Windhaven by George R. R. Martin;Lisa Tuttle Page B

that Corm's proposal, to name Maris of Lesser Amberly an outlaw, is out of order,” Jamis said. “We will now vote on Maris' proposal, to establish a flyers' academy open to all. I vote in favor.”
    After that, there was no more doubt.
     
    Afterward, Maris felt slightly in shock, giddy with victory, yet somehow not able to believe that it was really over, that she did not have to fight anymore. The air outside the hall was clean and wet, the wind blowing steadily from the east. She stood on the steps and savored it, while friends and strangers crowded about her, wanting to talk. Dorrel kept his arm around her, and did not ask questions nor express amazement; he was restful to lean against. What now? she wondered. Home again? Where was Coll? Perhaps he'd gone to fetch Barrion and bring the boat.
    The crowd around her parted. Russ stood there, Jamis at his side. Her stepfather was holding a pair of wings. “Maris,” he said.
    “ Father? ” Her voice was trembling.
    “This is how it should have been all along,” he said, smiling at her. “I would be proud if you would let me call you daughter again, after all that I have done. I would be even prouder if you would wear my wings.”
    “You've won them,” Jamis said. “The old rules don't apply, and you're certainly qualified. Until we get the academy going, there's no one to wear them except you and Devin. And you took better care of these than Devin ever did of his.”
    Her hands went out to take the wings from Russ. They were hers again. She was smiling, no longer tired, buoyed by the weight of them in her hands, the familiarity of them. “Oh, Father,” she said, and then, weeping, she and Russ embraced each other.
    When the tears were gone, they all went to the flyers' cliff, quite a crowd of them. “Let's fly to the Eyrie,” she said to Dorrel. Then there was Garth, just beyond—she had not noticed him in the crowd before. “Garth! You come too. We'll have a party!”
    “Yes,” Dorrel said, “but is the Eyrie the place for it?”
    Maris flushed. “Oh, of course not!” She glanced around at the crowd. “No, we'll go back to our house, on Lesser, and everyone can come, us and Father and the Landsman and Jamis, and Barrion will sing for us, if we can find him, and—” and then she saw Coll, running toward her, his face alight.
    “Maris! Maris!” He ran to her and hugged her enthusiastically, then broke away, grinning.
    “Where did you go to?”
    “Off with Barrion, I had to, I'm making a song. Just got the start of it now, but it will be good, I can feel it, it really will be. It's about you.”
    “Me?”
    He was obviously proud of himself. “Yes. You'll be famous. Everyone will sing it and everyone will know about you.”
    “They already do,” Dorrel said. “Believe me.”
    “Oh, but I mean forever. For as long as this song is sung they'll know about you—the girl who wanted wings so much she changed the world.”
    And perhaps it was true, Maris thought later, as she strapped on her wings and rose into the wind with Dorrel and Garth by her side. But to have changed the world didn't seem half so important nor half so real as the wind in her hair, the familiar pull of muscles as she rose, riding the beloved currents she had thought might be lost to her forever. She had her wings again, she had the sky; she was whole now and she was happy.

PART TWO
    One-Wing
    THE ODDEST THING about dying was how easy it was, how calm and beautiful.
    The still air had come upon Maris without warning. An instant before, the storm had raged all around her. Rain stung her eyes and ran down her cheeks and ting 'd against the silver metal of her wings, and the winds were full of tumult, pushing her this way and that, slapping her contemptuously from side to side as if she were a child new to the air. Beneath the wing struts, her arms ached from the struggle. Dark clouds obscured the horizon, while the sea below was frothing and troubled; land was nowhere in sight.