She stretched as she woke, before shaking the remaining vestiges of sleep from her form. She pushed the leaf that acted as a blanket off of her before getting out of bed and diving into the air, her wings catching and lifting her into the air more properly a matter of a fraction of a second later, keeping her safe and off of the hard ground. She saw the other fae around her, and while they were all acquainted and amicable, she wasn’t exactly friends with them. Usually, she was the odd one out, that the others often tried to exclude.

However, as she went to fly over a pond to clean up a bit, she heard her name. Pausing, she looked over to see a couple of excited little fae that were younger than she was. They were pointing at her, at her wings.

With a roll of her eyes, and biting back tears, she took off, not even giving them a chance to say anything about what they were pointing at, what they were excited about. She already knew; they were wanting to ridicule her about her wings, about how they still hadn’t acquired their gorgeous colourful sheen that they should. They wanted to beat her down, again, about being a youngling, despite having past the age for maturity already.

It wasn’t anything new. She knew she would deal with it, she would move on. She always did, this wouldn’t be any different. However, she couldn’t like: It really did beat her down.

She reached the pond she was aiming for before noting that there were others already there. It wasn’t something too surprising, plenty of her fellow fae would go to the pond to relax, refresh, and recharge. With others there though, she knew that she wasn’t going to be mingling with them, and oftentimes it wasn’t taken well when she just tried to keep to herself when around others.

As a result, she landed on a tree branch nearby, but still far enough to not be detected, and just stood there, watching the others. The almost stained-glass look of their wings was absolutely breathtaking, and she hoped for as intricate a pattern as her mother had one day. Although, considering she was already past the expected season of maturity for her, but almost a full cycle, she realised that it likely wouldn’t happen.

Once she noticed the pond was clear, she fluttered down, watching the surface of the water beneath her before pausing.

There was a definite colour shimmer on the surface.

It couldn’t be… could it?

When she looked behind her, she saw exactly what she’d hoped to see.

She had some coloured sections on her wings.

Without thinking about it, she took off back to the village, having to tell her parents. She knew they would be excited, hell, she was excited! She was nearly a full cycle late, but it seemed her time had finally come.

And come beautifully, too, it seemed!