Once upon a time, in a kingdom called This Place, there was a beautiful princess named Juni. She was 12 and tiny and her parents were ready to marry her off to some old rich guy. Can you believe it? Medieval times, am I right? Also, it was pretty disgusting we know, and so did Juni. When she heard the news, she quickly packed up her stuff and left that castle and set off on a long spiritual journey...
Wait what? It wasn't a spiritual journey? Just a regular journey? Oh, alright. Sorry folks, she went off on a "regular" journey.
When Juni's parents found out that their daughter was missing they filed a report to the medieval police right away.
"I'm sorry, your highnesses." They said, "but in order to report your child as a missing case, they have to be at least missing for 48 hours."
In which they responded, "What the fuck are hours?"
On the first day of Juni's journey, she got attacked by 2 raccoons, she lost her shoe in quicksand, a goose chased her for 3 miles, and she had a horrible rash down there... aka her ankle.
She also had to sleep on the ground in a deep enchanted forest. There was wolves but she didn't particularly care for them, what she was afraid though, was of that rabbit that kept staring at her all throughout the night.
It just sat there, twitching its nose and fluffy white tail.
But anyway, by the third day, she came upon a small town and bought some bread. Well, more like picked up the bread and then made a run for it without paying.
It was sudden fortune that she tripped on a small stone and rolled across a hill. She then was stopped by a pole. She glanced up at it and there was a sign that read:
Princess Missing, Please return her to owner. As a reward, you will not be killed. Thanks.
-The Queen and King of This Place
And a bad picture of her was placed under it. Regardless of the bad picture, she knew that if anyone saw her, they would surely recognize her and return her to the queen and king. So she did the most reasonable thing. She cut off her hair, dressed in rags and changed her name to Jai.
She became a wanderer and whoever she met, she presented herself as Jai. A small peasant boy that lost his father and mother to the mighty great dragon called The Dragon.
It was a great made up story but when people asked "what dragon?" she instantly ran off.
It was a miracle that she survived all these years by herself living as a boy but when your life is in danger you'll do anything to get out of the fire. Metaphorical and in a literal sense.
Four years have passed since her departure. She had cuts and bruises on her dark skin, her hair was disheveled, and she had really bad breath like you wouldn't imagine.
This is what happens when you don't brush your teeth, kids.
She had also grown a bit. She was quite frightened when she began to bleed one day. One morning she stood up and blood dripped down her leg like a waterfall. It was scary and she had no idea what to do.
She spotted an old woman and Juni/Jai begged the old woman to help her. The kind old woman explained everything to her and after that womanly lesson, she felt powerful.
But that sense quickly died down when she was suddenly hit by cramps. She dropped onto the floor and stayed there for a couple of hours.
The woman let Juni stay for a couple of days and soon she thanked the woman for her hospitality. The woman gave her some supplies for future needs. She also gave the old woman her real name. She trusted her because no other stranger would have helped a child such as Juni.
Juni said her goodbyes and continued on her journey.
That was a very significant part of Juni's journey because of the old woman's kindness. Juni almost forgot that people can also be kind without expecting anything in return. She also learned that she was lactose intolerant... the hard way. But anyway, that's for another story.
For now, we will tell you about the current story we were just telling you about.
One day she stumbled upon an old unused barn or something like a barn. It had hay, okay. And a dead chicken in the corner.
She decided to rest a couple of days in there. She started to make a simple bed made out of hay and she buried the chicken outside and prayed to the Chicken Lord to forgive the sins this chicken has committed.
Outside of the barn was a small creek and there she cleaned herself up and washed her smelly clothes and unfortunately she had no fresh water with her so she had to also drink from the creek and there were toads.
She picked up her now dry clothes and got dressed but then she heard a step from behind a tree and lo and behold! there came out a boy.
He was your average looking boy, looked about the same age as Juni, and dressed in wonderful, silky clothes. Holy shit, he's probably rich.
He waved at her and she waved back. He walked towards her and held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Isaac."
She looked at him and then at the offered hand. His hands were clean and soft she felt kind of embarrassed about touching his hand with her hand which was dirty, cracked, and to be honest her hands looked gross compared to his. She took it anyway but tried not to squeeze as to not dirty Isaac's hand too much.
After a moment of silence, Isaac spoke again, "And... you are?"
Oh! Right, how rude of Juni.
"Oh, I am Jai."
"Jai? What a nice name. Are you new? I never seen you before."
"What? Oh, yeah. I just moved from..."
"From...?"
"From..." she had no idea how to come up with a lie. The only lie she knew was about the dragon but she couldn't just make one up out of the blue. So she went with whatever popped into her head. "From Africa."
"Africa?"
"Yeah, it's not far from here."
"Right." he nodded and turned his head to look at the barn. "You live there?"
"Yeah."
"Cool." he flashed her a charming grin. "Hey, you know what? Why don't you stay with us for a while. I mean, no one should live in a barn. Especially next to a chicken cemetery." he said noticing the pile of dry dirt and a cross sticking out of it that was made out of sticks and a big stone that read 'RIP chicken' on it.
"Hold up a second." she said," You're a mysterious guy who I just met, who somehow knew where I was, and who is offering me a place to stay and you expect me to just accept your offer?"
He shrugged.
"Yeah okay, why not?" and they both set off to wherever the hell they were going to.
