𝐀 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐡 𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞

"The Gods love you Versailles, and they haven't turned their backs on you yet."

Versailles never really understood the big deal about prayer.

If anything, it made her feel stupid, talking to an empty sky whilst her knees bruised on the hard floors. She did it because all the other children at the orphanage did it, it was their ritual to all kneel beside their beds and speak to Oxysus, the woman they claimed would get them out of there.

Months passed before Versailles found out they were talking about a goddess and not some fable that would bring good luck or something.

She learnt about the Gods only after her parents died, her mother worshipped the finer things of life and her father worshipped her mother. Once, when she slept on her mother's lap under the stars in Cairo, she faintly heard her muttering to herself, words so quiet and incoherent it was clear that whatever she was saying wasn't meant to be heard.

Her mother whispered a name over and over, a name Versailles had long forgotten but intended to ask her about later. Of course, she'd forgotten to do that too. Now, as she knelt in the wide room near other little girls that slept next to her in rows, she wondered if this was what her mother had been doing.

If there were such thing called prayer Versailles was sure she was doing it wrong.

She'd been asking the 'Oxysus' woman for the same thing over and over for months, with no progress. When she asked one of the nuns that took care of them, the woman told her that's just what prayer was sometimes, faith without results. And to this day that was the stupidest thing Versailles had ever heard.

Versailles believed in what was real, things that were true; Elias, the orphanage chef, had cracked the recipe for the best scrambled eggs ever made, Tilly, the crow she fed every morning, was secretly a government spy and Cherubim, the girl she'd met at school, was the most annoying person alive.

Just thinking about the girl now made her skin crawl. She'd insisted to the caretakers at the orphanage that her going to school was unnecessary, she'd taken a glance at some of the other orphans' homework and it looked like stuff that would bore her till her eyes bled but they insisted.

And when they finally convinced her (dragged her kicking and screaming) to go to school, she was met with exactly what she'd suspected. Other children. Dull and barely articulate that made a bad combination with the classes she was sure were a complete waste of her time and just when she thought it couldn't get worse she was handed a cookie by a little girl one day that she was sure was an attempt to make her teeth fall out.

Cherubim Jawahir reminded Versailles of a mouth ulcer showing up when you needed it the least. She was persistent and hard to ignore but surprisingly exceptional, which made Versailles wondered why she wasted her days trying to get the approval of her peers.

Something that Versailles found out later, she did effortlessly.

Soon they were around each other so frequently that the amber eyed girl began to consider Versailles her friend, a title she clearly took very seriously as she told almost everyone around her of it. Versailles slowly found herself waiting for her after class, walking her home after soon and sharing Cherubim's sparkly pens during art class (the highest honor according to her).

It was on a random Thursday that Versailles found out something that a person should never have to find out from national news. Her parents were dead and their dead bodies were being shown to the world before she got to see them.

From that day on, she would slip into her sheets when the rest of her peers were on their knees praying. There was nothing she could ask of the Gods now that they could give her and there was nothing else she wanted.

Versailles found herself sinking into what most would call a crowd of the 'wrong' people. She spent her days away from school and would do her best to get kicked out of it when she was forced to go. 

On her eleventh birthday, one of the older kids bought her, her first joint. A small cylinder that she'd seen them press to their lips hundreds of times and was eager to try it out for herself. She had planned to sneak to the school roof during lessons when everyone was busy and take a few puffs for herself.

Only problem?'

Her new friend who was determined to be her shadow. When Cherubim noticed the empty seat beside her in English, she was quick to get out of hers and track her down herself. Versailles sometimes wondered if she could track her down by scent sometimes.

She found her staring at the morning sky, her eyes glazed red and her mouth open so she could remind herself to breathe. "I'm not looking for a lecture," she told her as soon as the girl walked through the doors.

Instead, Cherubim dropped her bag, which surprised Versailles as she rarely let it touch the ground and had spent so much of her spare time embroidering it with little flowers that she despised even the idea of it getting dirty. "Well, that's good, because neither am I," she replied, taking the weed from her fingers and pressing it against her lips.

When she burst out in a fit of coughs, Versailles laughed, sitting up slowly to face her. "You haven't done this before, have you?" She asked, watching the tan girl's face go red with concentration.

Another fit of coughs left her mouth, "I thought this was easier," she admitted, still wheezing as she passed the rolled leaves back to her friend. Her eyes burned, but she knew she'd be completely humiliated if she failed to inhale and cried too, so she tried her hardest to blink back the tears.

"Here," Versailles offered, breathing in the smoke again and relaxing as the fumes filled her head with more peace than she'd had in a long time. Cherubim leaned forward expecting her to hand it back to her but was instead met with Versailles, pressing their lips together and blowing the clouds straight into her mouth.

And to Versailles for a second, just a fraction of a moment. It felt like the Gods didn't hate her.