Looking back is easy for a while and then looking back gets murky. There's the road, and there is the story of where the road goes, and then more road. - Richard Siken

I've got this music box. That I hate. I can't stop its playing. Which is mostly because I can't stop myself from winding it. I'll give it away one day. But not today. Also not tomorrow. I let it play when I sleep because it makes the trip easier. Maybe it acts like a lighthouse. A signal call to Him and to There and to Whatever Else.

I do hate Him. Okay, no. Mostly I just wish I hated him. But I guess I don't have that in me. Turns out I've got a lot of stuff in me. But not that. I walk into his castle, because I can and because I don't think he ever expected me to ask. I don't think he expected me at all. But that's his problem.

I expected Him but I didn't really expect the Whatever Else. That's my problem.

I guess this is a dream. I'm really unclear about dreams and reality these days. I've mostly stopped worrying about it. It is real if I say it is. It's a dream if I say otherwise.

He doesn't even look at me. Okay, no. He pretends not to look at me. He's very good at illusions but not when it comes to Him. He can't pretend away the things he wants so badly to float off in one of his glass baubles. I thought they were crystals. But I've seen them break and crystals don't shatter the way his do.

"You made a mistake," he says.

I shrug my shoulders. I don't seem to be the one feeling remorse here.

"Do you feel badly?" I ask.

"I have nothing to feel badly about," he replies.

"I guess that's another thing we have in common," I tell him.

He lies about on his throne with his head thrown back over one of the arms, his legs draped over the other. The more he cares the more he tries to show he doesn't. I walk over and pull his talisman over his head. He doesn't move an inch. Just lets me take it. But he looks at me at last.

"I'll give it back," I tell him.

"No, you won't," he tells me.

When I walk around with his symbol on, the creatures stare. Some of them bow, some hide, others just watch me very closely. Like I'm some dangerous thing they must not lose sight of. I used to think he told them that. That he turned them against me. Out of spite or misplaced pride. But then I looked around.

I saw the city of ruins. I saw families begging on the street, all their worldly possessions in front of them. I saw memorials for the victims, crushed in battle by rocks or those who simply got caught in the crossfire. I saw them trying to rebuild their lives, only to see me, walking the streets and bridges I'd burned behind me.

I don't say anything, I just keep walking. Apologies wouldn't help. What do you even say? I'm sorry I sacked your city, but I had to save a child? Those rocks crushed their children. I'm sorry I destroyed your community, but your king threatened my happiness? I've taken their livelihood and so much of their hope.

"You made a mistake," he said.

"I have nothing to feel badly about," he said.

"I guess that's another thing we have in common," I told him.

I gave him back the pendant. I went home. I come back. Repeat.

I can tell he wants my apology. He wants my remorse. But I can't give him that. No more than he can give it to me. I spent a lot of time justifying my actions but never to myself.

In a hypothetical I told my father.

"It sounds to me like a war," he said.

"In war there are casualties," he explained.

"Do you think she was right?" I ask him.

"I think she was the winner," he said.

I think I was right. Or maybe, I just don't think I was wrong. I don't doubt that for a moment. Not when I'm standing in the middle of a kindergarten class, and a little blonde boy runs up and gets paints stains on my skirt with his hands. Not when I'm driving him home and he tells me his stories of creatures that sound an awful lot like goblins to me. Not when he pulls my hair, screams at me and plants himself in my presence for hours on end. No, not even then.

But I'd really like someone else to say it. I'd like to hear the words. You were right, you are the hero, you are good.

I know I'm good.

I know it as I know my name. So why doesn't anyone else?

Why does the gardener, after having to dig all those graves, waver in his love for me.

"I didn't realize," he told me once.

"You's still my best friend," he quickly adds.

"But…"

Then that hangs there. I know what he's going to say anyways so it doesn't matter.

But I wish you'd stuck around to finish what you started. I wish you'd done something more than simply rescue your brother. I wish you'd helped the city after you sacked it. Instead of leaving me to dig graves, the rock caller to make headstones for those he crushed and the knight to stop the city's looting and defend the castle's gates.

It wasn't until years later that they had time for me. They were too busy with after. I guess they didn't really think about what it would mean either. I once asked the knight, what would have happened if I'd lost the goblin battle. He told me I'd go home, but my brother wouldn't. Nobody would have died. He didn't say that part, I think he thought to spare my feelings, but I knew it anyways.

I know I'm right, I know I'm good. The knight tells me he loves me and will defend my name until his death. But nobody in that city hates me. Not even Him.

I walked the city because I felt like I had to. I wandered the forest because I liked how the tree leaves sparkled. I strolled the stone maze because I never wanted to be lost again. I sat in his throne room because of Him.

Neither of us said anything. I crossed my legs and placed myself at the other side of the room. He didn't move and neither did I. This bothered me. I wanted him to say something to me. I wanted him to throw me out. I wanted him to grab me and force me from his castle.

Instead he was indifferent.

I'm right. I know I'm right.

"You don't want me, now that I'm right." I say one day, from my spot across the room.

