“I think I’m ready, Grace,” says Mirabelle, looking at her friend. He’s lying on the bench with his jacket over himself. She’s leaning back against his chest. “…Maybe…”

 

Grace shifts his position, yawning and being careful not to squish her as he moves. “Ready for what?”

 

Mirabelle stares up at the stars in the night sky. “I dunno, I'm ready to… introduce myself,” she says. “To the world.” The cruel fairy scoots sideways so that she is nestled below him and his jacket, using it as a blanket and maliciously stealing the warmth of his body like a foul wraith. As she says that, Mirabelle listens to her own words and then looks away from the sky, realizing what that means. “…Maybe…”

 

“You don’t sound so sure all of a sudden,” replies Grace, looking down her way.

 

Mirabelle leans out to the side, clutching the fabric of his jacket, and looks at him. It’s starting to get cold at night lately. “People have never been excited to see me,” explains Mirabelle.

 

“— I’m excited to see you, Marbles,” remarks Grace, winking and making that disgusting clicking noise that he always makes.

 

Mirabelle, the malignant stain on the world that she is, groans and leans back, hiding herself entirely under his jacket, so that he can’t see her face. Laying there between the fabric and him, she sits in the warmth of it and thinks.

 

A muffled voice comes from outside. “It’s normal to be scared of big changes,” explains Grace. “After all, if life is working so well right now, why change the formula, right?” he asks. “Everybody thinks that.”

 

Mirabelle cautiously peeks out again, not sure if she can survive another attack of that nature. “…What do you do in those situations, Grace?” she asks.

 

Grace yawns again, clearly having had a tiring day. He settles in. “If the big changes are too scary,” he starts. “Then make little ones first,” explains the man with amazing hair, but very tired eyes. “Little changes add up to big ones quickly.”

 

Mirabelle thinks about it. That makes sense. Grace is so smart. Honestly, she wouldn’t know what to do without him and his help. He’s really, literally saved her and her life. “Thanks, Grace,” says Mirabelle after a few minutes, looking at him.

 

He doesn’t reply. He’s already asleep. She can feel his chest moving behind her back. Mirabelle finds herself smiling as she watches him sleep, which is confusing and embarrassing, so she hides back behind the jacket again and closes her eyes too.

 

She doesn’t find sleep, but she does secretly stay there for a while longer than she usually would. Being the despicable wretch that she is, she assumes that Grace will never know that she had stayed a while longer while he was asleep. It didn’t bother her before, but right now, she would actually really like to sleep.

 

He’s very warm.

 

---

 

Small changes.

 

Mirabelle looks down from her tree. It’s the early morning of the next day.

 

And there, by the water, the stick-man stands and breaks sticks. Mirabelle watches him do so. He’s the one who saved her from the slime, when she was about to get eaten by it. She had repaid his kindness by bringing a toy duck in secret to his house.

 

She looks down at herself. She’s wearing her good yellow dress today. She’s clean and presentable. Her hair is tidy and neat. Everything is as it ought to be. She’s perfectly ready to go outside and introduce herself — this time for real.

 

Slowly, Mirabelle rises up out of the hole in the tree. It’s time.

 

— And as she rises, those same old thoughts come to her. The thoughts that tell her what a strange, ugly, useless thing she is. The thoughts that tell her she’s not worth the air that she flies in, let alone the time of any other living being on this world. The thoughts that tell her that she’s trash from the ends of the strands of her hair all the way down to the tips of her toes.

 

In the past, this would have been enough to paralyze her and stop her. But Mirabelle doesn’t. It may have been enough then, but it isn’t enough now. As she turns around, looking behind herself at the polished scrap that she uses as a mirror, and sees that there is still a smile on her face that is brought on by nothing else but a swath of good, happy, fun memories and times and hopes that now counteract these old doubts, she hears Grace’s voice in her head and then nods.

 

If you can smile, you’re fine.

 

Mirabelle, the creature that may or may not be a fairy, flies out of the tree and then slowly down to the man who breaks sticks, just as he is about to cast the last piece of his daily stick away into the water.

