A/N: A miniscule spoiler if you haven't read Volume 7, a little outdated if you haven't read Volume 8… but read it anyway.
--start—
Satella loved fairy tales. She could listen to them all day. Dolls were of little interest to her; they were things and far too tangible. Fairy tales were ephemeral, faint, but they were more real to her than God. Pretending to be Cinderella, or acting out Snow White with dolls would have been blasphemy, a sin. In fairy tales she could escape being Satella, not being good enough, and be merely the most fervent believer a religion could ask for.
Growing up and seeing the lax behavior of others toward religion, she was able to laugh and joke about fairy tales. Even when she felt like a traitor, even when she still used fairy tales as an escape, making herself into her own fairy tale. Princesses were the most beautiful, most kind, most purehearted. Princes were most brave, most dashing, most valiant. Maybe she wasn't kind or purehearted, maybe not even beautiful, though when she glanced at her reflection in silvered glass she doubted it, but she was brave and valiant. She was going to kill the being who had slaughtered her family. Demon with no horns. It was ironically poetic.
And when she met Rosette, it fell apart again. Because Rosette was brave, and she was valiant, and she was also beautiful, kind, and purehearted. Suddenly Satella's fairy tale was a little side plot in a much bigger story, and she wasn't the heroine anymore. And when she watched Rosette crying on her stairs as Chrno tried to comfort her, she thought almost hysterically, Maybe Rosette is a better heroine than I am anyway. She overcomes sorrow but still looks forward, she fights even when she's drowning in metaphors of evil, and when she's weeping she can still wipe her tears and laugh. She's still the purehearted child, she's the holy idol overcoming evil. Who am I? I'm the bitter, world-weary woman who gave up searching for her sister years ago in all but name.
But when she died, holding on tightly to the only doll that she could ever love, she was crying and smiling because somehow she was, if not the heroine, she was a heroine, and when her body was being torn apart, she thought that maybe it was time to forget about the fairy tales and grow up a little.
--end--
