Starfall's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Starfall stood at the edge of her tower balcony and watched the human world glow far below. A mortal prince lived down there. She had seen him once, through the clouds, kneeling to help a lost child. His kindness had pulled at her chest ever since. If she won his heart, the fairy realm and the human world could touch at last. But her feet would not move past the railing. The tower rose high above the flower fields, its pink petals carved into every wall. Vines bloomed along the stone. Starfall gripped the balcony edge and stared at the drop. Below, a creature waited for her. It had the body of a small dragon and the wide, veined wings of a butterfly, all soft pink in the morning light. It could carry her down. It had been ready for days. "You keep looking," a voice said behind her. "You never go." Starfall turned. Her younger sister stood in the doorway, arms folded, flower crown crooked on her hair. Lily Dewdrop had followed her up every morning this week. She was small and quick to speak, and she never softened the truth. "What if he doesn't love me?" Starfall said. "What if I cross all that way and he turns me away?" "Then you come home," Lily said. She walked to the railing and pressed a flower into Starfall's hand. Its layered petals glowed orange and pink. "But you won't bridge anything from up here." Starfall held the bloom. Her kindness reached across the whole sky, the fairies said. Yet it could not reach one mortal because she was afraid. She thought of the prince kneeling in the dirt for a stranger's child. She thought of her heart breaking. Both felt real. Only one was certain if she stayed. "Come with me," Starfall said. Lily grinned. "I thought you'd never ask." The dragon-winged creature lifted on command and hovered beside the balcony. Its wings stirred the vines. Starfall climbed onto its back. Her hands shook. Lily settled behind her and held tight. Starfall looked at the human world one last time from safety. Then she tucked the flower against her chest and leaned forward. "Go," she said. The creature dropped from the tower. Wind tore at Starfall's hair. The flower fields shrank above them. The human glow rushed closer, sharp and bright and unknown. She did not look back at her tower. They broke through the lowest clouds. Cold air met warm. The ground spread out below, strange and solid, full of stone roads and mortal lights. Somewhere down there, the prince lived. The creature landed in a quiet field at the realm's edge. Starfall stepped onto human soil for the first time. It held her weight. She was here now, far from home, with no way to know if her heart would be welcome or crushed. She had crossed. There was no going back the way she came.