The Celestial Princess

Chapter 1, The Orphan

(3.4K words — roughly 14 min. read)
Chapter One
THE ORPHAN

I.

In the other nights of December's winter, the lonely town usually slept still under a blanket of snow, perched on a large cliff of a mountain among many in the region. The traders and merchants kept their goods stored warm inside neat pantries, and the builders—whose numbers rose unusually many for such a tiny community—soothed their aching muscles beside homely fireplaces. The others enjoyed thorough rest on their featherbeds, and the first snores often came as early as eight p.m.

On the 25th eve of the month, however, the townsfolk allow the town to stay awake beyond midnight. People come to gather with friends and family in the comforts of their homes, alight with candles and lamps, and surrounded by the best food—roasted chicken and deer, fried herring, fresh grapes, pomegranates, and quinces, wine, and the like. Even with the weight and silence of the season, the savory smell of the feasts waft from the windows and chimneys of homes, and the merry singing of people, drunken or sober or somewhere in between, prance through streets, halls, and alleyways.

The people shared joy in abundance, obviously, yet they all kept to their homes. The height of winter often came around this period, and the bitterest cold made it nigh impossible to cheer, dance, or even move.

As tragic as the vision might be, on the very 25th eve of December, year 1678, a girl sitting on the steps of an alley faced it without the slightest desire.

She pressed herself to the wall to her right, feeling the little warmth her body shared with it. Her auburn hair, flaked with bits of snow, dropped limp by the sides of her frail shoulders. She reached her brittle white hands for her cloak and wrapped herself as tightly as she could. Every sigh that escaped her dry lips shaped into puffs of smoke in front of her. Exhaling deeply, she hung her face dead ahead and saw the warm yellow lights of the windows of homes.

The smoky, fruity aroma that invaded the town's walks did no good to her stomach, rumbling thin underneath her belly. The chords of the townsfolk's singing and chanting also drilled into her ears—like insults upon insults towards the gaping injury that was her present. She eyed the doors to their homes and sought their welcomes for a moment—then remembered how their locks were more for her than the rest of the world.

She slumped on her place and kept her gaze down. Sniffing in the cold, she reached her hand into the weary satchel she kept by her side and brought out a small block of bread.

It chilled her hands as they touched, and its frozen sturdiness pressed back against her fingertips. She frowned a bit as she remembered how the only baker in town threw it at her feet while muttering a stale "Happy winter's eve, girl," but she shook it off and munched on it, anyway.

In a few moments, the bread was gone, yet the girl's stomach continued rumbling in protest.

Grimacing, she reached for her satchel and turned it upside-down, shaking it—hoping to get at least a few more pieces of bread that might have broken off. Instead, a tiny matchbox and a pair of rolled parchments slid off and hit the ground with a thud. She shook the bag a little bit more but found nothing.

The girl, dismayed, cast the bag aside and rummaged through the parchments. They were both letters; the first one was inscribed To the oldiest! Read when you miss us, while the other was To the daughter—read when you're lost. As she read their inscriptions, the girl relaxed a little bit. The familiarity helped her fight off the freezing cold, albeit for only a time.