take my hand }:jafa:{

She saw the stars for the second time in her life the night before.

That of course, was a lie, of sorts. Everyone had seen the stars numerous times in their lives. One simply had to look up across the dark, deep nothing to see the twinkling lights. But no, Jordan Snow had seen the stars for the second time the night prior. There were lots of times in a life that one can look up and finally notice the brilliance of the stars, but that seldom happened. There were very few instances in anyone’s life where people truly noticed what was up there.

There were moments, very scarce and few between in which someone can look up and appreciate, notice and love the sky so fondly, so entirely that their entire body could be given up, released to the sky above, and they wouldn’t care. Jordan had felt that last night – for no particular reason. Perhaps it was the tree she was sitting in, the usually rough bark, unintentionally smooth from the recent rainfall, making it more than comfortable to lay on. Or maybe – just maybe, it was the walk over from the orchards, all the grass soft and mushy below her bare feet, as if there was nothing wrong in the world. Usually, she stepped with a certain caution along the fields, very wary of the potential dangers that were on the orchards, cigarette butts, glass, anything that could easily tear up the bottom of her feet, but the grass was soft and unassuming, so she took her chances.

As she looked up, barefoot, on her tree trunk, which was now cushioned with a softness very unlike the barks usual texture, she truly noticed the stars. She questioned it, no doubt, she questioned how on a night so boring, with nothing special that was happening to her, she could notice the stars, as she hadn’t truly seen them in a year now, ever since she ran from home.

Julia’s Orchards had treated her with a new sense of respect, that of which she’d never experienced throughout her whole life, it was a new feeling that she never knew. Sure, she still loved her family dearly, who couldn’t – it was so hard not to. You can never forget where you come from, despite how hard you try. Jordan never really held any sort of extreme hatred towards the misfits of the Snow family, it was just – she needed to be free.

A young girl of sixteen needed to spread her wings and see the world, she needed to wake up among the few, and know what the morning felt like, truly felt like. She needed to see what it was like to go to the market without an explicit purpose, being able to wander. She needed to be able to write stories, to create new worlds, that for once were not filled with an extreme sorrow that only she seemed to have experienced, and beyond that – she needed to share her stories, she needed to see what was out there, what she could experience.

And that’s why she left – and maybe that was why she saw the stars that night. Laying restlessly among tall blades of grass, sleeping out in the cold, in which she’d never truly experienced, she finally opened her eyes and let herself see, truly see what was going on. It was that night, that one simple glance that let her see what was happening in the world. The bright blues and yellows that seemed to surround every burning comet as it twinkled lightly through the deep black, darker than anything in which she’d ever truly experienced. She watched as the stars expanded and shrank every few seconds, the stars pulsating as if they had a heart of their very own, everything was living – she realized. The grass around her swayed with the slight wind that washed through the District that night, the stars had heartbeats, and humans, her, her family, were perhaps the living creatures who lived the most – how scary was that. To realize one wasn’t truly living as much as they initially thought. It was scary, and thrilling. She watched the night grow darker, and with it the stars grew brighter, they pulsated even harder, as if a sense of adrenaline pumped through them mercilessly, as if they were a balloon slowly blowing up ready to pop, and explode. But they didn’t, they just kept living.

One just had to keep living, that’s all. Just keep living.

Jordan had found the Orchards the next morning with only the stars to guide her there. Perhaps they were a beacon, a sign of where it was that she had to go – and she thought, then, that maybe that would be the only time she would ever see the stars. Nothing scared her more.

But there she was, with fiery red hair that only got drowned out in the darkness, an eager set of hazel eyes, with soft tree bark, bare feet, and a notebook that lived, that seemed to throb like stars anxiously awaiting words to be scrawled across it mercilessly. For the first time in a year, since the dew surrounded her, since the cold reached her skin and grabbed on, shaking her fervently, since the night she left home with the intention of flying – she saw the stars in all of their beauty.

