Chapter Text
Cover made in Photoshop! :)
Her feet couldn't carry her fast enough.
Out of the warm light of the cottage, through the doorway, and into the cool moonlit shadows of the forest beyond. Asha ignored her mother calling her name behind her as she bolted down the pathway, away from their cottage, down the small road from their hamlet, and off into the trees.
She was followed closely by Valentino, a baby goat who had been dogging her steps every day of the three weeks since he was born, but not even he and his antics could make her feel better.
Tears burned in her eyes, and her breath started to catch in her throat. Only once she was out-of-sight of the most distant cottage in the hamlet did Asha begin to slow her pace. She brushed her tears away, to no avail; more streamed forth anyway. With a sob, she stopped, leaning against a tree. For a moment, she couldn't trust her own two feet to carry her.
Just like everything else today that her trust had been fractured in.
King Magnifico, the powerful sorcerer-king of Rosas, her beloved home, was not who he seemed to be. He purported - and she had believed - that he valued wishes because he valued the lives and aspirations of the people who had entrusted them to him. She'd wanted to become his apprentice. He had told how, as a child, his home had been destroyed, and why he had founded Rosas - so that no one should see their dreams, their lives, everything that they loved be destroyed.
Asha knew how he felt. She'd felt as if her world came to a stop the way that her father passed away, even shared with Magnifico how much her father believed in wishes, how she strived to honor him every day. It was the same, wasn't it? Asha loved the wishes of the people just like the king did, because a part of her past hurt so much.
And then she'd seen the wishes themselves. King Magnifico showed them to her, hundreds of them, enclosed in pearly orbs that he kept in the most protected reaches of the castle. They surrounded him in a dazzling array, a dizzying spectacle of his own command - but they surrounded Asha, too, even when she wielded no power over them like the king's sorcery.
And then she'd found a wish that she knew - the wish of her grandfather Sabino. It was his 100th birthday that very day, and she'd hoped so much that maybe, just maybe, King Magnifico might grant her grandfather's wish. She still remembered the feeling of holding that wish in her hands, a spark of such bright wonder and hope concealed inside its fragile shell, looking into his life's ambition.
He wanted to create something to inspire people! That was so wonderful! Asha's heart soared as she understood, seeing a vision of her grandfather playing a lute, creating the most wondrous music. He was surrounded by people who looked on, smiling, astounded by his skill. She'd never seen her grandfather look so content and happy.
And then...
And then King Magnifico turned his back. He refused to grant Sabino's wish, said it was "too vague" and that it could inspire something bad - like a riot. Asha didn't understand. That wasn't what the wish showed! Both of them could see it, right there in front of them!
But King Magnifico dismissed it. Sent the wishes away, back to their protected heights, and told her that not every wish would be granted.
Not every wish would be granted? Then why did he have them? The people didn't remember what they'd given up. Without their wishes, their lives were incomplete. Asha knew that. The king knew that. And he was content to just let them live without a chance to fulfill their greatest wish, just because he couldn't grant it?
There was the heartbreaking truth. He was content to let them live without their wishes.
Now Asha knew that truth, as well. She tried to tell her grandfather about the wish she'd seen - the wish that the king refused to grant - but Sabino didn't want to hear about it. What use was a wish he couldn't remember, if he would never have the chance to pursue it?
And Asha wanted to scream. Remembering it was the point!
What use was trying to tell the truth if no one wanted to hear it? King Magnifico had dismissed her, and said that she was young, as if that meant anything. Yes, she was young, but that didn't make her wrong! Her people deserved better than this, better than being convinced into giving up a part of themselves that they might never get back. She'd changed her mind when she learned the truth, couldn't others?
She raised her face to see the stars through the branches overhead. Her father had always told her that the stars could guide her. Where would they guide her now - when no one else wanted to listen to her?
She knew one thing, as she walked along the road, and the twinkling lights of the city came into view. She couldn't stand by and do nothing.
Asha passed through the gate in the city walls, and stood on a tiled road. It was late, and only a few people were out now, but even trying to find solace in the company of the people of the kingdom she loved so much hurt somehow. She had seen their wishes - she knew a part of themselves that they might never know. And that wasn't right!
To her left, a woman sitting by a fountain scattered birdseed at her feet, for the birds to peck at - oblivious that her wish was to fly alongside them.
To her right, a man sort on his front porch, reading a book of maps - maps of places he once wished to explore, to climb mountains and ford rivers.
Close by, another woman swept leaves and flower petals from her front stoop, and as she turned, she spun her broom in such a way that Asha thought of a ship's wheel - because her wish was to sail a mighty ship and brave the far-off seas.
At the end of this street, Asha looked up through a keyhole gate in the walls. Beyond it stretched the night sky, filled with stars - unreachable. "We deserve more than this!" She shouted, tears prickling in her eyes once again, as a flock of birds took flight from the plaza around her.
She turned. On the far wall of the plaza was a mural of King Magnifico, towering and godlike compared to the people of Rosas clustered around him, holding a wish high as the people proffered their wishes below him. Asha looked down into the reflecting pool below, seeing the crystal-clear reflection of the king's smug stature staring up at her. She felt a surge of anger, and smacked her hand into the pool's surface, breaking the image apart into a hundred ripples.
She turned again, shaking her head. She didn't know where to go or who she could turn to. Her own grandfather didn't want to hear what she had to say. But she couldn't back down, or stand back and do nothing. The only ones who were listening right now were the stars, and as she climbed a set of stairs, she stopped at a balcony and looked out over the rooftops.
Beyond the rooftops, beyond the walls of the city, but closer than the stars, a different answer presented itself - an answer that she should have known the whole time!
Once again, Asha ran, with Valentino in pursuit. This time, she left the city behind, back into the forest - but not to the hamlet. To a different home.
It loomed ahead of her, a gnarled old willow tree that reached out over the cliff-like shores of the island. Flowering vines wrapped around its trunk and through the streaming branches, swaying gently in the breeze. Long ago - it felt like eons - Asha and her father would spend their evenings at this very same tree, listening to the stars. Tomas swore that he understood them when they spoke, and promised Asha that someday, she would understand them too.
Oh, how she wanted to understand them now. Or at least, for them to understand her. She stood on the farthest, thickest branch, with her gaze to the sky. A breeze blew past, rippling through her braids, sending leaves and pink flower petals swirling around her.
She made a wish, the way her father taught her to. Head held high no matter how much the rest of her trembled. Voice clear no matter how much it wanted to get caught in her throat. Heart bared, no matter what kind of pain closed in around her.
So I make this wish... to have something more for us than this!
The wind carried her wish over the sea below and out into the open sky, to where a hundred stars shone and shimmered, looking down on her.
Asha looked up at them all... and somewhere in the distance, something stirred in the darkness behind the stars.