It has been seven days since I found her on my doorstep. It was a stormy night, and I had been working hard on a new design for a clock that could be worn on one’s wrist when I heard something odd against the soft pitter-patter of rain. Was it a whisper? Merely an errant breeze, I’d thought. However, my curiosity had gotten the better of me and I decided to take a look. It was not a wind, but a breath. Before me laid a creature-- no, a girl. Though she was soaked from head to toe, one look into her eyes would tell of the tears the rain had washed away. Her eyes… they were a mesmerizing earthy-green, even I could tell that from standing in my door. Almost the size of a child, she laid curled up, and her breaths heaved her body to a slight rocking motion. Even as I had opened the door, as my eyes were only beginning to fall on her, I had a feeling that she was not of this world. It was only after I’d seen the wings that it was confirmed; she was one of the fae. However, the girl’s once slender and, no doubt, beautiful wings had been torn and mangled, the shreds hanging off the twitching bent spines. 

I immediately had compassion on her. I’d invited her in, and picked her up, laying her down on a pile of blankets near the still warm forge. (I have heard enough fairy stories in my childhood to know fairies can only enter into one’s domain if invited. She was in no state to accept, but I’d figured it was safe enough to make the attempt regardless.) I ran out across the yard to my home, the rain splashing against my face. Though I was at a loss to remember if I’d learned what fairies eat, I assumed they would enjoy something natural. I gathered up various leaves and vegetables I had picked from my garden earlier that day and hastily arranged them in a bowl. 

When I had returned, she was sitting upright, and even in the dim glow of the forge I could see her features more clearly. She was wearing a dull brown sleeved tunic that went down to her ankles, and her long, pointed ears poked out from behind her light brown hair, still wet and clinging to her face. I could feel it before, but I’d felt it stronger now: an aura, almost angelic, and certainly palpable, something I could feel in my heart of hearts. Magic. I’d had no time to process what was in front of me, but I knew it had to be the truth. 

She heard the clink of the bowl being set down on the workbench and she gasped, retreating under a blanket. I could hear her give a short cry of pain, and that was when I realized just how much distress she was in. “I am Rian,” I had said, “I am here to help you. Please take some food, and stay warm.” She said nothing, did nothing, only remaining underneath the safety of a scratchy blanket. I’d slumped down in my chair. I knew there was more I could do for her, but how does one help a creature such as-- no. I had stopped myself. That was no mere beast of the wild, it was a girl. A girl who had very real emotions and very great pains. What would I do if a little boy had shown up to my door with a broken arm? I turned to the parchment and pencil at my desk, idly sitting next to a flickering candle. ‘I would do for him as I would do with anything broken,’ I had thought as I took the pencil in my hand, ‘I would do whatever I could to help fix it.’

For the first two days, she had lain motionless in the mountain of blankets, only sitting up when I took the measurements of her wingspan. It was difficult to tell, as only fragments of the silky organic material remained, but even as she winced, I gently handled her wings as I calculated the proper length for their replacements. The bowl of vegetables had started to wilt by the third day, so I’d brought out a refreshed bowl for her. By the fourth day, I had begun the construction. I had been inspired by one of the many clocks I’d built; the gears, though exposed, had been tempered to withstand harsh elements and still function (it was currently ticking through the pouring rain in the garden). 

Day six, the framework was completed. By this point, she was sitting with her shoulder against the leg of my desk. She even dared to nibble on some carrots. “I’m not sure how your wings will heal,” I told her as she allowed me to display the crude frame against her back, “or if they will heal at all. I don’t claim to be an expert in the study of the body, and much less the body of a fairy.” I thought I heard a slight giggle coming from her, and as I heard it, the air around me grew a tad warmer, but it very quickly dissipated as she hung her head in silence. I quietly crept around in front of her, looking at her downward cast eyes as I sat on my knees. “Can you tell me… will your wings heal if I set them?” For a moment, she sat there as if she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. Then her eyes flicked up to look at mine, and a sudden chill coursed through my head and down my back, and I felt paralyzed in her gaze. She gave a soft nod, then crawled back to her favourite blanket in front of the fire, taking a mug of tea I’d left for her as she draped the blanket over her shoulders. That night, I’d offered her a bowl of vegetable soup and some bread from the local market. I sat on the floor next to her, and, as was usual, we ate without a word between us. This time, for the first time, we’d eaten together.

Today marks the seventh day. Completed was the harness that could be belted around her torso, and the wings were beginning to take shape. I had taken the liberty of making crude splints for the spines of her old wings to set them in the correct position as they slowly healed. As the days had gone by, I found myself sketching different wing designs between the work hours, as well as sketching the fairy girl. It was during one of these times that she had slowly hoisted herself up onto my workbench, sitting with her legs dangling over the side, still looking down. Then she spoke.

