The orphanage smelled like boiled potatoes and old wood.
It wasn't cruel. Just tired. Worn down by wind and scraped by too many winters. The kind of place where quiet things got quieter.
The floorboards creaked with memory, not malice polished in patches by years of footsteps, dull in corners where no one lingered. The walls bore fading paint and careful repairs: a nail here, a mismatched plank there. Someone tried to keep it warm, but the warmth never seemed to reach the corners, only pooling faintly near the hearth before thinning into cold.
The windows rattled on stormy days, not enough to wake anyone, just enough to remind you they were there like the building itself was trying to speak, but had long forgotten the words.
For most, it was a shelter. For her, it was a silence.
The other children had their cliques, their games, their makeshift families forged from shared bedtime stories and scraped knees. She watched from doorframes and shadows, never quite invited in, never quite brave enough to step forward. No one pushed her away but no one pulled her close either.
In the lull between chores and sleep, she wandered the hallways like a misplaced thought. The kind no one says aloud. The kind that lingers in the back of the mind, unwanted but not unkind.
She didn't hate the place. But it didn't love her either. And maybe that was the loneliest part of all.
She sat on the back steps, legs pulled to her chest, watching the others run across the yard. Their feet kicked up dust, their voices rising and falling like birds in flight. One girl shouted, "Catch me!"not to her, of course, but to a friend already grinning in pursuit and vanished around the corner of the shed.
She didn't chase them. Not because she didn't want to. But because they always seemed to forget she was there.
Her hair, bright silver like threads spun from moonlight, caught the afternoon sun in a quiet shimmer. It should have made her stand out. But here, it only made her easier to overlook as though the world had already decided she didn't belong in the brightness it offered.
She rested her chin on her knees, watching with a calm that didn't quite reach her chest. The game was loud, messy, alive full of shouts and skinned knees and the kind of laughter that needed no reason. She didn't blame them for not calling her name. She wouldn't know what to do if they did.
Still, part of her kept waiting. Not hoping, exactly she'd grown past that. Just… waiting. For something. A glance, a pause. Proof she wasn't completely invisible.
But the dust kept rising, the sun kept warming the steps beneath her, and the game went on without her like it always did.
"Why don't you play with them?" asked Matron Elra, pausing with a basket of freshly washed sheets balanced against her hip.
She was in her thirties, with the kind of beauty that never asked for attention modest, effortless. Her long brunette hair was tied back in a practical braid, a few strands escaping to cling to her cheeks where the steam from the laundry still lingered. Her dress was simple and clean, though the hem was damp and clung to her calves, stained slightly by soap and well water.
There was always a certain neatness to her not from vanity, but from care. The kind of person who made order feel comforting, not cold.
She looked down at the silver-haired girl with a quiet softness in her eyes. The kind that never quite became affection in public, never lingered too long, but always came close.
They were close in the quiet way that matters. A shared glance during meals, a folded blanket placed just a bit more gently, a voice that lowered when no one else was listening. But Elra kept her distance where others could see. Never touched the girl's hair in front of the others. Never lingered too long at her bedside. Not out of indifference but because love, when shown too openly in places like this, could turn cruel in the mouths of jealous children.
So she stood there, basket of sheets cradled in her arms, voice light and casual. As if she didn't already know.
The girl shrugged, her arms still wrapped around her knees.
"I don't think they notice me," she said with a small, practiced smile the kind meant to reassure, not to reveal.
It wasn't bitter. Just soft, quiet, worn smooth from use. A smile that said it's fine without meaning it. That asked Elra not to worry, even as it made her want to.
"They're loud," she said. "But not unkind. You're just quiet. And people forget to look where it's quiet."
She stepped down beside the girl and set the basket between them.
For a moment, they sat together like that two still shapes in the shadow of the orphanage wall.
Then Elra reached out and gently brushed some dust from the girl's cheek. "You've grown a lot this year."
The girl didn't know what to say, so she just nodded.
"And one day," Elra added softly, "someone's going to notice. And it'll feel like it was always meant to be."
That night, the dining hall was filled with the soft clatter of wooden bowls and the low murmur of end-of-day voices. The room, like the rest of the orphanage, bore the weight of time scuffed floorboards, patched ceiling beams, tables worn smooth by countless small hands. But it was tidy. Maintained. The hearth at the far wall flickered steadily, casting a warm orange light that softened the cracks in the stone.
