"Long ago," Quill would always begin, "there were a flock of cranes that lived peacefully together in a marsh. One day, an egg hatched, and a crane with pure silver feathers as born. Despite her perfect beauty, she was born blind. The world, to her, was a big and dark place, filled with lovely sounds and wonderful smells, but always vastly mysterious.
The other cranes, all of whom looked alike, treated the silver crane with spite. They envied her beauty and considered her blindness an oddity to be laughed at.
So the poor silver crane spent all of her days alone, and mourned not having a single soul to speak to. At night, when the others were asleep, she wept.
One evening, when autumn had laid down her red and orange blankets upon the ground, the silver crane's small sobs were heard, and someone spoke to her for the first time in years.
'Pray, why do you cry dear Crane?'
'I have no one to talk to,' she said, 'and I have no one to see.'
'I will talk to you,' said the stranger.
'Why? Don't you think I'm terribly different?'
'Everyone is different,' said the stranger. 'And everyone is the same. Everyone want to be happy, and everyone want their wishes to come true. Tell me, dear Crane, what wish can I grant you?'
Little did the silver crane know that she was speaking with none other than the moon. 'I should like to see who has been so kind as to listen to me, when no one else would.'
'Then fly, dear Crane,' said the moon. 'Fly as high as your wings can take you.'
So the silver crane raised her powerful wings and took to the air. She flew up, up, and up until the darkness faded into bright light, and at last she could see. The moon greeted her with a crescent smile and said, 'Dear Crane, it is so good to have company where no one can reach me. Would you care to stay?'
Happy at last to have a true friend, the silver crane quickly agreed. To this day, she flies around the moon, dropping her feathers in the pitch black sky. She served as the moon's messenger, granting those too shy, too small, or too lonely a single wish, and lighting the way for those who cannot see the path before them.
That, my dear Saxon, is how stars are born."
- The Hunt for Elsewhere by Beatrice Vine
Just a little human doodle because I've had that story from my favorite book nagging at me forever now.