“Jade. My name is Jade Na’aravit.”

I was stunned by the sound of her voice. My ears could hear she was speaking another tongue, but my mind understood her as if she were speaking in my language. She continued, her voice soft and almost melodious.

“You seem very intelligent, so it might not need telling, but creatures of faekind are never to reveal themselves to the mortal world. I… had no other choice.” She crossed her arms worriedly. We let a silence hang between the two of us until she felt more comfortable continuing. I listened. 

“I am not sure if you will be able to understand my troubles. You discovered me at your door after a losing battle. There is a radical group among our people who wish to thrust their ideals onto others, and punish them if they think otherwise. My family was targeted by them. We did our best to escape their relentless torment by logical means and discussion, but their thirst for claiming a moral high ground remains insatiable.” Her eyes began to well with tears, and she swallowed hard. The atmosphere of the room seemed to have shifted with her mood, as it began to feel cooler. “How could they hate us so? For only having differing thoughts, we are their enemies, and they treat us as no more than a beast that needs to be tamed.

“They attacked our dwelling at night, and we tried our hardest to flee. I was the only one who managed to flee…” The smell of the room changed; the coal-fire smell of the forge transformed into the smell of rain on a cobblestone street. Tears dripped down her chin and soaked into her tunic. “They followed me, and eventually they caught me. I fought to stay away, but they clawed at me, tore my wings and made me fall. I was destined to die, until I saw a light across the field from where I had lain.” She looked up at me once again, and I felt the same incapacitating feeling grip me, but there was a tinge of warmth to it.

“For all my days, no, all the days we have existed together on this earth, every fi, fae, and nova are taught of the cruelty of the mortal man. Stories of wars and twisted fates they deal among each other are read to the young nova at night to remind them to never show themselves, lest the man drain them of their magic and stomp their bodies to dust.” 

She slid off the table, slowly descending to the ground as if the law of gravity obeyed her will. “I had no other choice. Laying down to die was not an option, so I decided, in my most desperate moment of need, to lay aside my fears and risk the wrath of man.” She slowly walked up to me and put a hand on my face as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, but I knew they were not tears of sadness. “I will never forget these days,” she said, “where the kindness of man triumphed over my prejudiced presumptions.”

By the ninth day, the device was completed. At first, I had sketched it to be more complicated, but the girl-- no, Jade-- had told me she still had strength in the base of her wings. I didn’t need to make her fly, only give her the means. We had talked a lot in those last two days about human and faerie cultures, and I began to write of these fantastic ideologies and concepts. Her home, her people, the factions. It was fascinating. Jade seemed to be quite entertained by the supposed “simplicity” of human life (as she had put it), and kept asking to explain the mundane to her; farming, metalworking, and horse-drawn carriages (among other things). 

Finally, when it was ready, I fastened the belts around her waist and shoulders securely. I opened up the wings like a pair of lockets and set the remains of her wings securely against the silky interior before closing them with a snap. I stepped back and admired my work. It had been difficult to imagine what they must have looked like before the destruction, but I had done my best. The two pairs of silk-sheet wings were framed in a menagerie of gears. If they had been heavy for her, she did not show it. Jade twisted her body and slowly moved her wings, the gears clicking as she did so. She gave them a flap, and found herself nearly touching the ceiling of my workshop. She giggled, then glided all around the open space before touching back down. There was a smile on her face as she floated up to meet my eyes, and a supernatural warmth washed over me as she gave a small peck on my cheek.

“They will never believe me back home, but I will tell them of the one who spared me and made me to fly once again. Farewell, Rian.”

I could only smile as she hovered in front of me. I took her tiny hand and gave it a light squeeze before bowing to her in respect. “May the wind be always at your back, Jade Na’aravit. Fight strong and do not waver.” She simply nodded, and we gazed at each other before she gave a flick of her wings, flying out of my workshop and into the forest, the ticking sound of her new wings receding into the wind.

I never saw her or any of her kind again, but I knew she was with me in spirit. That year, my small garden produced nearly twenty times the amount it normally did, puzzling farmers from all around. All these years later, my own children still marvel at the bedtime stories I tell of the magical fairy who appeared on my doorstep one rainy evening. They wonder if they’ll ever see a fairy pop up in the garden, and all I tell them is to be kind. Someone does not need to have broken wings for you to spread kindness. And who knows? One day, a kind word or gesture might spark an even greater magic than that of a fairy.