The pull led Lu higher into the mountains until the air grew thin and cold. When she finally crested the highest peak, she gasped at what lay before her.
Islands floated in the sky like broken pieces of a puzzle scattered by careless hands. Each one hovered alone in the vast blue, surrounded by nothing but empty air and suspicion made visible.
Lu counted twelve islands, all different sizes. Some were barely large enough for a single family, others could have housed entire communities. But none of them were connected. Where there should have been bridges or pathways between them, there was only dangerous space.
She flew toward the nearest island, her wings working hard in the thin air. As she approached, she could see creatures moving about their daily tasks: tending sky-gardens, building walls, always looking nervously at the other islands floating around them.
Warning bells began to ring before she even landed.
"Unknown flyer approaching! Take defensive positions!" The voice echoed across the small island as Lu touched down on what looked like a landing platform.
Immediately, she was surrounded by bird-folk with sharp spears and suspicious eyes. Their feathers were dulled by constant worry, their movements quick and fearful.
"State your business," demanded a fierce-eyed owl with scars across his beak.
"I'm just traveling through. I saw your islands and thought—"
"Spy," hissed a smaller sparrow-being. "Probably sent by the Eastwind Island to scout our defenses."
"Or the Stormcloud Isle," added another. "They've been eyeing our grain stores for weeks."
Lu looked around in confusion. "I'm not from any island. I'm just—"
"Likely story." The owl stepped closer. "Everyone belongs somewhere. And everyone who comes here uninvited is either a spy or a raider."
"But surely you help each other sometimes? Share resources?"
The silence that followed was heavy as stone.
"Help each other?" The sparrow laughed, but it sounded more like crying. "Child, we barely survive as it is. Every island hoards what little they have. One bad harvest and we're all fighting over scraps."
"It wasn't always this way," said a measured voice from the back of the group.
The other birds turned sharply toward a crow-like creature with silver-streaked feathers and keen, intelligent eyes. "Raven, don't fill her head with dangerous ideas."
But Raven stepped forward with the dignity of someone who had spent years being unfairly attacked. "It wasn't. I remember when the bridges connected all the islands. When healers could travel freely between communities, sharing knowledge and medicine."
Lu's heart jumped. "Healers?"
"Each island used to specialize," Raven continued, her voice carrying the authority of someone who had spent decades mastering complex systems. "Brightwind Isle grew the best healing herbs. Cloudrest had the wisest bone-setters. Stormwatch knew secrets of mind-medicine that could heal deep sadness." Her voice grew soft with the pain of watching careful work destroyed. "When someone was hurt or sick, we'd send them to whoever could help best. The bridges made it possible."
"The bridges made us vulnerable," the owl snapped. "Easy for raiders to attack, easy for disease to spread, easy for others to steal what was ours."
"The only thing the bridges brought was trouble," added the sparrow. "Now each island tends its own sick and keeps its own secrets safe."
Lu felt something cold in her stomach. "What happens if someone gets hurt and you can't help them here?"
The silence stretched longer this time.
"We do what we can," the owl said finally. "And if that's not enough..." He shrugged, as if loss was just weather.
"But people are dying who don't have to," Raven said, her voice breaking. "Last month, little Pip on our island got the wasting sickness. Cloudrest Isle had the cure; I could see their healers from here, close enough to shout to. But the bridges were gone, and no one would risk flying the gap to ask for help."
"Because Cloudrest might have demanded payment we couldn't afford," the owl said harshly. "Or worse, they might have seen our weakness and decided to take our island entirely."
"So Pip died," Raven whispered. "Died looking at the cure floating just across the sky."
Lu's flowers bloomed bright with grief and anger. "This is wrong. This is all wrong."
"This is survival," the owl replied. "This is reality."
"No." Lu spread her wings. "This is fear wearing reality's mask."
Before anyone could stop her, she launched herself into the sky. Her flowers blazed to life, creating trails of light between the islands. For a moment, she saw what Raven remembered: paths of connection, bridges of hope spanning the impossible gaps.
