✮ Her head wished she had went on thinking he was an infuriating, overly-confident, horribly handsome asshole, that hated her people and always put himself first. Her heart knew he wasn't any of those things. He was a celestial; a man plucked from t...
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"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
—Albert Einstein
She had seen it clearly; a large metal box falling from the sky before disappearing into the trees. For a moment, Astoria had wondered if she dreamt it—she'd never seen anything like it before. She heard stories of people falling from the sky, but she had believed those all to be just that. Stories. Tales of make believe to make her feel less alone. But even if those stories had been all fabricated to trick or tease her, this had been real. The smoke and dust falling from the landing site proved that much.
She knew she should have run the opposite way—it would have been the smart thing to do. If she had seen the pod fall, then the others would have as well. Still, after a few moments of the logical side of her brain debating with the foolish and curious one, she found herself dashing through the trees as she had done hundreds of times before. She was sure she could move through the woods with her eyes closed, her feet jumping over the overgrown roots and her head ducking below leaves that came down too close to the ground out of instinct. She was a child of the forest; had been since the day she was born. In recent years, however, that idea became much more literal.
Astoria had only been nine when she was forced out of her village to live on her own, even her blood family turning against her. The odds were she would have died in the first year, but by some grace, or perhaps it was a curse (because there were definitely times where she believed it would have been easier to die), she made it through. Then another year went by, and another. Eventually the days began to pass in a blur, all meshing together with the same routine: wake up, hunt, survey the grounds and then sleep once more. Every few months she moved her camp, knowing it was neither safe nor smart to remain in the same place for too long. Every other day she would venture to the closest body of water to bathe, and she always spent more time doing so than necessary. It was where she could find peace, floating on her back with her ears half in the water and half touching the air.
Because every day was the same, when something extraordinary happened, like a giant metal box falling from the sky, she found it difficult to convince herself to stay put.
By the time she heard voices her legs had begun to hurt, and she skidded to an abrupt stop at the first loud burst of laughter. It was still a ways away, much too far for her to be seen yet, but she had dug her heels into the dirt anyway. Then she moved behind a tree quickly, pressing her palms into the bark whilst she tried to steady her breathing. She hadn't thought this far ahead. Normally, she would have made a plan or had some sort of goal, but now she felt foolish—what had she thought she was going to do?
