Moonwater Perfume/Written at High Morning

The Star, and the Maiden. In the old myths, they were a pair of figures created to represent divine light and corporeal innocence. The young girl’s hair is long, flowing forever bound, for she is always untouched, compelled by no laws to push it underneath a hat or veil, or to keep it tied up like a prisoner. Though she is of the flesh, the Maiden is also immortal. Not an undead creature, but an eternal being. Some cultures might consider her a minor goddess, but she really is more akin to a nymph.

As for the Star, what is there to be explained about it? It’s a guide, a protective figure like any of its celestial cousins in other cultures. From the days when Ysonesse was still a populated world, the Star was the companion and mate of the divine innocent girl. Wherever she traveled, whether in the realm of Relion or through the Shining Worlds, the Star was always with her, at her side, behind her shoulder, or above her head, providing needed illumination. On the occasion of her particularly arduous journey through the Surrounds when she was forced to collect a vial of roisine water to cure the Azuro, the Star was her guardian against the dangers hidden in the black mists of the unfortunate underworld. I’ve wondered why my spirit has been drawn to this pair since I was young. I first saw the classic illustration in one of the early readers when I was three. It’s my first conscious memory. I don’t remember my parents, or any other home but the cortigio. The Star and the Maiden was my first comfort on the nights when hours were everlasting and the eyes of the lost ancestors gazed down from the sky, watching over everything and everyone yet unable to ease the fears of frightened children in the night. They were woven figures, made of glittering threads woven into a tapestry that hung at the end of the dormitory...too far away from a little one’s feet in the dark as she nevertheless crept along the cold floor to fall asleep under it, with the tassels wrapped around her.

I was an innocent once, a child placed into the life of a courtesan soon after my birth by the one I could have called a mother, if I had known her. Perhaps she was young, terrified of being caught in the midst of an illegal pregnancy, which would mean she would be forced out of service. To leave an orphaned infant in the foyer of a courtesan-training academy always means the birth mother was also in the profession. If I had wound up in the streets, then my mother would have been a common prostitute.

In my heart, perhaps I’m still a girl. Is that possible, to retain some semblance of a younger self? After the years of catering to others’ whims and desires that could easily tarnish the dreams of who I used to be, it should not be possible. My childhood was far from perfect. But there were moments of peace, of some love, of quiet joy in a certain way of solitude. Those times are sacred to my memory. But they no longer exist within my heart. Or could I be wrong?

Part IX