The response was immediate and violent.
Every island lit up with weapons. Arrows flew past her wings. Nets shot out to drag her down. Voices screamed warnings about attack, about invasion, about the end of everything.
"She's marking targets for raiders!" someone shouted.
"Bringing disease-light to poison our air!"
"Destroy the bridges before they solidify!"
Dark magic and arrows crackled across the sky, tearing through Lu's body like claws through silk. The pain sent her tumbling from the air, wings too hurt to hold her up.
She fell toward the empty space between islands, toward the killing drop that had replaced the bridges.
Then strong talons caught her.
Raven flew with powerful wingbeats, carrying Lu away from the chaos above. They glided down to a hidden ledge on the underside of the smallest island, where the other creatures couldn't see them.
"Why did you save me?" Lu gasped, her whole body aching from the attack.
"Because someone should have saved Pip." Raven set her down gently, her movements careful and practiced. "Because I remember what it felt like when the islands were connected. When help was possible."
"But you won't try to rebuild the bridges?"
Raven's laugh was hollow. "I was a bridge-builder once. My whole family were. We spent generations perfecting the art of connecting impossible things." She gestured at the empty air around them, her voice heavy with the weight of a lifetime's work destroyed. "The Winds came and whispered that our bridges made everyone vulnerable. That connection meant weakness. That safety lay in isolation."
"You could build them again."
"With what?" Raven spread her wings, and Lu could see they were scarred and damaged from years of being branded as dangerous. "They exiled all the bridge-builders as 'security risks.' Destroyed our tools, burned our plans. Said we were dangerous dreamers who put everyone at risk with our 'naive faith in cooperation.'" Her voice carried the bitter knowledge of being punished for competence. "Decades of careful work, dismissed as if expertise was a threat rather than a gift."
Lu looked up at the islands floating alone in their fear. "So now people just... die?"
"People die," Raven agreed. "Healers hoard knowledge. Children grow up never meeting anyone from outside their tiny island. Fear spreads faster than medicine ever did." She tucked her damaged wings close to her body. "And maybe that's just how the world is now. Maybe I was the naive one for thinking connection was possible."
Lu felt something breaking inside her chest. Not her magic, but something deeper. The stubborn hope that had carried her this far began to crack like ice under too much weight.
"Maybe they're right," she whispered. "Maybe I am just a dangerous dreamer. Maybe kindness really is just weakness wearing a pretty mask."
She looked at her flowers, already beginning to wilt in the thin air. At her wings, still aching from the attack. At the impossible space between the islands that would never be bridged again.
For the first time since leaving the Deep Groves, Lu wondered if she was fighting for something that had never really existed. If the connections she remembered were just children's stories, and the isolation around her was the only truth that mattered.
Above them, the islands floated in their perfect, terrified solitude, and Lu felt more alone than she ever had in the gray wasteland of the Between-Space.
At least there, she had still believed that home was possible.
Dangerous Dreamer
Maybe they’re right about me Maybe I’m just naive Building bridges out of nothing When no one wants to cross Maybe they’re right to call me A dangerous dreamer child Thinking kindness could survive here In a world grown cold and wild Dangerous dreamer That’s all I am Dangerous dreamer With flowers at my paws Maybe kindness Is just weakness wearing masks Maybe they’re right Maybe that’s all they have to ask Connection was just children’s stories Trust was just a pretty lie Maybe I’m the naive one For believing we could fly Dangerous dreamer That’s all I’ll ever be Dangerous dreamer Lost in fantasy Maybe they’re right Maybe they’re right Maybe they’re right about me
🦊 About Lu's Story
Lu is searching for her family in a world that's forgotten how to be kind. When the Harsh Winds turned communities against each other, Lu's people were scattered like seeds. Each step of her quest reveals how deep the corruption runs, and what it will take to heal it.
This post is so well done, my favorite part was the poem//song. Very flowing!