The Lady of Nowhere sat tired on a log. She had taken her shoes off and sat with her feet in the brook. She was tired. She had been tired yesterday and she was sure to be tired tomorrow.

Once there was a time she wasn’t tired. Once she had been a Lady from Somewhere. Once she had a thousand servants to do as she wished. Once she had spent her days with music and laughter. But no longer.

It had been a beautiful place. Tall spires reached to the clouds and almost begged the stars to come down. The Lady had lived in a tower with no stairs and one door. She had lived at the top  and had never had to descend below the clouds. Her father had put her up there when she was born “To keep her thoughts near the sky”, he had said. And near the sky she had stayed, talking with the birds and singing with the moon. The people of her city stayed far away except for the servants who obeyed her every command. it had been a beautiful place. But no longer.

The Lady of Nowhere sighed and stood up. Gone were the spires and the tower and the City. She had never even learned to love the city and now it was gone. Of that great place only she remained and she couldn’t even remember what it had been called. And now she was doomed to wander. She had no place to be, no place to rest. If ever she stopped in one place for too long it would suffer the same fate as her beautiful city. She who had never loved a place now longed only to stop and stay and find something to enjoy. But it was not to be.

And so she wandered, looking for a place to rest and hoping for a blessing instead of a curse. She went looking, but hope was not something she carried with her on this journey.  She had burdens enough without it.