What remains of celeste

Adeline was a just a Tanner, once. Now, she was a master leathersmith—renowned across continents for the leather bags she crafted with a precision few could rival. But her true mastery lay not only in the craftsmanship, but in the very skin she produced herself.

Her brand bore a singular signature: a rare tint, whispered of in fashion circles as the "perfect fair maiden skin tone." A shade so ethereal, so hauntingly flawless, that no one had ever come close to recreating it. When pressed in interviews about her secret, Adeline would smile—a sly, knowing curve of her lips—and with a wink, hush the questioners with a silent promise that some secrets were better left buried.

The tanning process was her alone. No ingredient was ever revealed. This rarity rendered every counterfeit useless; only Adeline’s bags could bear that ghostly tint. Fashion connoisseurs and celebrities paid obscene sums to possess her creations, assured that the scent each bag carried—unique and fresh, intoxicating and untamed—was as authentic as the leather itself.

Her empire rose, vast and gleaming, crowning her a billionaire, an icon.

Yet, even empires decay.

For the first time in her life, Adeline received a complaint. For the first time forever she receives a customer complaint. No one, absolutely no one has ever complained once. Because her bags are a thing of beauty, of elegance.

The highly valued customer stormed into her pristine office, flinging a bag across the floor with a furious crash. The room fell silent—eyes fixated on the object that bore the weight of history and horror.

It was the first bag Adeline ever crafted.

The tint—her legendary fair maiden hue—was still present, but it no longer shone. Instead, it rotted.

Maggots writhed across the once flawless surface. The scent was no longer alluring—it was a sickening stench of decay.

How could something so decomposed still hold a twisted beauty, a perfect skin beneath the rot?

Adeline’s mind drifted to Celeste.

Celeste—the fair maiden whose flawless skin had once inspired the tint.

Her employees ushered the furious customer away, but Adeline stood frozen, eyes locked on the cursed bag

The maggots spilled from its surface, creeping across the polished floor as if alive.

A janitor entered, broom in hand, summoned to clean the mess.

Adeline remained unmoving—still as stone—until the janitor departed. That's when she stopped the janitor from taking the decaying bag away. puzzled the janitor leaves it onto the floor.

Then, she crumpled to the ground.

Flashback.

In a manor nestled within a typical small town, two girls were born on the same day—Adeline and Celeste.

Adeline belonged to a family of tanners, bound by generations of labor to Celeste’s father—the village’s wealthy lord.

Celeste was no ordinary girl. To all who beheld her, she was an angel, a vision of beauty so profound it silenced even the whispers of the wind. Just like her name she was celestial, heavenly. She lived like a princess, draped in riches and grace.

Adeline, by contrast, was a red-haired girl dressed in worn, tattered clothes—her beauty muted beneath the grime of a life of toil.

Yet, Celeste saw beyond the surface.

One day, she approached Adeline, offering apples from her own orchard—simple gifts from a golden hand reaching toward a rougher one.

Despite hesitation, a fragile friendship blossomed.

Celeste never judged Adeline for her poverty, nor did her status distance her. She crossed thresholds as easily as the sun crosses the sky, dining with Adeline’s family and even throwing childish tantrums to stay the night, sleeping next to Adeline.

Celeste’s heart was pure, untainted by the trappings of wealth.

She was a brunette, graceful and kind, who often brushed Adeline’s wild red hair with a bristle brush more precious than the jewels she adorned herself with.

“Oh, how much I love your hair,” Celeste would say, placing jeweled clips in Adeline’s tangled locks.

Adeline cherished the adoration—the sisterhood—the love she had longed for.

Though born a tanner’s daughter, Adeline’s dreams stretched beyond the confines of her lineage.

She was fascinated by leathercraft—the artful cutting and shaping that transformed hides into treasures.

The leather shop was owned by Celeste’s family, and though Celeste rarely visited, she humored Adeline’s fascination.

Adeline learned the craft and poured herself into it, eventually crafting her first bag as a gift for Celeste.

It was imperfect, crude—but to Celeste, it was a masterpiece. She carried it everywhere. The ugly bag was a misfit with all her dresses. But she never cared. She saw it as a beauty. The bag became an inseparable thing to her. She would even sleep with it tucked into her arms like a teddy bear.

That bag was everything.

Years passed.

Celeste was sent to Harvard by her parents for a brighter future.

Before Celeste left, she packed the bag Adeline had crafted for her—her first and most treasured gift—alongside her other belongings. It was a symbol of their friendship, imperfect yet precious.

But Celeste’s mother, harboring silent resentment and suspicion, surreptitiously opened Celeste’s luggage while she slept. With a harsh resolve, she removed the bag and cast it out, hidden from Celeste’s eyes.

Celeste never noticed. She departed unaware, carrying only her dreams and hopes to the next chapter of her life.

Later, Celeste arranged a final meeting with Adeline—unaware that the physical token of their bond had already been discarded in secret.

Adeline stood at the roadside, watching as Celeste’s car slowly pulled away, her silhouette framed in the window, waving with a radiant smile that didn’t quite reach Adeline’s hollowing chest. She waved back—small, slow, fragile. And then the car vanished down the path, taking with it the warmth of a chapter now closed.

With a heart growing heavier by the second, Adeline turned and began the quiet walk home. The path traced past the grand manor gates—Celeste’s home, the house of impossible beauty and unreachable things. She kept her head down, until something caught her eye near the base of the manor’s towering iron fence.

It was there, half-buried in the heap of rotting garbage, damp with last night’s rain and filth—the bag.

Her bag.

The one she had made, stitched by trembling hands, poured over with care and reverence. The one Celeste had once called her treasure. It lay discarded, stripped of value, among banana peels and cracked porcelain, like a carcass no longer worthy of a name.

Adeline froze. The world blurred.

She staggered forward in disbelief, the air sucked out of her lungs. She reached down with shaking hands, brushing aside the refuse like clearing dirt from a shallow grave. Her fingers traced the stained leather, still holding its shape beneath the grime—like a body still warm.

It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t.

Celeste Loved this bag. Didn’t she?

A soundless scream built in her throat, never spilling out. Her heart cracked—then cracked again. Her mind fractured into silence.

She stood there for hours, motionless. Eyes locked on the bag. Rain began to fall. She didn’t move. She couldn’t.

It wasn't just a bag. It was her . Her work. Her gift. Her memory. Her soul.

And now, trash.

To be continued......

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