"Who says I wanted you at all," he replies unmoving.

"I do," which comes out louder than I intended.

"Well … you are right." He replies softly. But he still doesn't move, and doesn't look at me.

Of course he'd be the first person to say it.

I'm going to kill him, I think. I will walk into his throne room with a knife, and I'll slit his throat while his stupid head leans back on that stupid armrest. I'll steal the knight's sword if I have to, and run it through him. He won't move, he never does. I'll get the rock caller to crush him, which he won't see coming, because he never turns to look. It would be so easy, to commit regicide.

I place the knife next to my music box. It'll work because I know it will. If I believe otherwise, it won't. That's the way things are done. So I'm not surprised walking into the throne room with the knife in my hand. I'm here and he's here and of course, he doesn't even look at me. He probably sees the knife. I don't care. He can call for his guards all he wants.

I stand in the middle of his throne room with the knife dangling from my hand for a long time. I almost don't realize quite how long it has been, until my back starts to ache and the knife grows heavy in my hand. I let it drop. It was a poor choice of weapon anyways.

"You said within you," I say to him.

"I did," he replies.

"You didn't say without," I continue.

"No I did not," he answers.

"Why?" is all I manage that time.

"Why within or why without?" he asks me.

I opt to stay silent this time. I want to see what he'll say without my guidance. After a moment he does speak.

"I could and have lived without you. Whether I did or didn't want to is no matter. I could. Of that I was always certain."

I wait. He waits. He looks at me. Directly in the eye, turning his head to see me at last.

"Within you, of that I was less certain. You understand at least something about your dreams now. You dreamt of me often, as many things Sarah. Often your savior, pulling you from the dregs of your life. Sometimes I was your prince charming, riding a white steed or slaying magnificent monsters. Other times I was the monster, when your dreams twisted around you, I rose up from them. Terrifying and haunting you. You first saw me and assumed I was one or the other, you chose the monster. I could not live forever in your dreams like that, the wicked creature no more than I could the knight in shining armor. Within you I would always be one or the other. Just as we cannot choose between dreams in nightmares, we can no more choose what we want others to be. I am both Sarah, just as you are both. Though I did try, to be one of them for your sake."

It was the most he'd said to me in years.

"You know of my dreams?" I only ask.

"I am your dreams," was his simple reply.

Years of him never looking my way, replaced with being unable to break my gaze. I suddenly preferred the latter.

"You are both," I say.

"You are both," he replies.

An old book I read once. It said "what happens when you're the evil villain and the hero of the story at the same time? Imagine both, you'll get further." I was certainly far from where I'd started. He was always both, and then instead became neither. Just the king and nothing more. Maybe for my sake like he says or maybe his. Or reasons that are none of my business I don't really care.

I walk up to the dias and still he watches me.

I am both. Of course he'd be the first person to say it.

With his legs hanging over one arm and his head over the other, I stand over him and his throne. I am the winner, and I will take what is mine, I decide. So I do.

I pull him by his amulet, still hanging around his neck. His head jerks up in surprise. Holding the amulet in one hand, I take my other and place it on his neck. I pull his head into mine. I kiss him. At first it's simple. That straightforward kiss you give someone who you're kissing for the first time, to see what will happen. But that doesn't last long. He doesn't react initially. Just letting himself be kissed. Then suddenly, he is awake. He is the one kissing me. Or we're kissing each other and it isn't simple anymore.

He kisses me to a place between starting and finishing. A place that has no business taking space on earth or underground. It was as though we are carving out the world anew here. There was no space at all, he was there and so was I. This was it, this was all there ever will be. But I crave more.

I pull him towards me harder. I rip the shirt off his shoulders. He slides my jeans off slowly. I tug the gloves off, finger by finger; I pull them with my mouth. He seems to enjoy that. I do.

I don't think we said anything. I don't remember words. I only remember the precise way our bodies fit together. How he grasped at mine like I was to be torn from him at any moment. As though he needed to feel me, to know I was real. That's his problem.

As I rake my nails down his back. Pressing them into his skin, between his ribs and beside his spine I think. This is who I am. This is what I want. The space between his bones is me. The way he gasps as I thrust forward, that's me too. The look in his eyes when I lick my lips, that's all me.

His gasping breath in my ear, my shaking legs wrapped around his waist. This is what I want. So I take it. Then he takes me. Then I take him. There's a lot of taking involved for everyone and not much in the way of giving. But we've done that part already. There's nothing left to give anyways. I think we're both much happier for it.

I smile at the beads of sweat that run down his bare chest. At some point he threw the pendant over my head. The metal is warm from being pressed between our bodies.

I stand up and begin to dress, he stays where he is and watches me. I pick up my knife and cut the cord of the pendant so it falls to the floor. It rattles when it hits the stone. I let my knife drop beside it.

"That was mine," he says.

"Debatable," I reply.

"What am I supposed to do now?" he asks me.

"I suppose the same thing we've always done," I tell him.

"Welcome back Sarah," he says with a small smile.

I nod and smile slightly at him. I leave and go home.

Until I come back. Repeat.