 

“Hello!” says Mirabelle, without a hint of fear in her voice as she drifts downward.

 

He looks around, not seeing the source of the voice at first until she hovers lower. “You’re looking better,” says the stick-man.

 

Mirabelle nods. “Thank you again,” replies the thankless, loveless beast. “I really owe you for that.”

 

The stick-man shakes his head and then looks out at the water. “It’s okay. My daughter plays in this park,” he says, looking down at the piece of wood in his hands. “Can’t have a slime running amok here. It’s dangerous,” he explains before tossing the piece out and into the water. It’s quiet for a time. Mirabelle doesn’t really know what to do about the silence, so she awkwardly floats there, pulling on her hair for a minute.

 

Talking to people is hard. With Grace, it was easy. But talking to the stick-man is hard. She doesn’t know why, though. She just doesn’t really have any idea where to hook in with her words. “Can I ask you what your name is?” asks Mirabelle, trying to keep the conversation moving with the human.

 

It’s quiet for a time before he looks at her and shakes his head. “No. I’d rather not say.”

 

“O- oh…” replies Mirabelle, taken aback because this event wasn’t in the imagination she had prepared beforehand for this conversation. Did she do something wrong? She isn’t the best at this sort of stuff, but she’s trying.

 

“I understand you wanting to pay me back,” says the stick-man, looking at her. “But never come to my house,” he starts, looking at her with a stern gaze. “And never go near my family ever again,” warns the stick-man, taking a very cold and hard tone. “— Ever.”

 

“Huh?” asks Mirabelle. “Oh! I…” She rubs her arm, somewhat taken aback. Was going to his house wrong? She just wanted to make him something nice to say thanks. Did she do something bad? Mirabelle’s thoughts go wild, and by the time she pulls herself back out of their quagmire, the stick-man has turned away and is leaving. “…I’m sorry,” she calls quietly after him, not sure if he’s heard or not because he doesn’t respond.

 

Mirabelle quietly flies back up to her tree, feeling inexplicably heavy for some reason, and tears off her stupid yellow dress that she hates and throws it against the mirror glass, which fails to hold onto it, letting her look at the next thing that she hates.

 

The fairy curls up into a ball, falling onto her bedding and biting, scratching, and punching herself in the arms and legs hard enough to make it hurt for a while.

 

Of course, it would be weird to just show up at somebody’s home when you’ve never met them. Of course, it would be weird to give a gift to the family of someone you don’t even know. In fairy society, these things are more lax, but humans are tense, defensive creatures.

 

She should know this stuff by now. She’s such an idiot. She can’t do anything right.

 

Mirabelle, the horrible fairy and terrible, worthless person, spends the day doing nothing other than this, and when night comes around, she doesn’t want to fly out to see Grace either, so that he doesn’t have to look at her.

 

The next day is the same, and then the next, as she entirely neglects her work and everything else, as everything just feels too… heavy. Her arms, her legs, her wings, and her body — it all feels so heavy, and she just wants to lay here in her bedding and stare at the face in the mirror. Maybe if she looks at it long enough, she can figure out what’s wrong with it.

 

The fourth night comes.

 

Mirabelle lays there, wishing that she would just go away. This was all a mistake. She should have never begun trying to begin with because she was just getting her own and everyone else’s hopes up for no reason. Nothing good can come from her.

 

— A buzzing, whistling noise comes from the distance, in the park. She recognizes it as the sound of Grace’s odd comb and paper instrument.

 

Rolling over, she closes her eyes and ignores it.

 

She doesn’t want to talk to Grace. She’s been ignoring him for too many days now; if she does, he’ll ask what’s up with her, and she’ll have to explain everything, and that just sounds so exhausting. She doesn’t have the strength to do it, so instead, she’d rather just lie right here.

 

Mirabelle closes her eyes.

 

The tree outside rustles, its leaves disturbed.

 

A hand reaches inside her house and grabs her. “I found it!” says a voice from outside as Mirabelle screams in surprise, roughly being yanked out of her home. “It’s here!”