Cold.

  The first thing she felt against her skin as she opened her eyes was the wooden ceiling—well-kept, yet scarred by winter: cracks, half-driven nails, and the faint thumping of the boards.

  She lay in her bed. The other beds in the orphanage all had upper bunks, but hers did not. It stood at the edge of the room, a little farther from the others under the window. The frame was crooked, propped up with a book beneath one leg so it wouldn’t tilt too much.

  While it gave her more room for personal belongings, the space remained nearly empty—just a spare pair of clothes, the rags she had worn when she first arrived, and a pair of shoes. The rest was bare, a hollow void that felt less like storage and more like a chasm. Not just dividing her bed from the others, but dividing her from her peers. A line she could never cross, a fence that kept her apart.

  She didn’t move for a while. It was still morning, and as usual she had woken earlier than the others. She liked the quiet; mornings were always silent, and that silence felt normal to her.

  But during the day, she couldn’t enjoy what she liked, because silence was no longer normal. Children played together, running, singing, chasing anything to keep the cold from reaching the hearth of their hearts. But she could never keep the cold away. No one was there to truly shield her from it. No one—except for one person. Yet even she was much older, and that distance remained a line she could never quite cross.

  Usually she would help the staff, who should have been awake by now, but today she didn’t feel like it. Whether worn down by solitude or something else she couldn’t name, the weight pressed on her shoulders all the same. Still, if being helpful had earned her nothing but silence, she could only imagine the punishment for laziness. So she pulled herself upright, moving like a puppet forced to dance, dragging her weary body into usefulness.

  As she went downstairs, she passed some of the staff. They looked at her the way they always did, with gentle smiles. Yet, for some reason she couldn’t quite name, those smiles grazed her heart. That feeling alone made her think that she was an ingrate, so she buried the feeling deep. After all, why would anyone resent being smiled at?

  So she greeted them politely.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning.”

  She began helping them. They never asked, but she always did. And when she finished a chore, they didn’t give her another, since it wasn’t yet her time to be awake. Normally, the children were assigned chores only after their classes. But this girl—she had simply woken early and asked for it.

  The staff let her, though they kept a careful distance. They knew too much attachment could make children refuse adoption, and favoritism would only turn her peers hostile. Still, with her, that rule was harder to follow. Watching someone try so hard tugged at their hearts, even as duty demanded restraint.

  “Matron, I’ve brought the firewood inside.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can I do something else?”

  “No, I think that is enough.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Go along now, you need to sleep.”

  She lingered anyway, cloth in hand, scrubbing at the windows as if polish alone could buy her a place. It wasn’t the task that mattered. It was the interaction, the proof she could exist in someone’s attention for more than a passing moment.

  The staff exchanged glances, then sighed. They let her work, understanding too well what she was really asking for. And though their hands itched to reach out, to close the gap and give her what she needed, they turned away. Affection was a luxury they weren’t permitted. One day she would be gone, and getting too close would only leave them both hurt.

  The morning went on. By now several footsteps echoed from the rooms above as the children headed down for breakfast.

  Grooowl

  Her stomach complained in protest. All that work and no food? it seemed to say. She obeyed, taking a piece of bread and a bowl of soup before finding a place to sit.

  The dining hall was lined with tables and chairs. She chose one crowded with children, hoping maybe today would be different. But as soon as she sat down, the chatter died. They stared at her in silence. No one told her to leave, yet no one lifted a spoon either.

  “Uhmm… is this seat taken?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the other one?”

  “Yes, those too.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  She stood and moved away, heading toward the lonely chair near the window. When she glanced back, the table where she had sat was still empty.

  Oh… they must have moved, she thought, as if that were really the case. Part of her wanted to try again, to test the waters. But even the thought of standing made her legs tremble under the sting of their unseen gazes—sharp as arrows, enough to knock her down without a word.

  So she sat alone by the window and ate her bread.

  The routine continued. It was the same day as always: magic class, where she sat in the corner again, staring at the weight she still couldn’t lift while children younger than her managed it with ease. The gazes, the whispers—those never changed. By now she should have been used to it. But she wasn’t.

  Then came free time. The orphanage didn’t offer formal education, only the basics, and even then they couldn’t maintain a full-day schedule. So in the afternoons, the children were left to their own devices.

  She sat on the back steps, legs pulled to her chest. A book rested in her hands, but the sight of her peers running and laughing made the pages feel heavy.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Catch me!”

  The sound rang out around her, but never to her.

