"Mercedes Lackey - Wet Wings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

the fringes like parasitic mushrooms. She, like the other mages of her time,
had simply shaken her head and sighed for them. But what she had not reckoned
on, nor had anyone else, was that these movements had gained strength and a
life of their ownтАФand had gone political.

Somehow, although the process had been so gradual she had never noticed when
it had become unstoppable, those who cherished their delusions began to
legislate some of those delusions. "Politically correct" they called itтАФand
some of the things they had done she had welcomed, seeing them as the
harbingers of more freedom, not less.
But they had gone from the reasonable to the unreasoning; from demanding and
getting a removal of sexism to a denial of sexuality and the differences that
should have been celebrated. From legislating the humane treatment of animals
to making the possession of any animal or animal product without licenses and
yearly inspections a crime. Fewer people bothered with owning a pet these
daysтАФno, not a pet, an "Animal Companion," and one did not "own" it, one
"nurtured" it. Not when inspectors had the right to come into your home day or
night, make certain that you were giving your Animal Companion all the rights
to which it was entitled. And the rarer the animal, the more onerous the
conditions. . . .

"That wouldn't suit you, would it, Horace?" she asked the young crow perched
over the window. Horace was completely illegal; there was no way she could
have gotten a license for him. She lived in an apartment, not on a farm; she
could never give him the four-acre "hunting preserve" he required. Never mind
that he had come to her, lured by her magic, and that he was free to come and
go through her window, hunting and exercising at will. He also came and went
with her little spell-packets, providing her with eyes on the world where she
could not go, and bringing back the cocoons and chrysalises that she used for
her butterfly-magics.

She shook her head, and sighed. They had sucked all the juice of life out of
the world, that was what they had done. Outside, the gray overcast day
mirrored the gray sameness of the world they had created. There were no bright
colors anymore to draw the eye, only pastels. No passion, no fire, nothing to
arouse any kind of emotions. They had decreed that everyone must be equal, and
no one must be offended, ever. And they had begun the burning and the banning.
...

She had become alarmed when the burning and banning started; she knew that her
own world was doomed when it reached things like "Hansel and Gretel"тАФbanned,
not because there was a witch in it, but because the witch was evil, and that
might offend witches. She had known that her own work was doomed when a book
that had been lauded for its portrayal of a young gay hero was banned because
the young gay hero was unhappy and suicidal. She had not even bothered to
argue. She simply announced her retirement, and went into seclusion, pouring
all her energies into the magic of her butterflies.

From the first moment of spring to the last of autumn, Horace brought her
caterpillars and cocoons. When the young butterflies emerged, she gave them