myths from another universe: 1

At an early age she falls out of the nest while her parents are off hunting, is rescued by a busybody who goes around all day rescuing things that don’t want to be rescued, and is handed off to and brought up in a family whose strict religious beliefs require them to clip her wings as soon as she tentatively begins to flutter a few feet off the ground. She seems puzzled over the loss at first but gets over it soon enough, they think; fits in well with the other youngsters in the family; is reasonably cheerful and does what she’s told as often as any other child. Her foster parents are distressed only by the fact that, as she grows, most of her friends come from families without the same moral scruples as their own and spend half their time aloft, improperly supervised. They express their dismay over the company she keeps in increasingly severe tones until one day—heaving aside the heavy coat that covers her useless appendages—their fosterling stares them down with a keen, bright eye and begins to sing a wild, incomprehensible song. Her disreputable friends, thus summoned, come to sit on the windowsill in a row and sing along, their song growing higher and more piercing until the window glass shatters and they swoop in and join forces to carry her off in their talons. Does her foster family ever see her again? In some versions of the story, yes; and in other versions, no.

her eyes whether it’s smoke or fog

Advertisements