19.
The tiny princess didn't know where she would find the daughter of the Iron Queen, and so she kept wandering the Iron Keep. Whenever she came upon a cross-section, she chose the direction that seemed to contain the most light.
The tiny princess didn't like the darkness very much. She longed to be on the surface again, where the sun shone, and the wind would ruffle her hair and caress her skin.
But she needed to find the fish that was a bird, so she could learn how to fly, and be lustrous herself.
Finally, she came across a door, which she opened slowly. The hinges were old, and squeaked terribly when the tiny princess pushed it open, but when she stepped inside, she was glad. There was light, and warmth, in the room.
She stepped inside, and looked around.
Inside, there was a young girl, hovering in the air, right above a settee.
The tiny princess was impressed. Hovering was not quite as lustrous as flying, and she would rather be flying than hovering, but she was impressed nevertheless.
20.
'Can you teach me to fly? And be lustrous, like the fish in the sky?' asked the tiny princess, after she had watched the daughter of the Iron Queen for a while.
The daughter of the Iron Queen shook her head, and it made her long hair cascade down in lush waves, because she was still hovering. 'No, I'm sorry, I do not know how to fly. But maybe you can ask the angels, next door. They are always flying.'
The tiny princess thanked the daughter of the Iron Queen politely, and opened the door to the next room.
The two angels who lived there regarded her curiously.
'You be angels?' asked the tiny princess, after she had closed the door behind her.
The two angels nodded. Of course they were angels.
'Can you teach me how to fly?'
The two angels shook their heads. Truth be told, they didn't even know how to fly. They just did.
'And do you know where the fish that is a bird is?' the tiny princess continued.
Again, the angels shook their heads.
'But', said one of the angels, the smaller one, who was busy brushing his teeth, 'there is a man outside, on the meadows, who is always catching clouds. Clouds fly.'
The other angel, who was busy shaving, nodded in agreement.
The tiny princess thanked the two angels and hurried outside, looking for the man who was always catching clouds.
21.
It didn't take her long to find the man who was always catching clouds. All she had to do was look for the biggest and most beautiful clouds there were, and when she did, she found the man, trying to catch them.
He was busy tying a huge and rustling cloud to the ground, with a wooden stake and some heavy rope.
'Clouds fly', observed the tiny princess when she was standing next to the man who was always catching clouds.
He was busy, and the work was tiring, and so he only nodded.
'Could you teach me to fly like a cloud?' asked the tiny princess, but the man immediately shook his head.
'No, I can't do that - I do not know how the clouds fly. But if you learn to fly like a cloud, I could then catch you like a cloud. Would you like that?'
The tiny princess shook her head. No, she wouldn't like that. If she ever managed to learn to fly, she wanted to be free and lustrous, and not get caught by the man who was always catching clouds.
'But can you tell me maybe where the fish that is a bird went to?' she asked. The tiny princess was getting desperate - her journey had been going on for so long already, and still she had seen no sign of the fish that was a bird.
'Go and look for the dolllicker', said the man who was always catching clouds. He was already busy roping in the next cloud. This one was smaller, but still very beautiful.
22.
The tiny princess did what he had told her, and went to look for the dolllicker. It wasn't long till she found him - but he was just as busy as the man who was always catching clouds had been, and he was busy licking dolls.
The tiny princess stared with a mixture of disgust and fascination at the big man, who was totally oblivious to his surroundings, and busily licking dolls.
He possessed more dolls than the tiny princess, or even more dolls than the tiny princess had ever seen. In her whole life. She wondered whether he had really licked all those dolls.
‘Mister Dolllicker?’ asked the tiny princess after a moment, when he paid her no attention and was still busily licking away.
He halted for a moment. ‘Yes?’ he asked, turning towards her, his tongue still sticking out.
‘Do you happen to know where the fish that is a bird is?’ she asked politely.
The dolllicker shook his head, and that made his tongue waggle all over his face.
‘No, but you could ask the one-eyed girl. She might know – she knows lots of things. She is over there.’
The tiny princess thanked the dolllicker, and went into the direction he had indicated.
23.
Not long, and the tiny princess came upon the one-eyed girl. The one-eyed girl regarded the tiny princess with her one good eye and nodded as a greeting. The tiny princess nodded right back at her.
Then she noticed that the one-eyed girl was entangled in some sort of rope. It wasn’t quite the same sort of rope that the man who was always catching clouds had been using, but very similar. Only, the one-eyed girl wasn’t catching any clouds. Rather, she had caught herself with the rope, and now she seemed stuck.
‘Are you stuck?’ asked the tiny princess, but the one-eyed girl shook her head vigorously.
‘No, I’m not stuck’, she answered. ‘I secured myself. So I won’t go away.’
The tiny princess nodded. She had no idea what the one-eyed girl was talking about, but it seemed certainly to make sense.
‘I’m tired’, said the tiny princess and sat down wearily.
The one-eyed girl nodded. She seemed to know the feeling.
‘Are you on your way home’, asked the one-eyed girl then.
The tiny princess thought about the question for a moment. Maybe she was. Maybe she really was on her way home. She nodded slowly.
Then the one-eyed girl smiled and asked: ‘Why aren’t you flying home?’
The tiny princess looked up and shook her head.
‘But I don’t know how to fly. I asked everybody if they could teach me to fly, and not even the angels could. And I asked everybody where the fish that was a bird was, so it could teach me. But nobody knows where the fish that was a bird is. You don’t know, either, do you?’
The one-eyed girl shook her head, but she was still smiling. ‘But I can show you how to fly’, she said.
‘Really?’ asked the tiny princess, and sat up straight.
‘Yes, really’, said the one-eyed girl.
24.
‘Follow me’, said the one-eyed-girl, and loosened the rope that was securing her. She went off and the tiny princess followed her. The two girls came across a violently green meadow, upon which lots of balloons were grazing.
‘Look’, said the one-eyed girl and pointed at the balloons.
The tiny princess looked at the balloons, but she didn’t understand what the one-eyed girl was talking about.
Then, suddenly, she understood. She started running towards the balloons, but the one-eyed girl held her back. ‘Here, take my rope. Secure yourself, so you can go away.’
The tiny princess took the rope and ran towards the balloons. She secured a whole bunch of them, just like she had seen the man who was always catching clouds do with the clouds, and then secured herself to the balloons, too.
After she was finished, she could feel a gentle pull. A little one, at first, and then it tugged harder. And suddenly, she was lifted up in the sky.
Higher and higher she went, and she couldn’t believe her luck.
She was flying. And she was lustrous, and wondrous.
Some fish were flying by her, and regarded the tiny princess that was flying with interest. The tiny princess that was flying waved at them. Then she told the balloons to fly her home, to her parent’s castle, and the balloons nodded and bobbed in the air. Then they flew towards the castle of the tiny king and the tall queen, in which the tiny princess lived.
The tiny princess was very happy indeed.
