Fairy Tales
She's finished with fairy tales by the time she turns twenty. King Shou Hashi's castle, the entrapment, the raging battle as the prince wrested her from the great dragon's clutches –
The prince vanished, but the dragon remained, still in open-necked shirts, with laugh-lines around his eyes to mark the passing years.
"He's not coming back," he tells her.
"I know," she says.
"If you want – friendship," he says –
"I know," she says again. "Thank you," she adds, gently.
There's a box of yellowing postcards upstairs. Her body aches from dancing in London, Moscow, Milan. And for now, that is enough.