could not erase it.

Her father tells her about the prince, about how he had vanished them to a world where they would never quite exist and Kraehe had listened to him, felt her chest tighten in a pain she didn't understand. She knows the story by heart.
Once upon a time there was a prince who--

-- slays them, the ravens her father sent, angry at her failure, angry because she can't bring him the heart that he needs.
Kraehe's chest hurts with that unknown, familiar pain as she looks at the prince's eyes and she wonders, is this hate? Is this fear?
The prince doesn't smile, so Kraehe does it for him and she touches his hands and she wonders about this marvelous, unknown pain of --

-- his eyes looking at her, a look that she wants to say is curious but it's only empty. Still she waits, hoping and dreading, and the prince talks again.
"Rue."
She likes the way that name sounds, the way the prince says it. Kraehe likes everything from the way she fits against the prince's side to She smiles and she dances for him the way a true princess would do. Kraehe knows the story by --

"-- heart," father says, his voice of thunder and midnight upon the land. "But if the prince gets his heart, I'll be free again, and if he has his heart, he will love you."
Do you promise, Kraehe wants to ask, for the pain runs deep. She wants to say that her father's love is all that she needs, but she can't say such a lie.
For the prince, she would, though. For the prince, she'd--

-- bleed if she must, Rue thought, taking no notice of how her feet looked now, deformed and broken and bleeding, thinking only about Mytho and how they'd dance their i pas de deux.
The only thing that matters is being good, being perfect for Mytho. She cares no more for other things no other prices, no pretty ribbons or jewels the likes the girls of the school fawn about.
The one thing she wants --

-- she may never have it, not like this, because there is a princess for the prince, a white princess with light upon her step and over her i arabaresque /i , over her i plié /i , light upon Mytho's face as he accepts another shard of his heart.
The pain breaks inside her chest, shards of it that cut through Rue and the human girl and her dreams with no need of a sword and she cries not, for a raven musn't --

-- kiss upon his lips, with no useless knight and no princess that will vanish in a flash of light. Kraehe holds upon the prince's body and promises her love, promises that he will only need her love and the prince doesn't answer, his eyes vacant but it's better than this, with the prince quiet once more.
"Tell me you love me," she asks, though the prince is silent, the shard of his love soaking upon her father's blood. She curls her arms tighter because this is --

-- not the prince, because Mytho was never cruel before and the prince was the only one supposed to love her, the only other person despite her father that would love her and Kraehe had waited for that, night upon night and tear of unshed tear, and she wants to keep him safe, she doesn't want the prince to suffer, she never wanted the prince to --

-- suffer, now, because she isn't a princess and thus, she will be his Tutu, if that is all that Rue can do for him. She will speak of her love and she will vanish, swallowed by dark rather than light, but she will help the prince the way just a secundary character can do.
For she is not a princess and only princesses can have the prince and their happily --

Ever after she will dance until she is no more. She dances; not a girl and not a raven and not a princess, she's nothing, she deserves nothing but for this despair and the way that pain is eating at her breast.
The girl knows how the story goes or how it should go and there is no room in there for a shadow of despair, for once upon a time there was a prince who--

"RUE!"

(The story is broken. A dark princess is still a princess and if this is a fairytale then if this is a fairytale even if she is a dark princess it means that)

Once upon a time there was a prince who loved a girl who had been cursed with the monster's blood, and though she was a beast, he chose her as her princess, for he had been cursed too and he loved her still.

And they lived happily ever after.