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One more puff and the little glowing ember is flicked to the flagstones. I watch on fascination as she grinds it into oblivion under her heel.

Then she offers me her arm... as if she wants to take a turn around the estate gardens.

But we're not in the garden, this is a horse yard.

She's watching me with a bemused expression, one eyebrow hiked up towards slicked back hair that barely hangs past her ears.

Sure... why the hell not?

I take her arm graciously, wondering why the world has gone so fuzzy.

"It's true, you know?" I say, whatever was in that smoke has loosened my tongue.

"Hm?"

"I befriended a demon. A little one. Got caught in a rat trap in the basement and I nursed it back to health. In exchange it wrapped me up in an enchantment to make me look like..."

I gesture at myself with my free hand. My companion is still looking skeptical.

"Let me guess," she muses. "You're also secretly a princess."

"Heiress," I reply. "Or I was until my father died and my stepmother took everything and made me a servant. Not that there was much to begin with..."

"And your demon sends you to the ball to... what? Dance with the prince? Fall in love and have your story book ending?"

"I don't think the real world works that way," I reply sullenly.

We step out of the horse yard into a garden. Not one of the perfectly manicured ones meant for romantic strolls, but a crowded herb garden, utilitarian and hidden away.

"What was I thinking coming here?" I ask as I brush my hands through the rosemary. "I thought... I don't know. I thought things would be different outside of the house, but it's more of the same... just bigger than I thought it was."

My thoughts drift to all of the servants drifting around the ballroom. And all of the maids and cooks that wouldn't be seen, but toiled away nonetheless.

"Yeah, shit's fucked," my companion says.

"I wish things could be different."

"Yeah, well, in my experience, wishing is less than worthless if you aren't willing to do anything about it."

I turn that over in my head.

"Indigo," my companion says.

"Huh?"

"My name," she says. "But my friends call me Indy."

"Are we friends?" I ask.

She makes that rough laugh again my heart starts racing at the sound of it.

"I don't know, you tell me," she replies with her sideways grin.

"I wouldn't know," I tell her. "I've only ever had one friend before."

"Your demon?"

I nod.

***

"Rabbit!" I hiss into the gloom.

I can barely keep my voice down from excitement.

My conversation with Indigo lasted well past midnight and my head is so full of thoughts I feel as though I am about to burst.

The little demon pokes its head up from it's pillow. Its hare's face regards the two of us with narrowed eyes.

I once asked it its name and it politely informed me that it's true name was unpronounceable my human tongues. So I had settled for just calling it Rabbit.

"When I sent you off to find true love, I expected something somewhat different," it says, eying Indigo. "Can't say I'm particularly surprised though."

My train of thought falters. What...? I cast a glance at Indigo, who's biting her lip in amusement.

"She's not... I mean... we didn't..." I stammer. "We had one conversation. That's hardly the basis for any kind of relationship."

"Mhmm."

"You know," Indigo says before I can respond, "I expected it to be bigger."

Rabbit huffs and sits up on its hind legs, raising itself up to full height, but even with its antlers, it barely tops two feet.

"Rabbit!" I say, regaining my footing. "We need your help."

It fixes me in its eye again.

"And what help can this minor demon offer you? Remember that magic comes at a cost."

"You told me once that demons are creatures of entropy," I say cautiously, saying the words I've been turning over in my head during the entire ride back her. "You feed on transformation and change?"

I have Rabbit's full attention now.

"What manner of change?" it asks cautiously, almost hungrily.

I suck in a breath and let the air carry the word through my throat and past my lips before cowardice can hold me back.

In stars and time is a time-loop video game centered on a party of travelers nearing the end of their mission. The helpful guide is for real named Loop, like. Because of the timeloops

she had startled you a bit; you'd been daydreaming about music, which you'd just discovered, and rather liked. you'd heard it from a little house while you snuck in and stole their sheep.

but you knew the sound of fear, of being followed. you'd been chased too many times, you knew what it looked like. the rapid jolt of fear.

you smelled her then; cinnamon and onyx, and perhaps that was what had blinded you. perhaps your mouth was just watering. whatever the case, you waited until she had fled back into the forest; and then you waited a bit longer. in her wake, a garrison of men, their hands rough.

oh. so they were not knights. they were just men chasing a young woman through the woods. perhaps they did not even know a real princess had been running from them. well, that was a relief. you are not good at fighting with knights, who have swords instead of cudgels. these were just men, so you rose from the water in the quiet way you'd learned from the fish. they did not hear you coming.

and besides. proper dragons do violence so well.

