Duri Thompson was no stranger to those who secretly practiced Praxism. He has dealt with old woman secretly attempting religious cleansing ceremonies during harvest season, minior religious protest here and there and more. He’s gotten to the bottom of many religious scandals, but this religious endeavor was something he never expected.
He sat at the table in one of the very few rooms at the military outpost. Not his place of choice considering this one was mainly used for trade regulations for Veteris, but it was the best option he could get at the moment considering his current perpetrator was exploring the outskirts of the city.
He narrowed his eyes at the individual in front of him. A young girl sat there nervously playing with the end of her dark brown ponytail. She had been stubborn, anything he had asked her she respond with ten more questions for him. A curious kid she couldn’t be much older then twelve. The age was a little more surprising to him, most people he had previously convicted of practicing Praxis were much older than her. But the law is the law and if he could bust something greater than one twelve year old which in turn would deepen his pockets a bit more and spread his name just a bit farther, then it was definitely worth the annoyance this child was becoming. he was going to need to Duri sighed pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Ok, Miss.Bernice was it?” He began crossing his arms he leaned back in his seat.
She nodded “Yes Sir, Bernice Koffman. Am I in trouble? I feel like I am in trouble.” She spoke fast, more than likely due to her nerves “Are you part of the military? Did you send someone to find my mom? I really think you should find my mom or dad.”
“Now now” he said lightly waving his hands in an ‘it is alright’ getsure “You are not in any sort of trouble. Don’t worry. I just want to know what you were doing with this.”
He motioned to the object sitting in the middle of the table. A tiny leather book rested there the cover a dark earth brown with a ring of gold foil lining the cover and spine. A few golden leaves were embroidered into the corners. Books like these he had seen on more than one occasion all of which associated with one thing, Praxism.
“I don’t know what it is” She said simply simply looking away from him. The easiest way to tell when a child was lying.
“Miss.Bernice, didn’t your mother teach you not to lie” He responded with a slight smirk. She stiffened a bit twisting a lock of her hair around her finger.
“Yeah…” She mumbled
“Now you were caught with this book,” He said pointing at it “Do you know what this is?”
She nodded again and mumbled “It’s a spell book”
“Now this spell book is especially associated with Praxism.” He explained keeping his eyes on her “Do you know what Praxism is?”
Once again she nodded “We learned about it in school. It’s illegal”
Duri smiled and nodded “Yes it is kiddo. What do you like to do at school?”
She nodded “I like reading”
“I like reading too. I was a very smart kid when I was your age. Kind of like you.” He responded “Did your teacher give you this book? So you could have some more stuff to read?”
She didn’t respond continuing to twirl her hair around her finger. He could tell she was starting to get more nervous and cautious, she lost a bit of the curious spunk she had earlier.
“Miss.Bernice, you aren’t in any trouble, the sooner you answer my question the sooner you can go home when your parents get here.” He responded. “I promise.”
“I was just reading it..” She whispered timidly “I was curious”
“Ok, there is nothing wrong with a little bit of curiosity kiddo, but Praxism isn’t allowed, I just want to make sure you don’t get involved with the wrong kind of people.” he responded with reassurance, his tone was light and kind, a tactic to get her to relax more. “Where did you get it? Was it from school?”
She shakes her head, her fingers slowly stopped twirling around her lock of hair, it unraveled and she brought her hands to the table. “No I didn’t find it at school”
“Did you find it at the market?” He asked next “I know sometimes they can sell some very interesting things.”
She shakes her head again looking at the book then at him then back at the book.
“It doesn’t say anything bad” she spoke “Why is it bad to read it? It’s just a book”
“You know this already, praxism is not allowed.” He says sternly
“But why?” She tilted her head to the side
“Because that is the law” He responded, unsure if he should be grateful that she is starting to warm back up to talking to him or annoyed again that the million questions would follow it. “and the law is the law. It something that we should all follow to make sure bad people don’t hurt each other”
“But people who read this aren’t bad” She responded defensively crossing her arms
“Well that is not how the king views it, perhaps at school you should ask your teacher about history, I am sure he can teach you a lot more about it” Duri counters “What makes you say that people who read it aren’t bad?”
“cause … cause…” She stammers looking down
“Cause?”
“Well it was at my home and no one who is in my family is bad! We are all nice!” She defends puffing her cheeks a bit. Duri hides a victorious smirk. There it was.
“I am sure you and your family are very nice and because of that I am gonna let you go and run along home. I’m sure your mother is worried.” He says getting up from his chair.
“Really?” She ask
He nodded “I will just hold on to the book, don’t want you getting into more trouble”
“O-ok! Thank you Mister.Duri!” She cheers running out of the room.
Once gone he picked up the book from the table flipping through the pages, if once family had a book like this there were sure to be more and he had his work cut out for him. But he will get them, he always has a way of getting the truth out of people.
Formatting is making reading this piece difficult. The single large block of text is just hard to read. You begin the story by repeating secretly twice which was very glaring to me. There are more places where you re-use the same word in succession and they stop me for a second when reading it. Some of the sentences are very long and could be changed to two separate sentences or by just removing some of it. There is also a lack of punctuation that hurts the flow too. I do like how you try to make a lot of dialogue and characterize the girl by making her so curious, but the formatting is really hurting this from showing through as well as it could. I somewhat dislike how Duri simply uses the “because it is” argument against the girl, but it does help show what type of person he is.