She's five.

Her parents are fighting so she's been shipped off to her grandma's for the summer. The Colorado Rockies are dull but beautiful and Miranda's always had an eye for pretty things.

She sees them as she sits right by the lake. At first glance, she thinks it's just a game – she's still a child, still an innocent. As they loom ever closer, she realises that it's not. Desperation seeps into the stillness of the air; thick scent as cloying as her mother's perfume.

With instinct to be honed in years to come, she knows the smaller one won't get away. Its flight is pointless but it keeps on valiantly trying. Miranda's hope is just as wasted and yet watching the sparrow gain a lead, she finds it slowly burgeoning within her chest.

As they pass right in front of her she understands, she was right - this is a game – the hawk merely toying with its prey. She feels something else upon this realisation – something that'll take her years to acknowledge. For now, she watches them with sadness as the game peters out to its inevitable end.

"Why did it do that, grandma?"

Her mother resents the incessant questions, her grandmother demands them.

"That's just its nature, Bobbsey."

"But…" Miranda struggles to formulate her thoughts. "…it didn't have to. I mean…to let it think it had a chance. Why didn't the hawk just kill it straight away?"

Her grandmother ruffles her curly hair. "Sometimes nature can be cruel, Miranda. There's nothing you can do to change that."

Miranda watches the hawk gliding along the water, its majestic wings shimmering under the morning sun. Despite everything she's just seen, she can't deny its stark remarkable beauty. "But it's so pretty..."

Her grandma laughs, "Many things are on the outside, Miranda, but you must learn to see what's underneath."

Miranda worries her bottom lip, lost deep in thought. When she can't come to a decision, she finally asks, "Is it better to be the sparrow or the hawk?"

The answer is accompanied by a sigh, "It's not a question of better, Bobbsey; it's just a matter of knowing which you are."

This is Miranda's first lesson.

She's seventeen.

Her grandmother's long dead, parents divorced. Her father is exceptionally bitter - her mother's numerous affairs the main gossip in the tiny town. School days are a series of taunts – Sam's not her real father, she's a bastard, her mother's just a whore. The worst is Madison (Maddy) - the school's most popular girl - Miranda too young, too hurt, to understand jealousy for what it is.

Here and now, she only knows she's had enough.

It proves ridiculously easy to set it up, to execute the perfect plan. Miranda's smart and pretty; it doesn't take more than that to lure a seventeen year old horny boy. When it comes to the act itself, there is not a moment of indecision, screwing Steve a tiny sacrifice compared to gaining revenge.

It takes months to become friends with Maddy, every minute of subservience a bigger sacrifice - still worth it to achieve her goal. All the while, she plots against her – tells Maddy she's right to hold out, to wait – after all, they have the rest of their lives. The perfect opening presents itself at graduation, Steve's drunk, lets his proposal plans slip.

She makes sure to be there at the party, armed with her own little surprise. It all goes off without a hitch, "awws" barely dying across the room as Maddy's crying tears of joy, getting up to make a watery speech. She's barely started but she's said enough – Steve's perfect, she's so glad they've waited, she's –

It's in that moment that she presses "play" and the sound of Steve's 'perfection' rips across the entire room. She waits just long enough for understanding to dawn, for Maddy's anguished eyes to lock with hers. Miranda's smile of triumph is bitter, victory already tastes like ash.

Her bags are packed, a one way bus ticket to New York tucked safely away in her coat pocket. She's sick the entire journey, helplessly retching time after time.

"Are you alright, dear?" An elderly woman asks as Miranda staggers back to her seat again.

There's no need for a response; Miranda's shivers answer enough.

"I'm sure whatever it is, you'll soon be right as rain again," the woman states, patting her arm.

Miranda wants to tell her that she won't.

Because in the darkness of the night, it's all so painfully clear - that feeling at the lake, all those years ago - it was empathy, yes; but not the compassion that she'd thought.

Beneath desired illusions of a sparrow, reality had exposed a hawk.

She's twenty five years old.

Her parents are also dead. Killed in an accident her father caused. Her husband doesn't care any longer and if it wasn't for the necessity of his income, she'd have already filed for divorce.

She works in fashion which is an exaggeration - taking messages and fetching coffee - a far cry from where she aspires to be. However, she's watching and she's learning and knows exactly what she'll need to do. All she requires is a leg up, an opportunity to step up to her rightful place.

The chance presents itself at Paris Fashion Week, Miranda always by her married boss's side. It's here her boss meets Nicholas Ravello – it's here she fucks him and, unknowingly, herself. The personally taken photos land on her boss's desk the minute they come back, Miranda returning Lucinda's glare in spades.

"What are you going to do with those?" Lucinda's eyes hold only coolness but Miranda's job as an assistant is to know her better than she knows herself. Her boss is petrified, the marriage on rocky ground, and there's no posturing that'll stop Miranda from getting what she wants.

"Burn them and the negatives."

"In exchange for what?"

"A raise - $15k, and an Assistant Editor's job in six months time, we'll negotiate my salary then."

"Why six, not now?" Lucinda can't keep the perplexity out of her voice.

"By then I'll have learned everything I need to know."

Lucinda smiles in defeat, nodding her acceptance, "You only had to ask."

