For what seemed like forever he walked.


Too many of the trees marked on the old man’s map had died long ago, but every so often the Urchin came to one still alive and asked for its help. All that any of them could tell him was seemingly not very helpful: “When your light shines no more, look into the darkness. You will see that it has always been with you."


The Urchin could not fathom what this could mean and so, exhausted but afraid of returning to his village, he eventually made his way back to the oak tree that had been his friend for so many years. Just as he was nearing its reassuring shape, the last of his fuel burnt away and his torch went out. It had lit his way for so very long but could sustain itself no more.

The Urchin began to weep; his search was finished, for how could he go out again into the wilderness with no light to guide him?

6/

#TheUrchin #WinterSolstice

It was time.

In the middle of the night, he was awoken by the eldest elder. "Child, you must go. We will soon be at war with ourselves, and it will not be safe for you. You must begin your journey."

"But Father," said the Urchin, "I can take care of myself now. And how … where would I even start?”

"With that, I can help you," the old man replied. "I saw a star fall in those terrible last days of light; I know it. I tried many times to find it but could not. Perhaps it didn't survive the fall, but I believe it did. It is still alive somewhere, waiting for the right time to be found. And for the right person to find it. I cannot tell you exactly where to look, but three nights ago, I had a vision of you with the fire of the heavens streaming from your hands. You must leave the village and seek counsel from our venerable tree friends; only they still have the wisdom and memory to guide you. I’ve made a map, a plan of the trees as they were long ago when I was young.”



“In this dreadful darkness, I don’t know how the landscape has changed, but I am sure at least that no new trees will have grown. Follow it as best you can and listen to what the trees have to tell you; together they may lead you to what you seek, to your fate and to ours.”

So, with his map, and enough torchlight to last him many days, the Urchin went forth from the village that had been his home since his memory began.

5/

#TheUrchin #WinterSolstice

Of course he told the villagers. Many laughed at him, not unkindly, but laughed all the same. Even most of the elders seemed to find his proclamation amusing. But the eldest — the one who
could remember the days of light most clearly — simply watched and waited.

Time trickled by, and the Urchin wondered how and where he could possibly search for a fallen star. The villagers thought his quest misled at best, foolish more likely. To them, the chance of light
returning had become the most desperate of hopeless dreams and one they could no longer even consider.

One by one, they accepted what they believed to be their inevitable dark future, and dissent grew.

4/

#TheUrchin #WinterSolstice

He was very fond (too fond, some said) of the stories told by the elders, and his favourite gave one version of how the darkness had fallen.

Shadow had attacked the stars long ago, the story went. Some had died, some had been taken out of the sky so as to protect
them. Others darkened in their places, and a very, very few had fallen to the ground. Without her fellow stars, the sun could not find her position in the sky and so had never risen since. Darkness took over the land, and magic fled to safety far away.

The Urchin loved this story. He asked for it to be told to him time and time again, and he began to nurture hope that perhaps one of the fallen stars could be found. His sudden appearance all those years ago had bewildered the villagers, and it had long confused him too. But as the story spread its soft wings in his heart, he knew in every ounce of his being that he had to find a fallen star.

#TheUrchin

How the boy got there, no one could tell. He was very young: only just able to crawl and unable to speak.

There was nothing to do but feed and change him and make for him a soft bed, and this the villagers did quite readily. Despite their circumstances or even because of them, they were a good, kind people who came to look after the boy as one of their own.

Time passed, and he grew and grew. No one had ever quite worked out a name for him. In the early days after he was found, he was referred to quite lovingly as "the Urchin", and in the end, this stuck. A myriad of stories grew with him to explain his arrival. The more mystically minded villagers proclaimed that he had been sent by the Spirits, and there was a revival of an age-old prophecy: the stars hadn’t abandoned them as some claimed but were simply hiding, waiting safely for their time to shine again.

The more practical folk dismissed this with varying degrees of scorn and said that surely the boy had been abandoned by a traveller. (What they couldn’t justify though was the probability of this, given that no travellers had been seen for an immeasurable time.)

But however he came to be there, there he was, and he was treasured by his many mothers and fathers, grandparents, brothers and sisters. He loved them in return and also felt a great love for the tree by which he had been found. His tree. Often he would venture out of the village and sit with his tree to think, or dream, or just do nothing at all.

#TheUrchin

Once and where, darkness draped itself over the land. No one could remember how long it had been that way: months, years, forever. Elders sometimes spoke of a time before the shadows came, when there was light in their eyes and joy in their hearts, but no one listened. The words echoed through the vast, black hall that had become their existence, its ceiling a sky the people had all but forgotten. Whether their hope was lost or misplaced mattered not, as none could be bothered to find it in their emptiness.

Still, they lived their lives day by day and took from their dim existence what happiness they could. Fire was a true friend, reviving their weary souls and keeping them safe from whatever evil might prowl the gloom. It was the only light many had ever seen, and they took their flames with them everywhere.

One morning, even before the earliest bird, the villagers heard crying from just beyond the village. They went to investigate, torches in hand, and found a very small boy lying by an old oak tree. The tree itself was ancient: a relic from the days of light. Amazingly it, along with a few of its relations in the surrounding area, was still alive; no one quite knew how. But the trees, with their great girth and very occasional sparse foliage, were treated with deep respect by their human companions. And now, this tree in particular (the most venerated of all) had with it a small child.

#TheUrchin

(what follows is the 1st installment of a winter solstice story, written some years ago for a yule festival. i'll post the rest twice/week till solstice, with the end on the day itself. #TheUrchin ✨)