Feet dangling from the edge of a floating cliff. Hands clutching at the suspended stone. A body leaning ever so slightly forward, allowing a heavenly breeze to kiss unruly brown hair. Eyes delicately fluttering shut, lips barely parting - a breath escaping, and heart flittering giddily. Fingernails digging into the soft soil coating the floating land, causing small fragments of the earth to shatter and fall to the planet below. Toes curling. Apprehension fleeting. Letting go.
Pit fell freely, his expression a fixed one. Not opening his eyes was enough to make him feel like he was really flying. His puny wings spreading, allowing the growing winds to filter through every one of his feathers, he wished he could just will them to budge with enough force to see him move forward. But without the inner strength that he should have gained at birth, it would only see him flail. As such he was doomed only to fall and to fall and to fall.
"Pathetic," came the gentlest muttering of those parted lips. And then suddenly he was at home.
His eyelids fluttered open, seeing the sight they always would. His lovely goddess gazing down at him with a mixed emotion cursing her eyes. She was relieved to see that he was well following a fall such as that. Frustrated that he would attempt such a stunt. And sympathetic that he should feel he had to.
"Again," he whispered, "It happened again, Lady Palutena."
"And it always will," the maiden said to him while letting a finger push a stray strand from the flightless angel's face, "You will never fly without my aid. But one day you will catch me at a time when I am unable to retrieve you. A futile stunt like that will leave you damaged beyond repair."
"I know," came the weak sigh of Pit, "But can't an angel be a dreamer?"
He slowly raised himself from her delicate hold, sitting now in her lap upon the marble floor. He lifted his wings, and let them shudder, as their feathers straightened - the picture of flawless flight until they were forced to partake, at which point they would refuse to be more than a trophy to his image. Palutena's gentle hand was drawn across the feathers nearest to her, admiring their simple beauty that only she seemed to see.
"A dream is a fantasy," she said soothingly, "And a fantasy is not something that should be forced into reality."
Palutena was wise. She always knew what to say. She knew what to say to make someone feel better, at the same time as putting them in their place and their worries into perspective. Pit admired that about his beautiful ruler. But the mere principle of it, of course, reminded him just how insignificant he was. And how little it would ever truly matter to anybody else on the land or in the heavens that he was an angel who quite simply could not fly.
"Rise, Pit," Palutena ordered in a breath, "Your dignity can never be scathed. But allowing silence to swallow your imperfections will only allow them to drive you into something that certainly can - your wellbeing."
And that was how Pit saw himself able to live each day.
He had his goddess there to remind him of that fact. That fact that the only thing that mattered would be the fact that he was alive and kicking. That he should never think about what he had to be ashamed of. Otherwise it would threaten the only thing that mattered, like it did every once in a while, when he thought for just a moment that he might be able to take the plunge and fly...
He still needed his goddess to remind him, for the reason that that indeed still happened.
But Pit couldn't help but wonder:
What exactly would come of the day on which she should turn her back for just a moment too long?