Still she creeps out into the darkness.
But she is older now.

Not quite grown but old enough that she does not have to do it in secret. 
(As much as her father would like to keep her close forever, even he understands that she is a thing meant to discover the world. She is a thing meant to draw the stars out of the sky and stretch her wings just as her mother does.)

They let her go, though they have warned her of the terrible things that can lurk in the darkness. They do not wish to scare her, only make her aware of all of the ways the world can go wrong.

But she only ever goes as far as the meadow. At least on land. Sometimes she takes to the skies, though she never can fly quite as far as she’d like to before she gets tired and has to circle back. And she dreams of a day when she will be able to drag the stars down around her while she flies. She dreams of a day when she can wade through them like water.

She remains earth-bound tonight. All feet securely on the ground. Because she has gotten to the point now where she can beckon the stars to fall down around her on purpose and with intention.

She stands amongst them now, each of them winking like diamonds in the charged air around her. And she would have smiled if she were a thing that smiled. Instead, she only studies them. Reaches for them. Commands them to cool when she touches them. (Because she had learned the hard way that they burn.)

She thinks of a friend tonight. Fyr and how he had set that stick and himself ablaze. She turns slowly amidst the field of stars and allows herself to wonder if he might find her again.