Once upon a time, in a wide-open valley surrounded by mountains, there lived a young hawk named Aero. Aero wasn’t like the other hawks in his flock. While most were content soaring above the trees and gliding on the wind, Aero wanted more. He dreamed of flying higher than any hawk had ever flown before, above the clouds, into the unknown sky.

“Why do you always push so hard?” his friend Tala asked one afternoon while they rested on a pine tree. “We have everything we need down here. Food, freedom, flight. Isn’t that enough?” But Aero shook his head. “I want to prove I’m the best. I want the sky to know my name.”

So every day, he practiced. While the others hunted or played, Aero was diving, climbing, and riding the wind until his wings felt like they’d fall off. Eventually, he believed he was ready. One bright morning, when the wind was strong and the clouds were high, Aero shot up into the air like an arrow. He passed the treetops, the mountaintops, even the clouds. The air grew thin, but he kept going. Below him, the valley looked like a painting. He was so high that he couldn’t hear anything but the wind.

“I did it,” he whispered to himself. “I really did it.”

But something was wrong. His wings, tired from the climb, started to ache. The wind, now icy and wild, tossed him around. He tried to flap, but there wasn’t enough air. Panic crept in. He realized he had flown so high he didn’t have the strength to get back down. He started falling. Faster and faster, the ground rushed up to meet him. Trees blurred past. At the last second, he managed to open his wings just enough to slow down and crash into a bush instead of the ground. Bruised, shaken, and embarrassed, Aero limped back to the flock.

Tala flew up to him. “Are you okay?”

“Barely,” Aero muttered.

Tala sat beside him for a while before saying, “It’s not wrong to dream big. But don’t forget, flying high means nothing if you can’t make it back.” From that day on, Aero still practiced and flew high, but he remembered to rest and stay grounded. He became the strongest flyer in the valley, not because he reached the highest sky, but because he knew his limits.