Symphonic Rain: The Book of Fairies

Stories

## The Fairy Who Could Not Fly

An old fairy had gathered a flock of young ones and begun to tell a story.

“Once upon a time, there was a fairy who could not fly.”

To a steady melody, the elder sang the opening verse. It was a fairy tale woven into song, the story told line by line as the singer went on.

The children, hearing the song for the first time, listened in bright, quiet attention. The old fairy smiled faintly and continued.

Once upon a time, there was a fairy who could not fly.

The fairy’s name was Fata. On Fata’s back grew a pair of beautiful wings, clear and faintly luminous. Unlike the wings of other fairies, they were so small and so thin they looked like toys.

Fata was always mocked for those wings.

“Well, well—the fairy who can’t fly!”

“Come on, fly with us!”

To the fairies’ thoughtless words, Fata always answered with a smile.

“I’m sorry. When my wings grow just a little more, we’ll fly together.”

Fata’s day began by dragging a heavy body out of the place where sleep was kept. In a room hollowed with care from the crook of a tree, the furniture was made from the wood that had been dug away. Simply climbing down from the straw-spread bed left Fata breathless, and a moment’s rest was required before anything else.

Then, under lights kindled by magic and the sunlight slanting in through the window, Fata began to cook a cream soup from fruit a friend had picked.

It was too…

## The Book of Fairies

“That fairy cannot fly.”

Ariyeda’s hands, flipping the pages with a soft patter, came to a stop. She was not reading the book with any real seriousness. It was only that the illustration in this short story—a small, lovely fairy—had caught her eye for reasons she could not name.

On the fairy’s back were tiny wings giving off a pale glow, nothing like the fairies mentioned in the earlier pages. Ariyeda turned back a few leaves, checked the fairy illustrations in the other stories, and saw at once that this tale was the thread running through the whole book.

“…What kind of fairy is this, really?”

Murmuring to herself, Ariyeda began to read what followed. She was halfway through a collection of short stories about fairies, and already she had come to believe, little by little, that fairies were real—and then this story appeared.

In a world human beings could neither see nor feel—long ago, when the world was still full of magic, more so than now—fairies did exist. They were few, but now and then a human who could see them would appear, give them names, and leave behind proof that they had once been.

The other stories told of fairies more or less in that way.

This short story, though, only followed the small days of a fairy called “Fata,” living in the world the fairies kept.

Ariyeda closed the book all at once and stepped into the oven room, where the faint scent of baking bread drifted. The dough seemed…

## The Day It Began to Rain

The toy piano gave off a tuneless, out-of-pitch melody.

It was an old, small piano that had never been tuned, but that was not the only reason the notes went wrong. The one playing had to be Doruda. Doruda’s piano was never as fine as her singing, yet she had studied for a long time so she could accompany songs, and it was hard to believe she could play this badly. Even so, the sound coming from her now was impossible to listen to.

“…Ari.” Doruda murmured it in a choked voice, not far from the bedside, her back turned to me, it seemed.

The reason I was here. The reason Doruda was crying. And the reason Kurisu had forgotten me.

“Sister.”

Everything began on that day…

“…Ari… Ariyeda.”

Kurisu called my name, and I had lost count of how many times. Behind us, people had gathered all around the burned-out car. Rain that had started at some unnoticed moment fell quietly on Kurisu and on me.

“Ariyeda…” Kurisu said it over and over. People kept crowding in, and some of them spoke to him, but he gave no answer. He only stroked my hand, my back, my cheek, very still. His fingers trembled. Perhaps no one in the circle around us understood what the gesture meant, but they must at least have understood the feeling he brought to it—a grief that went very deep.

I only watched it all from far away. Feeling had gone dull. Surprise and sorrow both grew faint…

## The Fairy of Sound — Furing

A cold, rainy day.

I had been in this city for three days, and the rain had not once let up.

That was only to be expected. From ancient times the city had been called the Rain City, and the music academy I was about to enter was named for it as well.

A short walk outside was enough to leave me soaked through. Drops fell from the ends of my hair. Back in a room I had not yet put in order, the first thing to do was take out a towel and dry myself.

When I arrived, I should have unpacked at once and set the room to rights. But the long train ride had worn my body out, and in the end I had to stay at Grandma Rina’s and rest. The air was warmer than at home, yet after a long journey a soaked body will take sick—Grandma Rina said so herself.

I spent two full days recovering at her house before I finally reached the room where I would live for the next three years.

“…It’s so cold.” I said it under my breath and went in. I had been told the place came with furniture and with heating, so I decided to turn the heat on first. Noon was long past, and the room was still dim. Was it the clouds stacked over the sky? The sunlight did not seem to reach this far.

At last I found the switch for the heater and turned it on. If I stayed wet like this, the cold would come back.

From the luggage strewn about I found the bundle with clothes and a towel. I took off my top and changed. Then I dried myself with a clean towel, and at last the heater…