No Blue Fairy
By Taciturn-Rena
C'era una volta, a girl fell from the sky. And right off the bat, it was no fairytale.
It looked like it hurt to be her, her limbs all suspended about by the thin strings tied to her wrists and ankles. She wore a dress torn to ribbons, to the point where it began to look like it was made of them, though it might have been bright and pretty once. She didn't fight the strings or where they took her; it just looked like she was too stiff or too weak to move gracefully with them.
No, she had none of the poise of the acrobats and dancers Mauro would meet and court as he got older, yet for some reason she never left his mind. That sad, ungainly creature who lacked the independence to even stand without some puppetry to guide her; she stared steadily at seven-year-old him with an imploring solemnity in her eyes, a determination.
Through whatever tragedy that had dragged her down to such a state, she would find joy. She would play, just like any other child. For one day, she would pretend to be normal.
She stretched her arms out, suddenly and awkwardly. She didn't speak. Maybe she was hoping Mauro would understand. He did. Hesitantly, he tossed the ball to her. She was so clumsy, he half expected her to drop it, but was encouraged when she didn't.
"Bambina," he said with an air of authority and a name unfitting for someone clearly a few years older than himself. "Kick the ball!" He showed her. She stared at him, and then the toy, uncomprehending or hesitant, he couldn't tell which. Perhaps she'd never held anything of value. Perhaps no one had ever trusted her with something important to them. Was she so ready to give it up?
But she did. And like that, the Marionette Girl—as that would be all he'd ever know her as—got back an inkling of whatever measure of childhood she'd been denied. Denied by all the strings, the unreachable expectations, the setbacks she couldn't admit to. By the time he met her, the only part of her the strings didn't control was her face. And yet, even then, he taught her to smile.
And when she did, it was radiant.
But creatures like her could never stay anywhere very long. The strings said leave; they tugged her away with "know your place" and "you could get hurt," and she was helpless to resist them. They were a part of her. One day when she and Mauro were playing, the ball landed in her hands and the time finally came when she didn't give it back. That was the day his friend, his first love, platonic as it was, returned to the altitudes she'd taken such a hard fall from. When he threatened tattling, of course she let the ball fall back to earth to rejoin its owner. But in regards to his heart…well, he could never be sure, but he always wondered if she'd kept a little piece or two for herself, to get her through the tough times that she'd continue to face.
