Young Writers Society

a/n: hey, thanks for checking out Starry Veins! This is the novel I wrote for Round V of LMS, and it's still a first draft! While I don't discourage any feedback, I prefer not to receive feedback on grammar! I'm not polishing this draft up yet, so I'm not as concerned about editing. I am, of course, open to all feedback, but I ask that you keep this in consideration! Thanks <3

*

“This is hopeless.”

Tanzer smiled brightly and held out his hand. On the floor, her skirts akimbo around her, shirt falling partially off her shoulder, and dark ginger hair spilling out of her bun, Adelaide glared up at him. Music washed around them like running water, lilting and swift, the sweetest notes played quickly and expertly. Allegro. Dulce.

“Nonsense,” he said. “I used to be just like you! Two left feet. Couldn’t dance to save my life. But here we are!” He glided across the floor, twirling and leaning into the movements, up on his toes and then swooping down into a bow. His hair, pulled back into a bun, tickled the back of his neck.

He usually loved letting it down, but it was humid and hot and their beautiful, open porches with glistening, lacquered bamboo was doing nothing to stifle the heat. Thank the Sea for the shade under the canopy though. His hair was too thick for this kind of weather.

“It’s true,” Dove chirped, sitting on the floor at the edge of the porch, leaning on one of the bamboo support beams. “He used to step on my toes all the times during these kinds of dances.” She tilted her head. “But then he wanted to start impressing Kaian, and asked Mama for lessons.” She smiled sweetly at him. “I was perfect always, of course.”

Adelaide rolled her eyes. “Of course, you were, you’re perfect at everything.” She huffed and ignored his hand, picking herself back up off the floor. “We’ve been at this for hours, Tanzer, I’m tired of this. I hate dancing.”

He rolled his eyes. “Rude.”

“You should get used to it,” Dove said. She put the book she had resting on her knees facedown in her lap, throwing one long, slender leg over the other. “Dancing is the biggest custom here.”

“I know,” Adelaide groaned. “But can’t I do something else more interesting? Like visit the sailors, or learn how to navigate a ship? That sounds like so much more fun! Imagine visiting the mainland!”

Tanzer sighed and waved his hand, gesturing towards the seashell on the painted table beside them. “Silentium,” he said, and the seashell went quiet, the music fading away. “Ada, come on. Just for the High Sun festival. It’s important we put our best foot forward for this ceremony.”

“Besides, Mama’s been to the mainland. Says it’s boring and stuffy. The other kingdoms are full of themselves. They have hereditary monarchy.” Dove scoffed. “Can you imagine being ruled by someone just because someone pretentious and arrogant had popped them out?”

“Well it doesn’t matter for you,” Adelaide grumbled towards Dove, irritably. “You’re so beautiful and good at everything that you’ll probably win the next tournament for Shepherd anyway.”

Dove approached Adelaide to tug her hair out of its ribbon. Adelaide squawked and tried to duck from her grasp but Dove already had years of experience wrangling little siblings and scraggly children under her belt and caught Adelaide without issue. She began to braid Adelaide’s hair.

“I need to teach you how to sound genuine when you’re complimenting someone, because you said something very nice to me just then but you made it sound like an insult,” Dove said as she worked.

Adelaide shot him a hopeful look and mouthed help.

He held up his hands. “Who am I to interfere with them? Their power far exceeds mine. Rule of older siblings and all that.”

“Ugh,” Adelaide groaned. “You’re useless.”

“Harsh.”

Dove tugged on Adelaide’s hair. “Don’t be rude to your brother. Or me.” She tied the ribbon around the end of the thick braid of Adelaide’s hair, frizzy and much coarser than her own, and gave it a tug.

A patter of footsteps against the soft dirt path turned Tanzer’s attention around and when they had spun, they found Laila hopping up onto the porch. Her auburn hair was tied back with a cloth, and she was shucking her smock off at him.

“Your shift’s on at the orphanage. Mama wants you to run storytime, the kids like you best,” she said. “Is Da home?”

“Ran down to the docks to paint that ship they’re working on,” he said. “But Papa’s in. He’s working on the garden out back. You know, his prize vegetables for the High Sun Festival.”

