Aria: Recall

Aria: Wow, you were right.
Aria: This one has such a gloomy ending too.
Kotori: I knew you'd agree.
Kotori: It's so stupid.
Kotori: But I guess different kinds of endings are fine.
Aria: But this is... Really sad!
Aria: I don't like it! Cinders deserves better!
Kotori: You think so?
Aria: Yes! I mean, she tried her best...
Kotori: Well, sometimes even that isn't enough, you know.
Kotori: Hard work isn't always the key to success.
Aria: I-I guess so, but...
Aria: But still, I feel bad for her!
Aria: Doesn't the story seem unfair to you?
Kotori: Huh?
Kotori: Well yeah, but that's just reality.
Aria: You're not... Wrong, but...
Aria: These stories are stories of fantasy!
Aria: They don't have to be so... real!
Aria: In the end, the girl just wanted the most basic of living needs.
Aria: That shouldn't be so bad... Everyone deserves love!
Aria: And I think, happy endings aren't necessarily unrealistic!
Kotori: I think you just don't like it because it makes you feel bad.
Aria: I guess... But is that wrong?
Aria: Are you saying that you like this ending?
Kotori: ...Me?
Kotori: I... Don't like it, no.
Kotori: It doesn't fit for a children's book.
Aria: Ahh, just for that reason??
Kotori: What?
Aria: You're usually more insightful about this!
Aria: You'd criticize it for way more than simply being unfit.
Kotori: Oh. I'm kind of mellowing out on this.
Aria: Oh...
Aria: Why? Is the story boring?
Kotori: No.
Kotori: Actually... A little. But not enough that I'd mind.
Aria: Then... Are you bored being with me?
Kotori: Wh- NO!!
Aria: Whoa!
Kotori: I mean- No. Not you. You're fine.
Kotori: I've just read this story so many times.
Aria: Oh... I thought you said you just found this story.
Kotori: Er, yes.
Kotori: I mean like, this sort of thing, this kind of story.
Kotori: I've done this reading and analysing too much, I can't help but feel a little bored after so long.
Aria: Oh... I guess I understand.
Aria: I thought it was fun.
Kotori: You're still so passionate about it.
Aria: I am!! I can't help it!
Kotori: I think it's a good thing.
Kotori: And a little entertaining to watch.
Aria: But this doesn't feel right!
Aria: I don't like your attitude about it.
Kotori: Huh?
Aria: It's, um, out of character!
Kotori: I'm... what?
Kotori: What's out of character?
Aria: Well, you...
Aria: Normally, you would be the one saying this.
Aria: But today, you're really different.

Kotori: ...I am?
Aria: Yes, normally you'd get so fired up about how bad this writing is,
Aria: In a really passionate and infectious way!
Kotori: I would?
Aria: Yes!!
Aria: In the first place, I only got in the hobby of analyzing and rewriting these stories because of you!
Aria: So if you don't feel up for it today, just say so.
Kotori: Oh, n-no I do!
Kotori: Sorry, I don't know what's gotten into me today.
Kotori: It's okay, I'm really fine though.
Aria: If you say so...
Kotori: Hey, I'm having fun today with you too,
Kotori: So it really is fine!
Kotori: I just need a good rest, or something.
Kotori: To be like I was before.
Aria: Yeah, okay...
Aria: You're always busy with work, so I was kind of looking forward to giving you a relaxing break.
Kotori: It is relaxing and good!
Kotori: Really, you don't have to worry about it.
Kotori: Um, so, like usual...
Kotori: We can try coming up with a better ending for this story too?
Aria: Oh... Ok!
Kotori: I think that's practically impossible though.
Aria: Huh? Why?
Kotori: Because from the first line, it's impossible for the story to have a good ending.
Aria: But why is that?
Kotori: Well, do you know where Cinders' story is taking place?
Aria: Oh umm...
Aria: It doesn't really say where!
Aria: A lot of things about it are ambiguous.
Kotori: Not exactly.
Kotori: For instance, Cinders' race is obvious, isn't it?
Aria: There's a little hint about that, yes.
Aria: But I wouldn't call it "obvious"...
Kotori: I'll show you.

Kotori: Look, this line.
Aria: "...Whereas for Cinders, she always dreamt of the day she leaves for a place she belongs. A place where she doesn't stand out for having a magnificent white horn, or for her brightly shining red eyes."
Aria: Yes, that line hints that she's a monster.
Aria: Um, like us.
Kotori: And this other one.
Aria: Um... When the ball starts?
Kotori: Yeah.
Kotori: There's a mention of falling feathers.
Kotori: Those are from the attending dancers' wings.
Kotori: So, this story is taking place in a world where people have wings.
Aria: !
Aria: So then this is in the winged world?
Kotori: Yep.
Aria: Kotori, that's amazing!
Aria: I wouldn't have figured it out!
Kotori: Calling it amazing is a little too much.
Aria: No! It is amazing!
Aria: You really have a knack for this!
Kotori: I-I guess? Heh.
Kotori: Really, it's just being attentive to details.
Kotori: But getting back to what I was saying,
Kotori: This is why the story can't have a good ending.
Aria: Because... It's in the winged world?
Kotori: Yes.
Kotori: Also, the term is winged overworld, get it right.
Aria: Bluh, you and your details. :p
Kotori: Anyway. This is why you can't write a good ending to this story.
Aria: I don't really get it, what's wrong with the setting?
Kotori: Well...

Kotori then began explaining why this story cannot be a happy one to you.

The nature of Cinders' tale is to be sad and gloomy, due to the very setting of it indeed. After all, the girl was taken into a truly loveless world, a world so impossibly devoid of a part integral to both human and monster life that one couldn't imagine it if they tried. But we will try to imagine it nonetheless, and we will try to apply our knowledge with the example we've seen so far.

This world exists under the stars, over the clouds, and forever suspended in midair.

If to us, heaven is in a mother's embrace, then that world has no concept of a mother. If to us, love is blind to imperfections, then in that world imperfections are plain to see. If to us, family is our meaning of happily ever after, then that world has not even the concept of such a relation. If to us, the loneliest were who loved only themselves, then that world is full of narcissists.

Of all existing worlds, this world was the one chosen for Cinders to live in. Conceited, loveless, and merely vain, like an exact antithesis to her basic desire of love. This was a world that taught its people the meaning of lovelessness from the moment of birth.

And yet, that world is the most beautiful of all worlds.

Birth, as an event, is utterly meaningless for the winged, which is exactly unlike how humans and monsters think of it. Birth of new winged life is so insignificant that birthdays didn't even exist, and of course, neither did parents, which is a very unsurprising revelation that we will continue being unsurprised by. New life didn't require two people to come to be, rather it simply came from the dancing stars.

The requirements for it are simple:

A passing thought, and it must be full of emotion, enough to reach the stars.

Just with any kind of stray wonder, and it is as easily as thinking anything whether unconsciously or consciously, the stars listened - and from those thoughts new life would be created. A new being could come to be from getting unknowingly thought about. And how many thoughts did a person have in a day? How many of them are good or bad, how many are simply nonsensical, while others are sophisticated? What kind of existence does each thought bring? Feelings, thoughts and emotions, that is how easily millions of these exceptional angelic children could be born in a day.

And they are to be killed just as fast as they were born.

For a population with such a wild birth rate needed absolute control, yet the stars that danced under the moon bore many fruits.

Surely, we need to be shown some examples to understand such an alien process.

Try to imagine.