymore."

"Do you," he swallowed hard, this question he was going to ask was nearly the same as heresy. "Do you ever regret the oaths, mother?"

"Nail," she shook her head. "Even if I did, I couldn't admit it."

"But they take something from you, don't they?" Nail swept a pile of dust into a small pan before picking the pan up off the ground to dispose of the dust outside. The boy saw his mother's countenance fall when the question was asked.

"Every oath," Kenna said, "takes something from the one swearing it, be it the Namin' Oaths, the Marriage Oaths, or anything else. Even if that something be small as the freedom you had before it."

Nail wanted to press the topic, but he saw in his mother's eyes a silent plead not to. Instead, he dumped the pan of dust out their front door and returned the broom and pan to the cupboard where they were kept.

"I have library duty this afternoon," he told her. "Don't fret, I'll be back before the Naming Hour."

"I'll fend off your brothers and father with a stick if I need to, but there'll be a slice of pie left for you when you return." The warmth of her smile and the mirth of her giggle let him walk away with a heart overflowing with love.

Nail went to the living room next. There the blacksmith's family kept their looking glass. When he looked himself over, he found that his hair had caught a gust of wind. He snatched the wooden comb off the hearth. It was not long before his brown hair fell back over his face and its youthful features. His cheeks were rosy from the sun, his eyes were a dark brown that was nearly black. It made his iris difficult to distinguish from his pupil, but there was a difference. He brushed some debris off his guard's uniform, the bits and pieces landing in the unlit hearth. The crisp green-brown gambeson he wore stood in stark contrast to the black linen pants he had on beneath them. His sword was strapped to his waist, extending from the blade's hilt, which was about two hands' length above his thigh, down to halfway down his calf. His coin pouch and waterskin were tied next to the scabbard, as well. He turned his waist and caught a glimpse of his dagger which hung horizontal across the small of his back. Physically, he was in peak condition. All that time spent sparing with the other lads at the barracks had paid off.

The youth pulled his gambeson down, straightening a few wrinkles that had formed, and stood up straight before walking toward the door. "I'll be home soon, Mother!"

"Don't get yourself hurt lad, I love you," she called from the other room.

"I love you too!" Nail closed the door behind him and took back to the street.

The loose dirt kicked up around Nail's feet paved a path through the otherwise clean air from his father's house to the village library. Even Nail would be hard pressed, however, to follow that path as it converged with the clouds kicked up by the milling villagers, merchants, tradesmen, and elders. The lad was only stopped once on his way to the library by his friend the berryman. Nail had plotted his path to the library so it would take him back by the berryman's stall, but he had expected to pass by, perhaps trading waves with the berryman as he bartered with more customers. Instead he found one last customer being handed her change and going on her way. Nail recognized the weaver's wife, Janis.

The goodwoman's middle-aged face lit up as she saw Nail approaching. She quickly took his hand in hers and kissed the back of his palm. "'Appy Naming day, lad, you be the last o' tha 'mithy boys, do ye?"

"I be." Nail took her hands in his and nodded. "Odin's wisdom find you, Janis."

"And Thor's strength to ye, lad." She released his hands and Nail watched her go.

"Well, at least you're consistent, boy." The berryman chuckled as he began setting his supplies up onto the table. Before long, he would wrap up whatever was left of his berries and jams, usually not very much, and take them to the little temple maintained for his Roman gods.

"Consistent?"

"Consistent," Jeremy said. "You always manage to show up just as the work gets done."

"Well, have you considered selling the bad stuff? You might not sell nearly out before the sun even peaks," Nail said.

"I've thought about it, but if I did Lady Ceres might have my head."

Nail watched the berryman go about the wrapping of his fruits. There was a quiet which was periodically interrupted by the clapping of glass jars one against another, berries being poured, and the occasional pair of villagers walking by holding conversation. The boy looked back the way he came, the thought of Analise suddenly filling his mind. He wished to be with her already, but he didn't know when her mother would release her to fulfill her library duties for the day.

"Why not pick her up, lad." The berryman had stopped milling about and had found the truth behind his gaze, through intuition if Nail had to guess.

"What?" Nail felt his cheeks redden, "I don't know what you mean."

"I was once a young village lad too, boy."

"Really?" Nail asked. "Where?"

The berryman waved his hand and said, "Somewhere else. But I remember what it was like being completely smitten."

"I'm not smitten," Nail said.

"You're willing to swear on that?" The berryman crossed his arms he had a self-satisfied smile on his face.

Nail didn't give that an answer.

"Go to her, lad. You two need to quit playing your game."

"When she's named."

"You're willing to wait another entire year?"

"I've already waited four," Nail shrugged. "What's another?"

The berryman returned to his work, shaking his head. "I suppose."

Nail went to leave and the berryman changed topics. "You know, boy," Jeremy said, "There is a priestess of Ceres coming into the village next week, you might come by my berry farm when she does, watch her work and listen a while."

Nail chuckled and said, "If I made a habit of listening to strange women the Witch of the Library would have had my goat years ago."

"True enough, boy."