I was told once, a lifetime ago, that all stories need a point of beginning. A proper story then, as is tradition, begins with the birth of the hero or heroine. A main character’s origin is their circumstance, what makes them the person they are and who they could one day become.

An honorable, gallant knight, could only ward off devils and temptations because of his esteemed birth.

An inspiring tale on the contrary must tell of one from humbler stock, so that the rise to fame is all the more moving.

And downtrodden is the tale of the poor maiden who would be the spouse of some rich and handsome prince.

Such are the patterns of the stories popular in my time. I know them well for long they had provided me with my only escape, my warm shelter during the rainy days confined in the mansion.

Even then, I had been puzzled, what then did my origin imply?

Being of noble birth, I already had everything at my beckon. What was there? To forever wither away at this stagnated beginning of a dull tale? Never to amount to anything worthy of being written? Do not get me wrong, I have never, not even once, longed for romantic adventures or exciting escapades. But the tale I saw before me, of my eventual marriage with another noble’s son, one handsome perhaps, gallant, and brilliant also, then to raise with him a child or two to be his heirs – that life could not seem any more foreign, like the life woven for a stranger. I only knew me. And that me felt coldly distant towards the prospect of my own tale.

Selfish, naïve, spoiled,… are all the traits one would not be wrong to associate with me for being dissatisfied with a life envied by most. And if you were to ask, what was it that I really wanted, if not for luxuries and material happiness? I would not be able to provide a solid answer. I was nothing but a void, much like the family’s changeling attendant: a dumb, pointless existence.

Pretty jewels to me are only glittering pebbles, fine wines but flavored water, oysters but slimy bread. Once I tried on a kitchen’s servant linen robe, and for the life of me, could not tell aught worthwhile differences from my softest silk gown.

And yet all about me, everyone lived and served their desire for those material things. For power and for riches. And when at last they attain it, be it the status of a count or a baron or whatever, they dedicate the latter part of their lives to flaunt their achievement: they ride the fanciest carriages, sail on gold-trimmed ships, build a most magnificent abode, host many a grand banquet, to reaffirm their superiority over the others of their ilk. How different they are from those admirable heroes and heroines in stories. Yet they claim to be of the same noble stocks, so destined for like greatness and respect.

But is it really so bizarre? Or was it just me who was unwilling to comprehend a cold hard truth?

I had a theory, a personal one, that maybe all the selfless martyrs out there, who have sacrificed themselves for the benefit of others instead of stockpiling wealth, are just exceedingly sick and tired of a life full of inadequate offerings, unlike the typical nobility, who certainly relish earthly things to no end. It is but trading one kind of pleasure for another. The material kind for the spiritual. Fitting ends for them then, if Fate robs them of the life they failed to appreciate.

For my part, when my life had been so deservedly wrought, I could discern no difference between the life of a lady and a slave.

After all, does not the origin of a heroine usually occupy only five pages at most at the beginning of a novel? And perhaps a story begins earnestly only when the first interesting event occurs. A sudden challenge from a villain. A chance encounter in an unusual place. The first gaze on a would-be sweetheart. If so, and I sincerely believe it is indeed so, then my past and noble birth were just a fleeting dream, without much consequence at play for the rest of the tale, and may as well be scratched off, practically removed like an amateurish scribe’s clumsy first page. For this tale of mine only began in earnest the day I met her.

Star.

She could tell me the boring reason of how the name came to be all she wanted, I loved it still. How dreamy, how lovely it is. Are those glittering lights in the night heavens not the real gemstones, available for nobles and slaves alike to behold when the day’s curtain falls? No shame is there in that name. I adored it. I was obsessed with it. Much as I had been with the person.

My tale hinged on this changeling girl, who was not a shining prince or a promising adventure. She was only an innocent girl, a soul purer than aught I have had the misfortune to observe in these wretched skies.

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Yes, in a world where values preached by religious figureheads and sovereigns are never practiced by the persons themselves; and the most honest souls are simply hypocrites; and even the best people flawed; and even the greatest fall to temptations; the only image resembled those of the untarnishable heroes in fictions was a clueless azure. How queer. She alone possessed virtues unmatched by living saints or painted celebrities. For she was naïve, was sheltered, was unperceptive of this world’s evil. And an azure as she was, she would never grow up to be tainted. Forever a tender soul hosted in an unchanging doll-like body. She was the living person I have always yearned for in my past. Not much of a person, but such was the thing I needed.