Laila shook her head, but she was smiling. “His prize vegetables. Dove, Bee’s asking about you again. Buy them flowers, for Storm mercy’s sake, they’re dying for a response.” And without another word, Laila disappeared in a flurry of skirts inside, door clattering behind her.

He unravelled the bunched-up smock Laila had thrown at him. “Well, that’s me then. Ada, why don’t you go find Da down at the docks and show him the new steps.”

The joy and placation of getting to see the new ship being built must have been more than enough to sway her, because Adelaide grinned and leapt off the porch without bothering to grab shoes or use the stairs, and took off down the street.

Dove was looking carefully composed, but her lips were pinched in a way that he knew meant she was trying not to smile. Her skin was too dark to see her blush easily, but if she moved into the sun, she’d be glowing.

“Laila’s right. Buy Bee flowers. Amarie’s are the best.” Then, without waiting for some smart or sneaky—or the worst, embarrassed—response from his sister, he took off down the street in the opposite direction as Adelaide.

Dove shouted something at him from a distance, and the ribbon tying his hair back came undone. He laughed as his hair billowed out behind him, the fawn-pale ends of his hair fading from the black catching gold from the sun overhead.

The High Sun Festival was Tanzer’s favourite celebration of the year for many, many reasons. The dances that went on for hours each of the five days were full of energy that buzzed through the crowds in waves. There was lively, jaunty dances, and slower dances to sway to. They could raucous and sweet and melodious and everything in between.

And all the food. The wonderful, homemade cooking brought as a communal setup, fresh meals and baked goods eat day. And it all wafted through the air, overpowering the saltwater tang that normally filled the breeze from the ocean that was never far away.

And the firelights everywhere. Some spaces doused in the warm orange glow of bonfires or torches, while others were cast in the ethereal blue of magefire.

Plus, everyone from the island attended. Or most everyone. It was his chance to talk and catch up and made find some who were as easy to talk to as they were on the eyes. Plus, Mama always brought all the kids from her orphanage to the festival, and there was nothing more special than the way their faces lit up at all the sweets and cheer.

If Dove was going to be the most charismatic and beautiful of the family, she was going to have to work for it. He wasn’t going to let her have it easily.

And if his birthday was at the tail end of the festival? Well…

The bushes and palm fronds were rustling in the seawater breeze as he approached the orphanage. Muscata’s Flock read the painted sign outside, each letter slightly dilapidated by a child’s jarring handwriting, with an assortment of clashing, bright colours. A few kids hand put painted handprints on the sign, while others had drawn a butterfly, a tree, a sun, and in one case, an impressive depiction of a steering wheel.

He pushed open the swinging doors and found the foyer empty. Inside, however, he could hear the thunder of footsteps and squeals of energised kids.

As he stepped into the main plaza room, with all its floor-to-ceiling shudders shoved open to the lovely breeze and elements from outside, he spotted Mama sitting in the middle of the floor. Two children, Nastagia and Palmerio, were attempted to paint her face with her cosmetics kit. There seemed to be streaks of kohl over her cheek and what was meant to go on her lips was on her eyelids.

“Zanner!” someone, probably Savia, shrieked. And, like a torch being lit in the dark, everyone stopped what they were doing and swarmed him.

He scooped up the first two victims that got close to him and immediately sagged under the weight. Savia, on his right hip, immediately began to yank on his hair and inspect it, as though it were different then last inspection. Venerio, the other, a quiet and generally shy child tucked their head against Tanzer’s shoulder. The others, more or less, tried to give him an en mass hug.

Mama was watching him from her place on the floor with a smile, her warm, honey-brown eyes crinkled in the corners. He grinned at her, and then pressed kisses to both Venerio and Savia’s heads.

Savia nodded at him in sage approval, and leaned forward to press a sloppy, mushy kiss to his cheek. “Now put me down,” she said.

He laughed. “As the Lady commands.” He obliged, and readjusted his grip on Venerio, who had grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and was still pressing firmly against Tanzer. “All right, well, you’re all present and accounted for, which makes my job all the easier. Who’s ready for story time?”

His question was met with a chorus of cheers and enthusiastic air punching, and a brilliant warmth blossomed in his chest. He loved this.

word count:

1,597