  She watched, imagining what joy it would be if only once that call had been meant for her. Even by accident.

  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, and 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. 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.

  “Hmmmm, Why don’t you join your friends?”

  The voice came from a familiar lady, Elra was her name. 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.

  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.

  The girl shrugged, her arms still wrapped around her knees.

  “My knees still feel a bit sore,” she said while smiling, brushing her skirt as if that explained everything.

  “Ah, those knees again.” Elra said, setting the basket down, “Funny how they only ache when there’s fun involved.”

  The girl didn’t know what to say. She just smiled sheepishly.

  Elra was an exception. She was stern enough that no child ever dared question her, and the “distance” rule meant to keep staff apart from the children was something she practically ignored. No one reprimanded her for it—because if Elra ever got angry and decided to stop working, the orphanage would fall apart within half an hour. Even so, she showed this side only in secret, or when there were few eyes to see it.

  For a moment, they sat together watching the other kids playing around.

  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.

  Day bled into night. She arrived at the dining hall. It echoed with the soft clatter of wooden bowls and the low murmur of weary voices. Like the rest of the orphanage, the room bore the wear of time.

  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.

  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. This was the first time this had ever happened. The boy was always there, but she didn’t try to interact with him. Not for any particular reason but because even the girls ignored her, so doing that with an opposite gender was out of the question. Her heart beat a little bit faster.

  Is this my first friend? She wondered.

  “So may I sit here?” He asked.

  “Uhm, of course.”

  For a while, they didn’t speak. The girl, never having prepared for or read a book about what to do in such a situation, found herself in a kind of limbo. To talk or not to talk—that was the question ringing in her head.

  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. "He promised. Said we’ll go see the snow wolves in the mountains."

  "That sounds nice," she said, smiling softly.

  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 have been 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.

  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 hall. She passed the bedroom where she was supposed to sleep and instead pulled out the ladder she had hidden between the linens.

  She wanted to meet her, the only friend she probably had in this place. She didn’t know why, but calling it her felt fitting.

  Then she saw it: the moon. Its majestic, celestial light poured across the world, bright enough to make her forget the cold draft sweeping down from the southern mountains. Silver and veiled in a thousand sparkling diamonds, the sky stretched vast and infinite, dwarfing everything beneath it.

  It made everything feel small—her, her problems, her loneliness. All of it seemed meaningless in the face of the goddess in the sky. Yet in that very insignificance, she found her place. Equal, at last. When all things were reduced to nothing, even herself, everything felt united. Perhaps that was where she belonged. Not ignored because of her silver hair, not dismissed because of her mana, but equal in the shared insignificance.

  She was fine with that, if it meant she could belong. And that was why, whenever she looked at the moon, it filled the riddled holes of her soul.

  But what truly mesmerized her was how much it reminded her of magic. She remembered her first day when she arrived at the orphanage, when hunger and pain—whose cause she could no longer recall—had nearly claimed her. Elra had shown her this very scene in her palm, conjured with a small spell. That moment took root in her heart, cementing both her love for and obsession with magic. Something distant, unreachable, and bewitching—just like the moon.

  “There you are!” A voice came from behind her, followed by a sudden tickle that made her burst into uncontrollable laughter.

  “Hahaha—Matron, please stop!” she cried.

  “No way, Moony. You think you can sneak out of bedtime and not get punished?” The tickling only intensified.

  “Haha—Elra!”

  At last the tickle monster let her go. She caught her breath and looked up at her tormentor’s face.

  “Huff… I’m an adult now too. You can’t keep doing that to me.” She puffed out her cheeks in protest.

  “Is thirteen years old an adult?” Elra replied with a smirk. “You’re still the same Moony you were five years ago.”

  The nickname had come from the night she was caught moon-gazing on the roof, where she had fallen asleep and snored until morning. The whole orphanage had searched half a day before finding her under an open sky, where a drifting cloud veiled the sun just enough to let her slumber on. She was scolded before the other children, but the staff secretly found it hilarious.

  “Hehe, I’m not Moony!” she tried to reject the name, but her smile betrayed her.

  “Whatever you say, Moony.” Elra smiled.

  The two of them sat together, gazing at the goddess in the sky, ignoring the cold breeze and the faint snores drifting up from below. After a while, Elra rose to her feet.

  “Now, go to sleep. You’re getting adopted tomorrow.”

  “Wait, what?” she asked, startled.

  Elra only smiled and walked away. And so Moony followed.

  Tomorrow, something was going to change.