Starchild
A science fiction romantic tragedy based on Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well."
Prologue
There once was a pale young woman. She grew up amongst the the tall, spindly, and lushly canopied Taegar trees. As much as she loved those beautiful and infinitely tall trees and the land and the people, it was not her land, and they were not her people.
Helena was her name. It was the only thing she knew of herself from her true homeland. Yet she did not yearn for this mysterious home she knew next to nothing of. She had grown up knowing nothing more than the tall trees and the people who lived amongst them.
Teageans, they called themselves, the people of the trees. They were a lithe and lovely people, long limbed, with slender features and hair the color of leaves. They lived amongst the treetops, their lives amongst the swaying branches. They could grasp the branches with hands and feet and all but fly amongst the treetops. They had little fear, though the risk of falling was always there. To fall was certain death. It was the burial place of their people, that long dark descent into the world far below.
Helena, though, was not like them. She could not swing amongst the branches with the same ease, though she adapted well enough. Stocky and solidly built, she made do with tools she and her adoptive father and helped her to fashion.
When she was young they’d made a latticework of nets below their house, though it was a common practice in families with young children, theirs was extensive, and stayed up far past her rite of passage into young adulthood.
As she’d grown more confident and daring they’d helped her to adapt. Specially made gloves with tiny spikes embedded in the palms to help her grip. A tool belt with ropes, hooks and spikes was a constant staple in her wardrobe. She knew by heart the many knots her father taught her and could tie and untie the most simple to the most complicated of them with ease.
Though she was hardly an attractive girl amongst the people of the trees, she was well liked by all, especially the Elder family of the Rossleans and of course her father, Ezeal. She was their starchild.
Though she held a special place of honor amongst her people, her truest, fondest desire was to simply be one of them, to be normal.