Where Smoke and Light Collide - ONC 2022

Orphans

The story starts something like this...

In the land of Valencia, civil war had come like a hurricane and torn families apart. The peasants worked hard and earned little. The highborn worked little and earned much. The seed of anger and greed grew on both sides, but what weapons could not do, magic did. And those born Magicae belonged only to the highborn who tested the young and took them into their services.

Blood seeped into their soils, waters ran red, screams pierced the air day and night, and nobody won. But someone always loses.

It was at this time the orphanages saw an increased number of children arrive at their doors, they came in hordes to displace even the mice. The wardens never turned back anyone, and they fitted their cots and beds to the full, while their cupboards and pantries went bare.

After some years, the exhausted peasants waved their white flag and abandoned their weaponry in piles for the soldiers' taking. They promised peace and the king promised forgiveness. The failed men and women went back home, back to their work and to what was left of their families. But the orphanages mostly kept the same numbers.

Some of the children were placed in homes—the healthy, the lively, those with the endearing smile and the good manners who knew when to use 'as it pleases my lord' or 'thank you my lord'. And they went to good homes, highborn homes, people who looked at them as something worth saving.

Anya didn't think she was worth saving. There was no color to her cheeks and not much flesh on her bones, she slept little and it showed on the dark circles around her eyes, and she didn't smile much or at all. Sometimes in the dark, she'd hear sounds—creaks and groans—sounds she didn't know. They made her cower inside the cave of sheets and bedspreads, safe inside the darkness of her own surroundings. She wished to be more like the other girls, those who Anya would see sleeping, snoring peacefully, oblivious of nothing but the layers of tranquil sleep behind their eyes.

And sometimes when the cave became too stuffy, Anya would tiptoe from her bed and out into the hallway. The windows there came low enough for her to sit on the sill. She'd peer into the night sky with all its stars and the moon. She felt them close even from afar, the way their light shone across the vast indigo. Their light embraced her tight and safe from the dangers of darkness and even kept the chill of the night at bay. She thought they soothed her with tiny voices. And when she spoke to them, it brought her comfort.

One night, as she sat with a full moon radiating its light like a beacon, she smiled and told the moon, "I'm not afraid."

No sooner the words abandoned her mouth, another voice spoke.

"Who are you speaking to?" A boy broke from the shadows of one of the hall's corners.

Anya had seen him before. He was older than the rest of the boys—or at least taller. He kept to himself, ate alone in the common room, and spoke with nobody. Up till now, she'd never heard his voice.

"Who are you speaking to?" He repeated and came closer until the moon's light was the only distance separating them.

"To no one," Anya said.

"I heard you."

"You must've heard wrong."

"I know what I heard."

She bit her lip. "What were you doing hiding in the shadows?"

His eyes flinched. "I like the dark."

"Really?"

"There's nothing wrong with the dark." He sounded defensive.

Anya wanted to say 'Yes! Yes! Everything's wrong with the dark. Monsters live in the dark and I can hear them'. Instead, she kept mum staring at the odd boy. Other than his black hair and thick dark eyebrows, he looked like any other of the orphan kids: like he needed more time out in the sun and more meat to his diet.