Steve: senses

The boy ran through the cornfields, using the narrow paths between the rows of golden long stems as his guide, careful not to tread over the line and damage the precious life-giving crop.  He glanced backwards at the figure striving to keep up and slowed his pace until irritably he stepped and turned,
'Come on Kesa, Ma will box our ears if we're late.'
The girl pouted as she neared him, 'Maybe yours Tynan Bleddows, but my Da might have something to say when I go home and tell him you left me behind.'
The boy pulled a face but was careful not to let her see it.  It was just like her to tell tales on him, usually culminating in him getting a thrashing.
'Besides,' she said, 'you weren't so quick to get home when I allowed you to kiss me.'
His cheeks reddened, but he felt a strange warmth in his chest as he thought about their lips touching,
'Well, you said you had something in your eye, and when I looked you grabbed me, ' he shot back hotly.
'Din't see you complaining tho' Kesa said slyly, 'and you were walking funny afterwards.'
It was true.  Lately he had had strange feelings towards his old playmate, and it was typical of her to always get the upper hand in their bickering.  They walked the rest of the way in silence, him stomping ahead but careful not to get too far in front.  They reached her family's farmstead in due course and he raised a hand in farewell,
'S'long Kesa, see you tomorrow.'
In response she stuck her tongue out and turned away without looking back.  'Women' he thought, 'They really are from the wastelands!'  He didn't know what it meant, but he had heard Diggary and the other wranglers discussing it over their cups of beer.
He jogged the rest of the way home, and noticed a bag outside the door that didn't belong to him or his family.  Opening the door he stepped over the threshold and awaited the scolding his mother would surely give him.  The kitchen was empty, the only sound the large pot of bubbling gruel that was served with every meal in Haven, either mixed with wild herbs or spoonfuls of honey to flavour.
'Ma?' he called hesitantly, not used to her being outside her domain.
'Come through to the sit-room Ty,' he heard his father say.  A feeling of dread came over him, his father was never home this early.  He took a deep breath and pushed open the door that led to the room that his father's voice had come from.  His mother and father were sitting in two of the three chairs in the room, the other was occupied by a stranger in a wide brimmed hat that covered his eyes in darkness.  A pipe pointed straight out, as if gripped by teeth trying to bite through the wooden stem.
'Ty, this is Mr Shadow,' his father said in an unfamiliar voice, 'me and your Ma have employed him.  It's time for you...'  he trailed off, and seemed not to be able to meet his son's eyes.
If you don't mind, Mr Bleddows,' the stranger said, 'I'll take over here.'
Remembering his manners, Ty offered up his palm raised in the welcome/peace greeting, and stepped forward closer to the man in the hat.
'How do you fare sir?' he said formally, 'My name is Tynan Jonathan Sweetbriar Bleddows.'
Before his lips had finished the introduction, a crashing blow to his cheek had laid him to the floor, the side of his face numb yet tingly.
'Let's get one thing straight boy,' the man now standing over him growled, 'your name ain't shit now, an' if you talk to me again with your hand out, why I'll bite it off and use your fingers to clean my pipe with.'
Stunned, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, Ty raised his head and looked at his mother, expecting outrage at his treatment.  She looked away, with a strange look on her face as though she would cry.  An agonising pain on the top of his head made him cry out as a large hank of his hair was grabbed, and he was dragged to his knees.  The man leaned closer, his sweat smell mixed with that of the weed he smoked, and for the first time Ty looked into his pale blue eyes.
'Your poor ma and da have entrusted me with turning you into a man.' he said, scorn dripping from his voice. 'An' I don't mind telling you, now I sees you, that a more pewling, pathetic runt has I never seed.'
Tears ran down Ty's face, as the hand in his hair gripped tighter,
'Ma....' he began, before another blow to the side of his head sent him to the floor once again.  He lay silent, too stunned to comprehend the quickness of events.
'From now on boy, you will calls me Master, an' you will do what I telt you.  From now on, an' until I says so, your poor suffering ma and da don't exist, not until they has a son they be proud to call their own.  Now stop your sheep's bleating and go sleep with the pigs, cos they the only kind you be fit to reside with.  GO!'
Dimly aware of strange sobbing sounds coming from the room, Ty crawled away towards the door, and was in the yard before he realised they came from him.  His cheek and head throbbing from the impact of the blows, he leaned against the door, and heard from the sit-room the wicked stranger's voice.
"Now don`t you be frettin` none missus. Tis the only way to knock the boy out of `im. Ol` Shadow be makin` men of Northland boys for nigh on twenny years now, I knows what I'm doin.'
Still with tears falling down his cheeks, Ty the obedient staggered to the building where the animals were kept at night.  Making a nest in the soft comforting hay, he cried himself to sleep.