But I was wrong.

I was utterly wrong in my premature prediction.

Nothing could remain unchanged.

And I could never have that which I wished for from the bottom of my heart, even when at last after a lifetime of pointless living I thought I had found it.

Still.

This love had long surpassed reasons for fancy. For a long time now, this and that particularities had ceased to exist. I just wanted to be there by her side, no reason needed. I just wanted her to be happy, no matter how increasingly difficult that wish was growing to be.

As I stood there, looking over her sulking, curling body on the bed, I was deeply disappointed. I looked at her, and she was as always, azure-haired, slight frame, crimson eyes. But now as I stood, my clean hand reached out to lightly stroke her head, and the velvety softness gave me a start. Used to be that her hair was grimed and dirtied with sweat, now it was pampered and treated with care, bathed and perfumed. I do not grudge her the trite comforts. It was I who took care of it after all, playing my part as a maid. And yet there was something unnatural about it. Like a quaint and overgrown courtyard swept clean, revealing the stony, immaculate surface beneath. ‘Twas a different kind of beauty, one I was not used to seeing and touching. One that I had scorned in my past life.

It was scary. There was a time when I looked at her, like now, she felt exactly like a fictional character. And not just in traits and image, but in existence. It was like she existed wholly in another plane, with unaffectable emotions and temperament. That once put down they are set in stone. As though controlled by a puppeteer or dictated by a single word choice of her writer. She may be a little more complex and nuanced than the average azure, low as that bar may be, and not so emotionless, but on the other hand, she could be more unpredictable.

So close was I to letting slip her from my embrace and having her fall to insanity the night she returned from her first flight. I could still recall her tremble, her pallor, how pathetic it felt in my sweating palms.

It made me scared. I was slowly becoming unable to understand her.

Without knowing, I had laid down beside her. The mattress was softer than in the slave cabin, yet it was not that softness that overcame me with comfort. I missed her warmth, I missed turning to gaze at her moonlit face in the countless nights when we used to lay like so. For some time I had been deprived of this comfort which I used to take for granted. So fleeting everything is, and so transient the things you thought safe in your embrace. That though you might treasure it greatly while it was there, the pain when it is no more stings none the less.

And yet, I must wonder. Why her in particular? There were nine other azures on this ship. And once, a lifetime ago, my family had been served by an azure attendant. But in every one of them, I found only the underland’s barrenness, a certain bleakness and inhumanity that had alienated me at the onset. Star should have been like that too, before all these unexpected changes. Could it be that I have always known? That there was something else in her than a wonted azure emptiness? And it was this unfulfilled potential for changes that had charmed me?

Was that really a good thing?

Perhaps it had always been destined that she would one day join hands with a wyvern for a pledge. That impossible deed she had done that no azures had ever attempted. And yet what good had it done her? She must have realized by now that this is the path to ruin. What had once been a quiet, uneventful life, now crossed paths with one atrocity after another.

The incident of the prisoner taken from Xenon. The revelations of Valerian and Marigold. All had been but the meagerest expressions of the ordeals the creatures of the skies must endure without the safe haven of a lowly status.

To reach out for someone is to risk getting hurt in return. To attempt an action is to leave yourself open to the possibility of failure. When a thing is dared with sincerity, it invites mocks and jeers from those with naught to lose or gain. ‘Tis a cruel world. And what could go wrong will eventually go wrong.

Such is a bleak thought, you say? Actually, I have never denied being a coward. But here I want to overturn the meaning of that word a little. Could it be that a coward is one who has never had a worthy thing to dare? Because without a thing to protect or attain, why must one strive and try? And so I had been a coward all my life, wishing for nothing but detesting all. Even the lords and ladies I once despised l had something to yearn for, though it is but wealth and power. Even now upon this ship, there were women who fought with their lives on the line to protect their homes, friends, and lovers.

So long as there is something important to you, it is worth trying to be brave.

Star had given me that something. But no more shall I take my time with her for granted, for more and more our future is becoming uncertain. I must resolve myself and steel my heart, so that I can persist by her side, whatever might come our way, until the end of her story.

So here begins another chapter in the life of Thea the bond slave. And it is here maybe that my story will begin in earnest.

THE END OF BOOK I