Once upon a time, long ago and far away, there was a girl.

She was stubborn, and bright, and adventurous, and she loved to tell stories. Especially, she loved to tell stories that no-one had ever heard before - her own or others', she didn't care which. For those stories she plumbed the heights of the heavens and the depths of the earth, in search of more stories to tell. And when at last she had exhausted all of earth and light around her, she set out to search the world of man to find more stories to tell; stories of those without voices, stories of those in the edges of the world, stories of those who might otherwise have been entirely forgotten.

But this is not her story.

She met a boy, kind and bright, and who loved to tell stories. Especially, he loved to tell stories that none had ever told before. Those that he created, those that he found - so long as none had spoken them in the history of the world. For those stories he had searched the depths of the clouds and of the oceans, in search of stories that had never been heard; and when he had exhausted even the seas of air and water set out to search the world of man; stories of the unknown, stories that might otherwise have gone all unwitnessed in the edges of the world.

They met, it seemed, by chance, seeking stories where few had gone before. They shared their stories with each other, shared a campfire, and when morning came as sometimes happens they stuck together; they found and founded a home to come back to when their storytelling was done.

-- But this is not their story, either.

This is the story of their daughter. For if her parents were bright, then no words could describe her but brilliant - a genius like a calamity, beyond all possible description. Not the real sort that one sees on the news, nor even in history books and halls of fame, nor even in fiction; a star painful to look upon, that could only safely ever appear warded by metaphor, in old sutras or a fairy tale like this. Her gaze was the sharpest sword that could properly exist, and before her eyes all things were as crystal glass, all riddles transparent and all mysteries useless - and so for her first fourteen years she found herself without purpose, for nothing in the world was worthy of her full attention.

There was no point in games, when she could see thirty-two steps in advance and win before the very first move; no point in studies, when she could derive what she needed as she needed in an instant without reference; no point in stories, when she could know the entire plot to the end from the very first page.

She could have spent her whole life like that, listless and unmotivated, except that...

... one day, she came home, and her parents did not. -- There was nothing nefarious about it. No sinister plot, no evil deed, not even a true criminal. Her parents were gathering stories in a place where two nations were at war, and a stray bullet happened to claim them both.

It is said - for naturally no-one was there at the time but herself - that when she heard the news a terrible stillness crept over her, and she stood: quiet, silent, motionless, for a long, long minute.

And then she nodded, and smiled, and she said, "Very well." And from then on, she took Death as her sworn enemy, intolerable under the same sky.

She sat down upon her porch-step, that genius beyond geniuses, and before her eyes the world gave up its secrets. -- She needed neither textbooks nor tutors, neither sages nor sutras. Biology, alchemy, chemistry and astrology, physics and the art of divine creation, all gave up their secrets before her gaze. In a single night she saw through all the works of man and gods alike in her mind, and when at last her understanding encompassed all-under-heaven, she called the World forth. For that symbol of her own gathered wisdom, she had but a single question, for she had but a single purpose:

"How might Death be defied?"

The world shone coldly, clear as dew, and she said to herself: "To defy Death is to defy Heaven itself. It cannot be done under Heaven."

So she asked: "How might I escape the eyes of Heaven?"

And the world seemed to laugh, not cruel but cold, and and she knew: "Nothing can do that."

So she nodded, and she smiled, and she said, "Very well."

Between her mind and the world she built, with all her new-found craft and gathered power, a forge out of dreams. She lit a furnace out of undying love, built an ice-pump out of cold reason; she called down a thunderbolt for her hammer and for an anvil, why, she used the very earth. For eight days and eight nights she swung down hammer upon anvil, and what was between them was precisely nothing at all; she compounded nothing with nothing, void with void, turning the very concept against itself until at last...

Until at last, what she bore in her hand

----------- was 'something' that not be named, for it was so fragile it would collapse under the weight of a name.

----------- was 'something' that could not be described, for it was so ephemeral it would be torn by the touch of description.

Form alone it had, and that only vaguely: it bore an edge, it was a blade.

She walked outdoors, and honed her blade against the dawn light, until the soft light of the morning sun became too coarse for it. Then against her voice clear as her eyes that rang over eight mountains and eight rivers, her songs as beautiful and clear as the frozen dew upon the pines; until that sound was still the murkier. And, as dusk fell, against the starlight, falling softly from the skies above, until that starlight found itself no more abstruse; and then at last she quenched it in the freezing moonlight.

Until on the midnight of the ninth day, she stood under the starry sky, that genius become a calamity, with a blade in her empty hand. She looked up to the heavens, and she said in patient rebuke: 

"Last chance. You may yet be forgiven."

But the stars shone coldly down, unanswering.

And so she nodded, and she smiled, and she said, "Very well."

With a single swift motion she swung up her sword, up and across and down, and with that motion she cut stars from the sky. The Heavens roared, in pain and rage, and threw down starlight like spears - but she simply stepped aside, out from the world, and not a grain of dust could touch her. And when she stepped back in, she stood impossibly upon the horizon - and just above her, the scar cut into the dome of Heaven, a dim gray scar where not even darkness could enter.

There, in the only place in all the world that was not under Heaven, she pierced through the sky and the world and Death itself; she tore open a jagged door like a lightning bolt, and pulled her parents back.

-- But in so doing... Her sword was too delicate to bear description, too absent to bear a name, but it was not entirely without substance, for it bore a form: it was a sword. And so the sword of absence broke in the doing, shattering into shards, scattering across the many worlds -- and the girl's shadow splintered and followed, into a thousand thousand thousand shades. And with them went much of the girl's power, for she had forged that sword with all her might and will.

But she nodded, and she laughed, and she said, "Very well." For after all - she had what she came for. 

And besides. What could be done once, might naturally be done again.

One day that girl shall again hold a sword sharp enough to cut the stars from the sky.