Was it a sign though? That was the real question she wondered – if these stars had appeared once before as she was looking for a place to disappear to, was it once again time for her to fly away, find a different coop? After all, birds only stayed still for so long and silver-tongued storytellers were supposed to travel from inn to inn staying only for days at a time before they went elsewhere to find a different audience to tell a story too. But lately, she’d taken up a permanent state of residence at the Orchards. She had her room , she had her tree, she had her spot along the bonfire, where she told her stories. Maybe it was the permanency that scared her, that made her see the stars once again – was it time for a change? Or was it time for her to sit and write all that she had to say.

Only time could tell.

She looked upon the stars, she looked upon them and questioned everything she could with the fire that lit her soul, and came out with no answers. Did the stars only come when fear was there? Did the stars only come when a need for change was there? Did the stars only come when they wanted to? And so she wrote – that was the solution to everyday sufferings for her. Whether the towns people laughed at her walking around, with her giant lips, with her giant feet, with her dirtiness and a book under her arm. Whether she had a good day, a bad day, a mediocre day that could be improved, she wrote. So she did.

Jordan wrote about the stars, and the ways that they mimic humanity. She wrote about the ways that she saw the stars, the way that their beauty was so prevalent, and that they lived on their own – with their own terms, playing by nobodies rules. She talked of a princess, a girl who saw all of these stars, all of the questions she had of them. She let the princess roam; let her walk among the society, where people did not praise her as much as scoffed her. She wrote stories about the stars and the princess who used them as a compass for her adventures, and didn’t know what to do with it – and she prepared it for story-telling.

That night, on her giant tree, her tree, she wrote another story that she would tell around the burning campfire, it’s blaze reaching higher and higher with every word that she spoke. Telling stories about a princess (who was actually her) and wrote it, and practiced it, she readied herself for another session. And as the moon started to hide away, she scrambled off her tree, the bottoms of her feet scraping off bits of soft tree bark as she tumbled down. Running back to her bed, to her room, she took no care for any glass or any cigarette butts that could be hiding amongst the grass, and slept.

With the sun in her window, begging her to awake, she begrudgingly pulls herself from the soft bed, without having a full night’s sleep – but that was the way the Orchard worked, she awoke with the sun, as did everyone else. It was the way things worked, and she did not question it as she scuffled along the hardwood floors, grabbing her notebook before bolting out the door. She needed to practice her story on someone – anyone, but everyone already seemed to be going about their own business, and the red-headed girl wasn’t prepared to just distract anyone from what they were doing for a silly story.

That’s all her stories were, silly. To her, at least. People seemed to enjoy them, but, she always found them a little silly. Fairy tales never really existed, did they? Maybe one day, she would find a way to prove herself wrong, but until then, there was nothing that she could do. She looked around the old rickety house, looking for someone, anyone to listen – she just needed someone to listen, was that so much, just listen.

It wasn’t until she walked straight into Odell’s room that she truly found someone. The blonde-haired girl always seemed to appreciate her stories more than the others, though she didn’t always really seem all there. But really, who was normal these days anymore? In this world – as long as you were happy, there didn’t need to be a sense of sanity. Jordan waited for stars to appear, and made herself a princess. She made herself different, and Odell had a world of her own, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that at all – was there? “Hey Odell.” She whispered softly as she knocked gently on the girl’s door, not wanting to interrupt anything she might have been doing. “I was just, uh, wondering if you would listen to a story I just wrote?” It sounded so silly, but she had to share it. There was something about the stars that she couldn’t understand, was it a compass or just chance? Maybe Odell would know – maybe someone in these Orchards would understand her, understand her need to keep moving, keep walking, moving forward.

Maybe, just maybe, someone would understand the stars, and she wouldn’t have to question anything anymore. Jordan could just keep walking forward, she could be one of those silver-tongued story tellers that moved from place to place, without anywhere to call home but the open road. She could fly like no bird could every fly. She could become best friends with the stars, who would ultimately be her guides.

She could figure out the stars, and see them every single night, without question.

That was a world she wanted to live in.