short fiction · 2026-10-27

Cygnet

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The cygnet does not know it is ugly. It knows only the cold water against its down, the rhythm of its mother's heartbeat through the feathers of her back, the way the world tilts when she dives. Grey and soft, it rides the current like a shadow of something not yet born. The swans on the bank preen their white necks into perfect questions. The cygnet watches, waits, grows heavier. One morning it stretches wings that have forgotten how to be small, and the water holds a new reflection — not a promise, not a becoming, but the thing itself, finally true.