___

once you had smelled her you could find her, although such things have always been easier for you than for the others. you spend a great deal of time studying things - it allows you to analyze them. you have tried to explain to the other dragons that sometimes it is best to slow down, but of course no dragon should be slow.

at first you did not understand the confusion of the people's umwelt. they relied so much on their communication (only words and actions!) and what they could see with their eyes. you and the other dragons did not use these as much; but you liked prying out the little sonic differences between hello that means "i like you" and hello that means "i don't like you."

so it took you a while to learn that you were responsible for what had happened to her. men had gone missing, and even bad men going missing makes a big fuss. (you know that if it had been girls missing, it would be okay. many proper dragons steal girls because it will not bring a knight to their door). for a while she had been trapped on the palace grounds. it was determined that it was no longer safe for her to be just a princess, she must undergo some human transformation and become a wife.

and then you saw her descending from the window of a castle, quick and agile, moving like a whisper, clad almost entirely in black. you could see her quite well of course, although you were not seeing her; but instead her heat and her smell and her sound and all the other sensory noise all humans give off.

you followed her, keeping yourself in a cloud so you appeared as if mist. she stole off into the woods. you were interested in that, and watched her scuttle - although of course you could have taken her then. she did not seem to do much in the woods, only run around cry into her little hands.

she appeared to be looking for something. she did not get far that first night; scurried back to her bed. over and over this happened - she would run as far as she could, only to go back again. it seemed rather boring to you, but of course you had been free your whole life.

and then one night - finally, she arrived at the lake. she sank to her knees then, her hands pressing into the water. her head tilted to the sky. her dark hair spilling in a caught breath behind her.

this is how you heard her voice for the first time. when she came again the next night, she did so more quickly, more assured. straight to the lake, as if it had called her.

she had skipped a pebble over the surface of the water. this action was dangerous, because it almost hit the sail of your wing. you had structured yourself very finely to look like a rockslide.

"three months." her voice was like her: it was deep and smooth and dark, a low violin string. "they want me to marry that bastard in three months."

and then she cried into her hands again, and the sound of it almost broke you.

so you followed her maybe more than a proper dragon should, then. more than back to the castle. you hid along her daily walks and watched her in the throne room and saw her out riding horses. she was good with dogs and nice to her people and very much a proper princess, although you know a proper princess ought not to slip out at night and run around barefoot through the woods.

you discovered she is terrible with directions. you have often had to make a path more clear so she could get home again. she cannot hunt better than an egg; you have had to kill fish and push them subtly up to the shore.

but she appears to love the lake as much as you do. you have seen her read by candlelight (how foolish. the entire woods saw her each time). you have seen her build little paper boats to float along the surface. you have seen her strip her many layers and dive in, have seen her lay with her belly to the sky, floating like she is suspended by the hands of darkness itself.

oh. so she loves the stars, as well, then.

__

you must go in. she will be married tonight. that is a human thing, but you have learned what it has meant. she will go to somewhere else, and you will not see her again, maybe ever. and then how will you be a proper dragon? go!

you have made yourself in the form of a gargoyle, hiding in the white stone. you can see into her room; and the tapestries that seem unlike her. everything in her room is very bright, which is bad for a proper dragon. there are many knights in the hallways and in their rooms, and their smell is itchy and repugnant to you.

her dress is white, which does not seem like her. you have only seen her wear black. she is sitting at some kind of desk, and she is crying again. she smells of cinnamon still, but moreso of grief. you can feel the heartbreak in her as if it was inside of you.

you cannot watch her cry anymore. you have watched too often without moving. that is shameful.

you nose the door open. you can move quiet, because you are not very big. she is within a cave of you, then a wingtip, and then she is standing up, looking into your eyes.

"it's you." her hand on your jaw is warm. "i thought i was imagining you, you know. i turned around that day. i saw what you did to those men. i have been looking for you since. i told everyone that i had an angel to protect me. they locked me in here anyway."

you are not an angel, you are a dragon. you have to keep your wings locked tight or you would explode the walls of this place. it makes you feel big, suddenly. you are not used to that sensation. you do not like to be locked in a tower. you believe maybe the princess does not like to be locked in a tower either.

you take her in your jaws. she is very small, and does not resist you. although you are not a strong flyer, you must take off in a single push. any other movement would be too slow. you must also hold your breath so you do not smell her, the clove and cinnamon and little bird of hope. your mouth would water and you would drop her.

against the full moon, you do the thing that is impossible. you stretch yourself out all the way, a bold and beaming arrow, and you fly. you can hear them cry about you now, loudly. a banner that would strike pride even into your father: dragon. dragon. dragon.

on the eve of her wedding, you snatch the princess from her tower.

an arrow whisks for you, and then dozens, and then hundreds. you are not afraid of pain. you have learned long ago how to fly with holes in your wings. you hold her very gently still, and you push past the smell of your blood.

in the night you are a star. someone somewhere could look up and see you and make a wish.

there will be another lake, you decide. you can find another lake. somewhere very, very far from here. however long you must fly, however long you must hold your breath: you will take her home, because you are a proper dragon.

___

sometimes they come for her, your treasure. you have built her a little castle here, deep in the forests off the map. and of course for you: a silver round lake like the shift of her iris. you bring her books and she brings you bugs to study. you let her saddle you, and together you ride through the clouds and fog banks. she is a shadow on your back; a warm and velvet thing. she makes you music and lives the way she should; free in the night like a promise.

but they do come. you have stolen a real princess, and they do not want her to be a princess. they want to make her into a brood mother, or into bait, or into prey. they always look into the caves first; into the places proper dragons stay. they are real knights, not just men with sticks. they are loud and their smell still makes you itch.

but she has made you brave now, and cunning. if a dragon is not big, it should be cunning. and since you are a proper dragon, and since your treasure is your most precious thing, you lay in wait.

let them come. you will let the light drip off of you, and then you will pour through them.

afterwards, your princess will tell you a story around the fire. she will patch your wounds as she did that first time. she will sing to you.