When she was little, Sora would tell her bedtime stories.
He told her of the princess who was kidnapped by a dragon, and of the prince who saved her. She liked to think that she was the princess, and Ichigo the prince.
Ulquiorra, she thought, was definitely the dragon.
So Orihime pieced together her own story as she sat on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands clasped to her chest, her voice rising above the solitude of her prison in Las Noches.
"Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…"
"…And they lived happily ever after."
When she opened her eyes at last, she found him standing there. She shrieked, and in that moment, his eyes glinted like dragon scales.
"You are telling yourself a story." The words he spoke felt like cold fire. "Why do you you hope? There is no hope for you."
At the time, her voice had been firm; a castle immune to the dragon's flames. "There is."
"Princes do not exist. Princesses do not exist."
"Yes, they do!"
"Not the kind you have described."
"But-"
"Dragons do not exist, either."
She had almost laughed. How funny; the dragon himself claiming dragons did not exist.
Taking her silence to be a sign of surrender, he turned to leave. "Fairytales are not a true depiction of reality. That is why they are called fairytales."
The door creaked shut behind him.
Orihime repeated the story to herself that night as she cried.
She should be rejoicing. She has her happy ending at last.
[Is it really happy?]
Her prince has slain the dragon.
[Is he really a prince?]
But when she finds herself reaching towards Ulquiorra's disintegrating hand, she finds no cold fire, no dragon scales.
Instead, she finds that he is right.
There is no such thing as a happy ending.
"I see."
There is no such thing as a prince.
"It lies right here, in my palm."
There is no such thing as a princess.
"A heart."
There are no such thing as dragons.