Miranda doesn't smile. She also doesn't outwardly quake, even though inside she feels just like an autumn leaf. "Six months and I don't burn the negatives till then."

"What's wrong? Don't trust me?"

The question is as mocking as rhetorical - both well aware they can't trust the other again.

That night Miranda buys a bottle of Dom Perignon. It is her first, as is the visit to an attorney - neither will prove to be her last. Her husband finds her sitting in the apartment, half empty champagne bottle dangling from her hand.

"We can't afford that!" His tone is angry.

"No. You can't." Hers is cold. "I'm leaving you. Either you get out or I will."

He has sufficient pride to walk out immediately, loudly slamming the door.

Sipping the rest, she savours the bubbles on her tongue but knows it's not just they that taste so sweet.

If all around you are sparrows, ultimately it pays to be the hawk.

She's fifty years old.

She's been divorced two times - the second far more bitter than the first, the stories of his sordid affair spread luridly across Page Six. She's never cared for herself but then, as now, there are her girls to think of. He didn't bother trying for custody despite being the father of the twins but in a battle with Miranda Priestly, it was a given he would lose.

The girls are fast approaching eleven but it often feels like double that. Already she's felt the heavy weight of their reproach, the silent accusation in their eyes. She comforts them as best as possible, too often with material things. It is a meagre consolation but she reassures herself - something's better than nothing at all.

Her work's become the only thing that drives her, bar both the twins, the only thing she loves. She's close to being immortal, an icon almost at her peak. Not quite as high as she can go - she is the editor in chief of Runway, America's top fashion magazine. She makes and breaks those around her on a whim, or at least that's what the rumour mill will say. Select few see the decisions for what they are – well, Nigel - but he's the exception to the rule.

There's also Andréa.

The biggest, not just in size, aberration of them all - she's everything Miranda isn't, and yet somehow everything Miranda is. The girl surprises her over and over and for the first time in her adult life, Miranda is confused. At times, she sees the hawk within Andrea, yet all too frequently, the sparrow that she tries to be. And so Miranda prods, needles and pushes her, trying to determine what is really underneath.

Andrea learns to exceed her every challenge, true form remaining elusive through each one. It's then Miranda decides it doesn't matter; she's proven to be worthy, after all. Fate, maybe karma, has other ideas - Paris Fashion Week again, just like the one so many years ago. It's here Miranda's hand is forced, her choice really no choice at all. It comes down to Nigel and her, and whilst there is a rare dash of sorrow, again hesitation doesn't stay her hand.

It also doesn't stay her husband's and so she drinks to her impending third divorce. It's here that Andrea finds her, where in another rare moment, Miranda's lowered her defence. Given the chance, Andrea's sweetness overwhelms her; compassion, not just empathy, revealed within her depths. Of course, Miranda chooses to reject it - routine response to weaknesses perceived.

Perhaps it's that rejection which eventually costs her, leads to a far more devastating one in turn – for in the morning whilst Miranda triumphs, she realises that she's lost instead. That night, there are no tears left within her – just painful longing and regret.

She still drinks but does not enjoy the bubbles, for it's been years since they've tasted sweet.

When you surround yourself with sparrows, it's so unbearably lonely being the hawk.

She's seventy years old.

She's been divorced three times, never bothered to marry again. She's long left that entire life behind – Runway, New York - the world. Her days are spent out by that lake, hoping to recreate what she felt all those years ago.

It's one of those summer days she hears the knock. For a second she thinks that it's the girls, realises it's been months since she's spoken to either. Opening the door, she's transported to the past, these soft brown eyes looking up at her from memories buried so long ago.

"Mrs Priestly?"

The voice is just the same, its owner definitely not.

"Yes? Do I know you?"

"Um, no." The teenage girl is bashful, familiar manner serving to squeeze something inside Miranda's chest. "But I think my mother knew you."

"I don't think so." Miranda's always been loath to relive the past.

"Oh, it's just that I found this letter…"

Miranda's curiosity is peaked.

"What a surprise, two decades pass and she's still too scared to deliver it herself." Her tone is caustic, old habits die hard.

The girl's hand clenches into a fist even as her eyes mist over. "You know she sometimes talked about you but standing here, I really can't imagine why."

The tone holds nothing but contempt and suddenly Miranda registers the tense. A gripping pain takes hold, for once, putting a tremble in her voice. "T-talked?"

"Yeah." The letter is unceremoniously thrust into her hand. "She died two weeks ago."

The girl turns round, storms back towards her car; Miranda lets her go even as she longs to call her back. She doesn't, of course, because there's nothing she can say, no question that she has the right to ask.

The envelope is pale cream - showing her name, it bears no address. Miranda surmises it was never to be sent, wonders if the contents will tell her why. It takes two days – forty eight hours of its possession before she brings herself to read what it contains.

After all that - there's merely a single sheet, barely a mouthful of lines.

Miranda,

My greatest disappointment is that I've never told you Thank You to your face. My tenure at Runway served to instillso many essential things and yet the reason that I walked away - your most important lesson - remains one you've never ascertained for yourself.

I truly hope that it's something that you find.

Yours,

Andrea.

Not until the tears blur her vision, does Miranda finally acknowledge what she's never understood.

In a world where you can't be a sparrow, you must find happiness in being the hawk.