One of the Stars

Chapter One

So...this story sucks sorry. I wrote this a looooong time ago. 

The video above is Lindsey Stirling's First Light. This kind of reminded me of Xandra finding Soli XD. 

Hope you enjoy!

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I walked through the forest alone. This wasn't the first time I'd made this trip. I'd done it many times before. Only now...I was alone. My mother always used to walk with me. She said it was for "protection". I knew, even as a five year old, this was nonsense. If there really were bandits, witches, or dragons in the forest, my mother would have been of no use to me. So when I turned sixteen, I was finally old enough to make the trip to the Lord Adelbert's manor thirty miles away and give him our megar supplies. Even though the huge load of wool on my back didn't feel megar, I knew it was. I think the real reason mother let me go alone was that she didn't want to make the journey with me anymore. She was the kind of woman who was happy at home alone. Without a child to care for.' Anyways, taking the food to Lord Adelbert ensured...well, that we wouldn't die. It was his way of taking away any of our rights that we had left.

I'm a peasant. As was my mother. And her mother before her. I suppose it goes back until there weren't peasants. Or anyone who was as poor as dirt. Even though we were poor, that doesn't mean we were ugly. My mother was (and still is) strikingly beautiful. I am as well. Mother says that my great-grandmother was cursed with beauty by the fairy Feela after she complained that there were no men that cared for her. That sounds ridiculous. Beauty is probably just a family thing. I know that I've probably caught the eye of every boy in the village and I don't care. Mother keeps telling me to choose a match already, but I'm unwilling. I wish for more. I know it's unseemly and impractical, but I don't care.

The journey to the castle is a long one and will take me three days. So far I've been out here for two days and should arrive by midday tomorrow. That is, provided if mom's "bandits" don't kidnap me and sell me into slavery. On this road, I've met no one but a monk, a few squirrels and the occasional passing baron. Actually, there weren't any barons. They wouldn't dare travel on these dirty roads at this time of year.

I don't know why mother didn't let me go by myself sooner. I knew how to make a fire since I was seven. When I was eight, I was practically making all the food myself. By nine, I was the only one doing any work. And I know practically everything there is to know about taking care of myself.

Making a fire is what I'm doing now as a prepare to settle down for the night. I lay down under a tree and wish myself goodnight. Sometimes I actually wish that bandits or dragons would come. I wish that something interesting would happen in my pathetic life. Sometimes, sometimes...I just feel so alone. Even when I'm out in the fields, with hundreds of people I've grown up with, I still feel...lonely. But the strange thing is, when I'm out here, by myself in the woods, the stars shine down on me. They call to me. They say, yes you're small. Yes, you're pathetic. But you lie here. Among the stars. I know it's stupid. I know that if anyone, even my mother, wait, especially my mother, would think that I needed to be hauled off to lie in the deepest dungeon. That's why I don't really tell anyone my feelings. I just use spunk and sass to navigate myself through life. I guess it's working.

Morning comes and every bone in my body aches. I'm used to sleeping on slightly less hard ground. Minus rocks and bugs. But I'm up, and as soon as I can gather my belongings I'm off. I don't really want to leave the forest. But I can't tarry, for if I do, I will be slaughtered and my house burned with my surviving family members tied to the roof inside. So I hurry through the forest, my head abuzz with thoughts. My brain was so busy up in the clouds, it forgot to come down to earth. I walked on the path, my heavy load weighing on my back.