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“How can I be a real lion without a mane,” the lioness sighed.

“Who needs a mane when you have claws and fangs and a roar,” the jaguar said.

no warrior is the same.

One day, I’ll be able to introduce myself with a simple hello. 

When they ask for my name, I’ll be able to say: “You know who I am.”

They’ll frown. They’ll think. Their lips will part. Tiny cogs start turning inside their head.

“So you are,” they will say. “You are – oh.” 

I won’t say anything until their eyes go wide. “Oh,” they will repeat.

“Yes,” I’ll say, amused and impatient, already pushing my sleeves up. “Now close your mouth and pull yourself together. We’ve got work to do.”

First of All or The Definition of Beginnings (by Yuuri Katsuki)

“Congratulations or whatever,” Yuri growls. He sounds a bit like a lion cub with an upset stomach, but Yuuri is wise enough to keep that to himself.

“Thank you.”

“God, you’re so polite, it’s annoying.”

“Uh. I’m s-”

“Shut up. Listen to me. Did you honestly plan that ending?”

Yuuri bites back a smile. He’s glad that Yuri didn’t call via video chat. “Not really. It was a bit spontaneous, but I’d practiced it anyways, so why not use it.”

“Not the skating! The – the fucking kiss!”

“Oh. Well.”

“Didn’t think you were that greedy for fame that you’d sacrifice your first kiss for it.”

“Hah, first kiss. Sure. …I mean, of course. Yes.”

“Are you fucking kidding me.”

“Yuri, it’s very late, and Viktor’s waiting for me.”

“Fine. Fine. Still, your first kiss with Viktor was in public, so I have every right to call you a slut for fame.”

“Please don’t.”

“…I do have the right, don’t I? Hey. Yuuri, hey.”

“Uhm. Well, before I went on the ice, Viktor and I were in that parking lot. We talked. He uh, kind of made me cry. Said he’d leave if I failed. But I think he just tried to make me pull myself together. It sure worked.”

“And then he – he, he just?”

“Nah. I kissed him first. Thought more people would notice, uhm, I think my face was redder than his when we walked back in.”

“Oh my God.”

“I really have to go now. It was lovely talking to you!”

“You two are disgusting. Good night. Kick his ass from me.”

“What do I have to do,” the little boy asks, “to go down in history?”

We love you, they say. We will always love you. Our precious one. So tiny, so fragile. You’ll be strong one day, his father says. Successful too. You’ll be everything to be proud of. Grow strong, my son. I love you forever, his mother says.

Be careful, they say. Don’t hurt yourself. Do you want to cuddle? Here, have another bite. Your sister is home, why don’t you say hello? Ah, you fell. Shh, be brave, they whispers, I’ll put a band aid on it. There, all better. You’re so strong, we’re proud of you. Love you, little one.

You can be anything you want, they say. No, not that. That’s not a sport for boys. That’s – we don’t, I mean, your father wants you to turn out the right way.

The skating hall again? they sigh, smiling. Of course. Your father has made a sandwich. Yes, and your mother’s going to pick you up later. Be careful.

Stop this, they demand. Or I’m going to – yeah, you better flinch. A son should listen to his father. Don’t you dare cry.

Next time, they say with their arms around him, you’ll be better. Nobody’s born a master in anything. Get some sleep.

Please, she sobs into his shirt. Don’t go. He didn’t mean it. He even said you can keep skating. Just try, try to find a girlfriend? A girl? Please, a girl.

Well, she laughs, sighs then. We expected that. We’ll get used to it. Will you be happy? …okay. Okay then.

Congratulations, the letter says. Her writing has gotten smaller. Come home sometime. Below, his letters are harsh, scrawled. Not my son.

Where are you two? the text message accuses. Dinner is getting cold. Ask Viktor if he still needs his room or if he’ll stay in yours from now on?

“There are two ways,” his grandmother says. “You can be an emperor or you can be a lover.”

It’s dark outside when they’re finally alone, in front of the skating hall, no reporters or friends or anything else but the moon and the wind whispering through their clothes.

“Can I kiss you a second time?” Viktor says.

“Yes,” Yuuri says.

When she turned sixteen, the princess wished for a needle. “I want to sew a bit,” she wrote on a note and put it into the basket that went down her tower for food and books. “Just so I have something to do.”

When she received it, tucked under berries and cheese, the princess took the needle between two fingers. She went down the tower and to the door where the dragon lay.

“Beast,” the princess said.

The dragon said nothing. The chain around its neck was golden and terrible. Its wings were folded. It lay still and looked at the princess.

She lifted her hand. The needle gleamed silver in the dragon fire under the beast’s belly. “I can unleash you.”

For a while, the dragon only looked. It looked and looked, and then it opened its jaws. “And what do you want in return?”

The princess smiled. She went over to the dragon and pushed the needle into the lock sealing its neck.

“What do you want?” the dragon asked again. But the princess said nothing.

While she worked, the beast slowly shifted to its feet, and the princess did not flinch when hot breath flooded over the scars on her naked shoulder blades. She did not tremble when the dragon nudged her where her wings used to be, neither when it sniffed where horns used to adore her bald head, nor when it nosed at the burns that torches had left on her four arms.

The chain fell. A shudder went through the dragon’s body. It took a deep breath, its throat bulged, and magic erupted from its freed lungs. The door on the bottom of the tower burnt to ashes.

The princess smiled.

“Well,” the dragon said when they stood outside and looked at the sky. “Now you must tell me.”

And still, the princess smiled, a slow and horrifying little smile that stuck to her tiny mouth. The dragon stumbled away from her, terror shooting through his veins. He was up in the sky within seconds, but the princess only looked at him.

When she spoke, it echoed across the clearing deep in the forest, and the dragon in the sky shuddered from her soft voice that sang gently:

“I want to ask them why they did not lock me up a bit better.”