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English
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Published:
2019-05-20
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383
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1/1
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Blue Bird

Summary:

Do you remember the story of the blue bird I told you once upon a time?

Notes:

I read salakavala's amazing work and they wrote in the notes that they'd be delighted to read someone else's version of it, so here I am! I highly recommend you read that first if by some stroke of chance you have found me before them.

This isn't my own version as much as it is prose that I was inspired to write by salakavala's work as a sort of... companion piece of sorts? Kinda? I was also listening to Rimsky Korsakov's composition of 'Scheherazade' while I wrote this because I adore it and had forgotten how much I loved it until last night.

So that all boils down to an extended metaphor written in prose and told like a story. Enjoy! (And thank you again, salakavala, for your wonderful wonderful work.)

Work Text:

Do you remember the story of the blue bird I told you once upon a time?

The lonely little thing who made its nest in an even lonelier oak, except the oak stood so tall and proud amongst the rest that the little blue bird didn't think it would notice? 

Every day for ninety days the blue bird would pluck a new flower from the forest floor. Some big, some small, some white, some red - but all of those flowers would find their way to the oak tree, nestled on a branch little-seen by anything else. No sun, no wind. It was sheltered and dry there, but not without its dangers. At any moment, the little blue bird, so wrapped up in its flowers, could tremble and fall, or become wreathed within unchecked leaves, or become prey to another who wished to hide away there, for the tree was a beacon none could miss, but only few would brave.

Still, the little blue bird returned day after day with a new flower for the oak, and steadily wove together a nest for itself out of the stems. (The petals provided the softest embrace after a day searching for something new to return with.)

Eventually, the season came to an end, and the blue bird's ninety days had passed. It felt unsure of its welcome now even after so long; there were no new flowers to bring back to the tree who had kept them safe, and so the little blue bird felt it had to leave. It saw no point in remaining somewhere with no companion, and so it went to take off from its now wooden and wilting nest.

Only, instead of taking off and being on its own again without the safety of the oak, the little blue bird found itself shocked to find, that rather than a dying nest in the nook of an ancient tree, the old flowers began to bloom anew, life where there should be death, their scent and their colours flourishing where there looked to have been nothing left at all.

Now, rather than leave, the little blue bird searched among the red and white to find a pink bloom, more lovely than any that had come before, and suddenly it did not feel so alone.