Parinda raced through the jungle, hot rain pelting her face, sharp thorns scraping her legs. The villagers' angry voices echoed through the jungle; they’d been chasing her all night. Trickling sunlight warmed her face. She pushed through wet leaves and stepped out of the jungle. The Cliffs of Ascendence lay just ahead. The ancestral place for her people to complete the transformation.
She removed her sandals, and her feet sank into the damp grass on the cliff’s edge. Tigers roamed the grasslands below. If she jumped and didn’t transform, she’d be animal fodder. The voices grew louder. The village elders forbade girls from transforming. They said only boys could survive the metamorphosis, but they were wrong. The wind song had played in Parinda’s heart her entire life, and the melody didn’t lie. Her mother had helped her slip away. Go be with the wind, she’d said.
The treetops shook, shrieks filled the air. The men had taken flight to stop her. Parinda extended her arms. Wind rustled her dark curls, blue sky calling, but she didn’t jump. She’d long dreamt of the clouds, but fear paralyzed her. What if she was wrong? She didn’t want to die. But a life of ignored dreams was also death. She’d put her faith in the wind god Amra. No deity would forsake her for being a girl. Her heart thundering, she leapt. Pain tore down her spine, vertebrae cracking. Wings burst from her back; she screamed as they dragged her down faster.
The green valley floor was closing, lush with the aroma of warm blood on tigers' lips.
Panicked, she flapped her fluffy indigo wings. They tangled in the wind, tossing her playfully into the clouds. She struggled like a fledgling pushed from its nest, but she was flying. Just like she’d done in her childhood dreams. She’d been right. Flying was in her blood. Butterflies tickled her toes as she mastered her wings. Parinda soared high above the jungle to join her people in the clouds. The wind whispered in her ear that other girls would join her soon.