She sat alone at the corner table, as usual. Her bowl rested between her hands, mostly untouched, the steam curling up like a question she didn't know how to answer. All around her, the other children sat in clusters shoulder to shoulder, loud and alive. She didn't mind the quiet. Not really. It was what she knew.
Then came a thump. A quick shuffle. And someone dropped onto the bench beside her.
Rulin.
All elbows and scuffed knees, always moving, always a little too fast for his own balance. His shirt was wrinkled, his hair stuck up at odd angles like it hadn't decided what direction to grow.
"Other tables are full," he mumbled around a mouthful, barely glancing at her before digging in.
She blinked, a little startled. Then gave a small nod, shifting just slightly, though there was no need. He wasn't looking at her, and he didn't say anything more. But he stayed.
And for the first time in many evenings, she wasn't entirely alone at her table.
"My dad's coming back," Rulin said between bites, his voice drifting with the kind of wishful thinking that didn't need to be true just said out loud, so it wouldn't disappear. "He promised. Said we'll go see the snow wolves in the mountains."
"That sounds nice," she said, smiling softly. It was the kind of smile you gave someone else when you knew their story was more hope than memory. A smile shaped to comfort, not to believe.
Rulin looked at her, chewing slower now. "You don't have a dad, huh?"
She shook her head, then added, trying to keep her voice light,
"I mean, I must've had one. Or else how would I be born?"
Rulin blinked. Then snorted just a little. Like he hadn't expected a joke.
He didn't say anything more, just nodded like he understood something older than both of them.
Then he broke his bread roll in half and gave her the bigger piece, pushing it over without looking.
They didn't speak again. But they finished dinner side by side, the silence no longer quite so empty.
Later, after the bowls were cleaned and the fire in the hearth had burned down to a soft orange glow, she padded quietly down the hallway with the others. The floor creaked beneath bare feet, and the shadows stretched long across the stone. No one said much at bedtime just the rustle of sheets, the occasional cough, the soft thump of someone turning over.
The bedroom was quiet, save for the soft creak of old wood and the rhythmic breathing of sleeping children. Dozens of bunks lined the walls in neat rows close enough to share warmth, but not closeness. The walls were bare stone, worn smooth over the years, and the air carried the scent of dry linen, old soap, and faint smoke from the hearth below.
Her own bed sat near the far end, beneath the narrow window where the cold sometimes slipped in. It wasn't the best spot too drafty in winter, too bright when the moon was full but no one else wanted it, and that suited her just fine.
"Why me?" she whispered into the quiet.
It didn't echo. Didn't change anything. The words felt flat like dropping a pebble into a dry well.
She touched a strand of her silver hair, letting it fall between her fingers.
Too bright. Too different.
A mark that said she hadn't been chosen just born wrong.
Her chest tightened, and she turned onto her side, pulling the blanket over her head until only the sound of her own heartbeat remained.
She lay on her back, the thin blanket pulled up to her chin, eyes open in the dark. Around her, the others slept in pairs or clusters a hand dangling from one bunk to the next, soft murmurs shared in half-dreams. She had no such anchor. No hand to hold, no shared whispers. Just her thoughts, which never seemed to sleep at all.
And as the darkness settled in, she listened to it, wondering if it would ever answer back.
She turned her head toward the window, the blanket still pulled tight around her shoulders.
The moon was full that night, round and radiant, suspended in the sky like a coin of light pressed into velvet. Its glow poured through the narrow window above her bed, casting a soft, silvery sheen across the floorboards and the edge of her blanket.
It looked impossibly close as if she could reach out and touch it, brush her fingers over its glowing surface. But she knew better. The moon never came closer. It simply watched.
Its face was marked with faint shadows and gentle craters, old scars softened by distance. It glowed without flickering, without asking. Silent. Still. Certain.
She stared at it, drawn without knowing why. There was no logic to it no spell, no lesson.
It was just beautiful.
Beautiful in a way that made her chest ache. In a way that felt like how she always thought magic should feel quiet, impossible, and meant for someone else.
But still… she watched.
And the moon watched back.