Chapter 1
Feb. 4th
It’s my birthday today.
It’s fairly nice for a February morning. The air is crisp and numbing and the grey fog settled over the ocean has a peculiar smell of dirt and fish which seems to be able to draw me curiously out of my shell to take in the aroma.
Lady Naphelle of the manor gave me this binding of fresh, crisp paper in celebration of my day of aging. I didn’t tell her that today probably wasn’t really my birthday, because that would be a waste of breath. She would have given me this binding anyway.
I’m turning fifteen today. Or rather, I may have already turned fifteen. That’s all I know for sure. Lady Naphelle gave me this binding this morning and told me I could use it to keep record of the horses. But I need no record of the animals. So I will simply begin to keep record of myself. To whoever may read this in the future. To whoever may know who… or what I am.
To receive a correct analysis of myself for any future readers, I will need to start with how everything began. How my life and luck lead me here to where I am now.
I don’t know where I was born, but I grew up in Aspen City. It was the city owned orphanage that raised me for the first twelve years of my life. They gave me my estimated birthday; February fourth, and my way of life. But my name was given to me by whoever left me on the orphanage doorstep.
Nora.
I looked it up in a book. It means strength. I love my name. Whoever gave it to me at least deserves a little of my respect. But as it is now, I no longer go by that name.
There are many complications that led to it, but really it all started with Miss Andrews.
She was the mother of the younger orphaned children and took very good care of us. I was instructed to fold laundry with her at noon every day. No matter how much I begged not to.
It wasn’t because I disliked Miss Andrews, she was a rather nice lady, but I hated folding laundry.
Miss Andres apparently did too because she would always complain loudly the entire time.
“You wound up unlucky, Nora.” She would say while I was with her. “Not many people give you a job when you are an uneducated female with no family name. You better get used to this, because you may end up folding laundry for the rest of your life.”
I reckoned she was only giving the world lip for her bad luck. Perhaps she had been in my situation when she was younger. An orphan girl with no education. But, truth be told, those words stuck with me.
I lived up to my name. Or at least I tried to. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to travel the world and be happy and never be confined again. To do that, I needed to be educated. I needed to learn to read and write.
Unfortunately, here in the orphanage, only the most promising boys were taught to read and write. But that was no problem for me. I may not have had it in my name, but I was also cunning, stubborn, and persuasive.
I made a deal with one boy. He taught me to read with some convincing and I did all his chores for six months.
Another boy I convinced to teach me other things of the world. He taught me simple math and sciences whenever he came home from school. I did his chores for a year.
The rest I picked up myself from listening around the market and from the conversations that went on around me from the adults. I like to consider myself a good listener. Especially when it came to things that would benefit me and help me fulfill my dream. Like how to feed and monitor cattle or sheep, or how to fix a fence, whitewash a house, patch an old shirt, and some gardening as well as working the land and irrigation.
I also learned a lot of lucky charms and phrases of good fortune. Such as an amber bead for smooth sailing, or a dawnbridge flower to remove dark souls. Those were my favorite to learn. I kept charms with me all the time. A ring of nails for good spirits, a tag of worm silk for good luck, and a pearly white stone for good health. All which would aid me in my goals for becoming strong and free.
Miss Andrews said I was like a bird, trying to fly away from my cage. But the fact is; I hate birds. They have always made me nervous. Those sharp talons and that sharp beak that can go for my face at nerve-wrecking speed.
I am afraid of birds. Almost as much as I am afraid of heights. No, a bird would not suit me at all.
For years I learned to read and write and gain precious knowledge of the world. Little did I know, it would not be much good to me as I was. Miss Andrews spent months searching for a job for me once I turned twelve so that I could leave the orphanage and start paving my own life.
It was late summer when I was first sent away.
“To a threading industry.” Miss Andrews told me. “You will make five cents an hour weaving threads for dresses. A nice job for a young lady.”
But I did not agree. I did not think threading was a useful job for a girl like me. A girl who could read and write and name off a good charm or phrase for any given situation.
So, being stubborn as I was; I left the orphanage with my few belongings. But I did not go to the threading industry. I had learned my lesson. It did not much matter to what degree I had schooled myself. I was a girl and I had no family name or social ties. I would get nowhere in this world as I was.
And thus, I used a pair of shears to cut my hair and I burned my skirts and changed who I was.
I was now Noir.
I was thin and limber enough I could pass off as a boy. No one thought I was a girl when I entered Folktown to search for a job of my own, and I planned to keep it that way.
For three long years I lived in Folktown. Moving from one place to another, working long, hard hours, sleeping in the streets and saving up every penny I made.
I had made a name for myself too. I was Noir Dawnbridge. I let on that last name myself. It was when I was being hired for my first job as a whitewasher.
“You can read and write, huh?” The boss had said. “You schooled?”
“Yessir.” I answered. “I know math too. And a charm, to keep the whitewash from fading.”
“Charm! Hah!” The man bellowed. “What a funny boy. Tell me your name.”
“Noir.”
“Noir, eh? What is your last name lad? Well? Speak up.”
I had given him the first name that popped into my head. Dawnbridge. My favorite flower. They worked many charms and were used in several herbal medicines and they grew all alone way atop high mountains near the sea.
And so, Noir Dawnbridge I became. The boy with all the charms. The boy who learned things quickly and liked to work.
For three long years, Noir survived in Folktown, trying to save up money so I could move on with my life and live freely.
How suddenly and abruptly things changed.
