Monica lay in her room, on her old creaky bed, staring up at the tower ceiling. Now she waited for her father's approval, and the wait was worse than any she had experienced in her young life. If he accepted and published it, she could leave the wretched old castle with a lovely prince. If he did not....she shut her eyes firmly against the pain of imagining it.

She would be optimistic about this. After all, she had written the story with all her heart, and with all the skill she had accumulated. Her father would love it. Or, at least, she hoped he would. Restlessly, she turned over in bed. Her skirts lay in a tangled mess about her, but for once in her life she did not care. Things more important than dress were on her mind. A chance for a different life was up for the taking, and how she wanted it. Freedom from domineering, grumpy servants. Freedom from her hateful sisters and uncaring father.

She sat up suddenly, listening. Slowly, oh so slowly, footsteps were ascending to her tiny room. Monica sprang out of bed and swiftly pulled her skirts into a semblance of order. She clasped her hands together earnestly, pacing back and forth as the steps came nearer and nearer. They stopped outside her door and she swallowed in excitement. She would be calm, no matter what. She could not afford a scene before the servants. A knock sounded on the flimsy wood of her door, and she calmly, calmly opened it.

"Yes?" she said cooly to the servant outside. She vaguely recognized him as the man who had not bowed to her, and who Luther had been so furious at. He had an ugly, greasy beard, and she would prefer him to go away as quickly as possible.

He held out a dirty hand, in which a piece of paper resided. "An answer from the king," he mumbled.

Monica took it swiftly, almost snatching it. "Thank you, you may go."

He leered at her strangely and departed, his slow shuffling footsteps receding. She listened for a moment to make sure he was gone. No sounds came from the stairs, so she took her note inside her room and curled up on the bed. Her heart beat rather faster than it had ever done before. The small scrap of paper contained an unbelievably important message for her.

Monica breathed in deeply. She took the note and opened it up. Scanned the few lines quickly, heart in her mouth. Then she dropped the note on the floor and burst into wild tears. 

Monica, the note read, in her father's neat hand, your story is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. I will certainly not waste my time publishing it. You would do well to throw it away. Do NOT mention this again.

Such a simple thing. Such simple words, to destroy so many powerful hopes, and bring so much pain. If Monica could have controlled her feelings at the moment, she might have reflected on the irony of a tiny little scrap of dingy paper causing her such pain. But she had no such presence of mind. All she could was weep. She cried all the rest of the day until the night took consciousness from the poor, sad, sorry, youngest princess.

The next morning she had recovered her grip on herself, though her beautiful eyes were watery and red-rimmed, and her white face was set like a skull. She stonily ignored any comment from the cook, and ate her fish breakfast quickly and absently. The instant she was finished she disappeared upstairs and gathered her story into her arms. The guards at the gate looked confused as she rushed past them without smile or wave.

The sun was shining with all his might that day, and the wind was doing his best to cut her with his chill, but she did not seem to notice her surroundings. She did not even notice when her favorite dress caught on a twig and tore. The mud on the path was nothing to her. She simply did not see it. Did not feel it. She was numb. Monica only came to herself when she was standing before the Crevasse. She looked from her beloved story to the depths of the canyon. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she had to do it. Had to. Her work had been insulted beyond any recovery. Her life's work was worth nothing. So she cast her most precious possession into the Crevasse. Cast the story she had spent her life working on away.

The sheets fluttered upward for a moment in the breeze, then plunged down sharply. She watched them until they disappeared into the darkness, the tears pouring down her small face. Then she collapsed onto the rim of the Crevasse and cried. And cried. In the frenzy of her grief, she did not notice the deer family approaching her. The fawn nosed her gently, and she patted it as absently as if it had been a dog, sobbing.

A rumble sounded from the massive chasm. Then another. The deer pricked up their ears. Another rumble rolled out, and they fled, their white tails bobbing away almost comically, if Monica had not been too busy crying to look. A growl loud enough to shake the earth caught the princess' attention. She looked up, her tearstained face confused. What was that sound?

A deep whirring, almost flapping sound followed the growl, and a pair of long, broad, membranous wings emerged from the chasm. A great, green-scaled, horned head followed them. Monica stared with horror...and fear. All the stories of maiden munching incidents sped through her brain, and she found her voice and screamed. She got to her feet and scrambled away, calling for guards, knights.

A swift glance over her shoulder told her the dragon had crawled up over the edge and was now standing where she had lain just moments before. Then she stopped both screaming and running. In the dragon's front claws lay a pile of papers. Her story. Her heart yearned for it. Oh, the pain she went through to cast it away. She could have it again....But all at once she remembered the note, and the dragon made as if to approach her. She screamed again and fled. Her hair fluttered behind her as she sprinted into the woods.

The dragon looked down at the papers in its claws, and back at the running figure. When Monica's form disappeared from sight, the dragon crawled back into the chasm, her story still held tight. A long rumbling sigh shook the area. The meadow was restored to silence and stillness.