DefiantAllomancer

Wow. I just realized I haven't written anything on here since the Threnodite Hunger Games started, but now that I've committed suicide, both expelling myself from the games, and hopefully getting someone else killed too, I can post my latest short story: The Bird. (I'm pretty sure I haven't shared this yet.) [Also, I'm writing a fan fiction sequel to the Divergent Trilogy... Don't know how well that'll go. I'll probably end up giving up on it.]

The Bird

            A long time ago, I loved a man, and I married him, but he didn’t have the same love for me as I did for him, and he left me for a woman he met at a bar. Seven months later, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was everything to me, and I loved her more than anything else in the whole world. She had bright, watchful eyes, like a bird’s, and she was light as a feather, and as gentle and graceful as a butterfly. I named her Wren, because she reminded me of the small birds I so often saw outside my window during the warmer months. 

             As she grew up, she became more and more like a bird, and she stood tilted forward onto her toes, and her arms hovered out to the sides, so she always looked ready to run away at the slightest noise, or be blown away at a gust of wind. She had me cut her hair short, less than a three-inch length, and she was too shy to go to school. Instead, I homeschooled her, and she came to work with me. It was hard to make enough money to sustain the two of us, but we did it, and we never gave up. She developed an obsession over birds, and she studied them every moment of her free time, tracing pictures of their wings, and making little wooden sculptures of them. She loved to build, and draw, and carve, and most of her creations were bird related. When she was seven years old, she made a giant, wonderful kite that caught the wind, and soared higher than any other in the sky. How the children gasped when they saw the bright, colorful contraption rise higher and higher into the sky, swaying above all the other kites. 

            She would carry it carefully to the park on a windy day, and unravel the string. Then she would toss it into the air and sprint the other direction, making it snap taut in the air, and ascend steadily into the clouds like a bird, the curled blue ribbons fluttering like the feathers of a peacock’s tail. Wren added more to the kite every day, poring over it carefully, and once in a while whispering, “I wish I were a bird,” as if the kite had some magic power to grant her wishes. She muttered it under her breath over and over again, like a prayer, and she talked to the birds as they ate at the bird feeder, asking them about what it was like to fly. 

            For Halloween every year, she was a different type of bird, fluttering her fake wings with excitement as she skipped from house to house, her voice heightened to a chirp. When the neighbors asked what she was, she would tell them the name of the bird, and though they most often hadn’t even heard of the species, they always seemed interested in her explanation of it. She would tell them its bird calls, its eating habits, and its flying patterns. One day, she was flying her kite on an extra windy day, and the kite was higher than ever, violently thrashing, and pulling Wren this way and that, but she still had a huge delighted grin plastered on her face. A few times, it threatened to yank her off her feet, and I tried to snatch it from her, but she shook her head and beamed at me, then glanced at her kite, and I couldn’t take it from her. The wind finally mellowed, and it was a gentle breeze that moved her kite in the air. I took a deep, relieved breath and the tension drained from my body. Wren frowned up at the sky, and set her jaw in determination. It all happened so fast, I couldn’t process it in time. With strength surprising, especially for someone of her size and weight, she pulled on the kite and ran again, tiny muscles straining against the wind resistance, then leaped into the air. The string stretched tight, and she flew into the air.

            She shrieked in exhilaration and let go of the string with one hand, stretching it out to one side and leaning her head back. “Wren! Hold on!” I looked around in a panic, and started screaming for help. “Help! Someone! Help!” Wren was screaming too, but not out of fear, or a desire for help. She was screaming in happiness. I shielded my eyes from the sun and squinted up at her. She was gliding through the air, and the wind had picked up again, swinging her back and forth in the sky, in huge arches, while she held one hand out to the side, and her legs were straight, together behind her. The wind blew in her face, blowing her short hair around her dainty face, which was bright with excitement. Not once did she look down, or seem afraid, but she looked up instead, at the kite. The kite began to shiver in the air, and it fell like a stone, Wren falling too. Her hand opened, releasing it, and her tiny body was stiff and silent as she fell. 

            I gasped and rushed to catch her, but not in time, and she crashed to the ground, her limbs splayed in positions they never should have. “Wren!” I cried, and kneeled by her, gathering her up in my arms. She groaned with pain, and her eyes dimmed, the light, and the life draining out of them. I stroked her hair, trying to comfort her, but I was the one of us who needed the comfort. Not a tear marred her beautiful face, and there was still a faint smile on her face, contorted in pain as it was. 

            “Mother?” 

            “Yes?” 

            “Why can the birds fly, but we can’t?” 

            “Because…” I searched for an answer. “Because they know they can. You can fly too, you just need to believe you can. “ I choked back a sob as she weakly turned her head and stretched out a broken, shaking arm. 

            “Mother?”

            “Yes?”

            She looked at me, and as she left, she smiled. “I am flying, Mother.” 

The End.