Chapter Text
„Die Tragödie des Menschen ist, dass er nicht versteht, dass er schon längst unterwegs ist, bevor er weiß, wohin er geht.“
"The tragedy of man is that he does not understand that he is already long on his way before he knows where he is going."
~Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf (1927)
After they appear, their father is quiet as he rocks them to sleep, their cries quieting and then fading entirely.
He stands a bedside vigil, even though they are not dead yet, just freshly born (and is that not the exact opposite? Their blood thrums with something they will only learn to understand much later in their ascent, their lives brought into action by millions of others), shielding them from the hungry eyes of their grandfather who seems to recognise something in them.
He doesn't see anything else than the others do too – a pawn, a tool. Mouldable like wet clay, shapable, useful. All of them have agendas. They will creep behind and alongside her as she remains youthfully oblivious and believes she knows everything.
But for now, all of their motivations are unimportant. The sky is dark, as is their room, and it is just them and their father's soft gaze piercing the darkness alongside another pair of eyes.
The states look on in peril. They have seen all of this before.
There is a day where Dorothea, as she's been called often, falls while flying. The child that she is, she cries and sobs herself hoarse and tries not to look at the arm that sends rhythmic, sharp pulses of pain through her left side. To an outsider, she is like a hatchling that has fallen out of the sheltered parental nest in a fit of hubris and self-confidence.
"I'm ready!" A hatchling insists to its parents while it is not and right now, there is no difference to her. For now, she is eager to learn (that doesn't change later, too) and driven to the point of action (that changes later, immensely so).
She looks at her arm in the end, before her brother shoves a tissue in her face. Pain is new to her, as is the vibrantly red blood coming out of the scrapes. It runs along the rest of unblemished skin in little rivulets, before it drops onto the ground like she did just now.
Her father reaches her just after her brother does, a flurry of dark feathers and shadows trailing behind him as he gets her up from the ground. Both of them are her family, she thinks, hopes that it will never cease to be that way. Two people she laughs with on their way back home, even when one has dark circles under his eyes as he runs himself ragged with work and comes home later and later and later until they go to bed alone, by themselves, tucking the blanket over the other and later on their little siblings, and the other looks at her with a sharp glint of jealousy in his eyes as she soars high among the birds.
She is a child. She does not notice, her gaze sky-bound, endless possibilities flooding her mind before they dry out and leave the desert of life open for her. For now, the clouds are her ceiling, the winds her playmates as long as her feet do not touch the ground. She is selfish, as all children are. Words are direct for her, she does not overthink them just yet.
"Why did you fall?" Her brother asks her at night.
"Hm?" She chuckles at the pun she makes up in her head, something with falling from the sky.
("Es ist noch kein Meister vom Himmel gefallen,"1 her father says as he consoles her later and he looks sad as he does. Later, she realises that he had been expected to be one regardless. But that's when she's in his shoes and her age has more than tripled.
She doesn't yet wear shoes, she runs barefoot across the hills with the human children and Normann and trods in dirt when she enters home. Her grandfather keeps telling her to put on socks. She forgets to and abashedly hurries to do so when reminded in the winter.)
"Why did you fall?" It must be bothering him. He doesn't often speak up.
In the future, she will consider another answer and lean back, opting to stay silent so the scalding words burn her tongue instead of their peace. "I don't know," she will think, "I truly do not know whether others are to blame or I am instead." But she is a child now, her head has three thoughts a day, all of them stupid. Her head is free and her ideas care- and reckless, so she shrugs and chuckles, "I dunno. Got distracted, saw a bird."
They laugh at Normann’s genius quip about her being a bird, forgetting their grievances for now.
They'll fester soon enough.
A few days pass. She asks her father the same question once she can. He looks at her, face pulled into a grimace of sorrow, and she cannot yet understand why he weeps.
It takes six years for Dorothea and Normann to grow to where they are now. Their father is proud of them, even as the newspaper draws him in more and more, he never fails to say so. Their future is filled with promises, and her brother and her are going to make each one of them count. Their lives are a chance at greatness.
Until he fails to be there. It could have been seen coming, yet she's still surprised when at some point, he stops fixing her up after she bruises herself and leaves instead.
Occasionally she stays with one of the states. Bavaria shows her how to make art out of glass, and she accidentally burns herself when doing so. He winces at what he calls the “smell of charred flesh” which she doesn't notice until he points it out (there’s a sickly sweet note in it, which is weird, her flesh has not yet rotten) and she doesn't wince at all as the state carefully applies something, his brows furrowing at the tingling that goes from her arm through his fingers.
She’s healed before she’s brought home, and once she is, he stays to talk with her father. Later, she’s called “South” for the first time in her life.
They live in Berlin, a sleepless city, yet they rest unperturbedly in its outskirts in a house that doesn't even exist officially. Normann is busy chasing their two younger siblings across the garden while she is hiding in a tree. Heike, the youngest, trips over as Normann chases Frank past her and lies still for a moment before sitting up, only a moment away from breaking out into sobs.
Her arm is patched up in no time, but the quiet sniffles continue even as they all sit together awkwardly. Without the injury, this would be nicer, South thinks. But they all hide together under the table and a blanket after and huddle closer conspiratorially. They promise not to tell their father (Heike gets bribed with the sweets Bavaria brought her once, they don't have the pocket money to buy them themselves) and make up for it with some awesome new nicknames.
Just like she is the South, Normann becomes North, it’s really already in his name, while Frank gets the West and Heike the East, just like the way they sit. North and South wrap their arms around the younger ones and share a stupid grin during their little renaming ceremony.
In later years, it’s confirmed they chose the names correctly – if only with rough outlines. Their names later are those of defeat and for them, humiliation, but for her… the new name means freedom. And yet another shackle, though this time without a cage, so she is expected to rejoice.
Had it really been their choice? Had the names chosen them, or they the names? Later on, she suspects the first one.
She doesn't fall anymore. Rarely ever does her father still watch her fly – never does he praise her.
Her efforts double and his attentions get cut in half. At some point, she stops trying and searches for something. What for, she does not know. Hopefully it'll be handed to her.
Eventually she ceases searching and just waits.
It takes ten years for them to grow to this. Where will they be in another decade?
1. "Es ist noch kein Meister vom Himmel gefallen."
German proverb, literally: "No Master has yet fallen from the skies/heavens."
meaning: only through practice, learning, and acquiring knowledge can one master a craft, a technique, a field of expertise, etc. (masterfully, perfectly) return to text