Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted to fly.

And they laughed. Oh, how they laughed at her until their sides ached and their lips cracked. They laughed until their laughs pierced her heart and tore at her soul.

"You're just a silly girl. You can't fly."

So off she went, in search of wings. Who were they to tell her who she was and what she could do? She'd show them. She'd show them all.

If only she could find wings.

She traveled on foot to the far reaches of the kingdom, eyes on the ground, heart in her hands, searching. Her eyes became bleary, her heart heavy and her feet heavier at every failure. She went to the birds in their gilded wooden cages, their tiny bodies framed by foliage and rooted in place, chirping laughs at her dirty soles. She went to the dragons, majestic in their silver-scaled beauty, putrid breath and fire lapping at her heels. She even went to the mermaids, their pointed teeth bared, fins teasing just above the water's surface. But each creature just scorned her ugly, human feet until she could do naught but sigh, hang her head, and trudge on.

She used forty-three facial muscles more often than she used seventeen, and permanent paths of salt lined her cheeks. Jeers rang in her ears until they seeped into her brain and took over there too, taunting and mocking her bare, bony shoulders.
She returned to her home, broken and defeated. The sneers followed her, flowed through the crack under the door and the thin sod walls. They sidled up against her skin and squeezed, squeezed the breath out of her until she was choking on slurs.

She ran into the forest that day, and didn't come back.

She ran until she found a clearing, and when she didn't, she ran some more. The branches tore at her face and the twigs pawed at her skirt. The birds and dragons and mermaids stared on in confusion at this girl who had once had fire in her eyes, whose eyes were now extinguished. They watched as her foot, her damned foot, caught on a tree root and sent her flying. They watched as she landed in a crumpled heap, and there she remained, screaming and sobbing until her throat and her soul gave out.

And the birds and dragons and mermaids, they all swear by what happened next, as much as birds and dragons and mermaids can swear. They watched as the girl's body crumbled into ash and dust, and the momma birds and papa dragons covered their babies' eyes (the merchildren just watched, morbid creatures, they) as the wind circled and lifted some of the ash up, down, around, as if she were dancing. Then, in one massive gust, the wind gathered all of the girl's dust in its huge fist and flung it up in the air. She clung to the sky, that girl, and she glimmered like a thousand stars.

In a village next to the forest, people stepped out of their huts and pointed at the glittering diamonds laughing down on their heads.

Their mutters of "beautiful" and "floating" and "magic" twisted up into the sky, and the stars only laughed harder.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who flew.