Chimney Smoke

prologue

Fate works in mysterious ways, but people work harder to defy their paths. At least, that's what they would like to believe. When Fate draws you down a path and pulls another down a different road, what are the odds that you can defy that? Can you truly cross paths with somebody else, or will you forever be stuck to watch others pass by and hope your path intertwines with another?

The people of Nefelibata, a sleepy town buried within the swampy marshes, seem to understand this well enough. As a town that celebrates what's given to them, amidst the network of other settlements within the swamp, they follow Fate's path dutifully. Married to the idea of letting Fate decide their lives, the people live a surprisingly carefree lifestyle.

The people of Nefelibata celebrate their carefree nature with festivals. As a crossroads town, festivals are used to draw in travelers and merchants, as well as give the citizens time to grow livelier. Lanterns get strung up across the plaza, the street lamps burn brighter into long hours of the night, and chatter fills the streets until the sun comes over the Northern Mountains, when the activity dies down until the following afternoon.

The Blossom Festival is no different than the others, aside from the purpose of welcoming in warmer temperatures. Bouquets litter the plaza, pink and white ribbons get strung up around the lanterns, and the plaza gets rejuvenated for three nights with music, dancing, and socializing.

Axel always found himself heavily involved in festival planning, thanks to his mother pushing him for years. He fell in love with the planning from a young age, and now holds a good position in the process. However, as he walks across the plaza to help set up a few lanterns, he finds his eyes wandering to the peaks of the manors at the base of the Northern Mountains, the tips of the rooftops peeking over other buildings.

His parents always denounced the families who lived in them. They were spoiled rotten, they would claim, their children haughty and their lifestyle bland. They would especially throw around a name that left a poor taste in their mouths--the Marigolds. The family that lived directly at the end of Juniper Lane, in a near direct view of the plaza, the worst of them all. His parents had a deeply rooted history with the Marigolds, the patriarch disgusting beyond belief and the matriarch bowing at his beck and call.

Yet, Axel felt otherwise.

Feeling otherwise is what brought him to follow the cloaked figure later on at the festival, perplexed about how they could be wearing a heavy woolen layer in the growing February heat. As he trailed them through the crowd of drunken townspeople, all who seemed oblivious to the oddity amongst them, he searched for guards around the outskirts of the plaza.

Finally, the figure emerged from the crowd and turned down into an alleyway. He carefully followed until they stopped at the end of the alley. He pauses, watching the figure turn to look at him. Axel's breath is stolen while he studies the figure--a girl. The girl turns to study him in return, her eyes widened as she takes him in.

Axel takes a step closer towards her. "Who are you?" he calls, unable to recognize her. He knows everybody in the town, even travelers who come and go. Her unfamiliarity plants a seed of uncertainty in his gut.

She simply shrugs, looking out at the street on her right, and then turns back towards him.

"Somebody who shouldn't be here."