Charlotte couldn't quite place the time when fairy tales stopped being fairy tales. On one hand, they were nothing but stories and always had been, even when she traipsed around in pink gowns and plastic crowns. Or maybe it was when she wasn't a girl but not a woman, when everything was confusing. Or could it have been when she grew up, when princess gowns were worn only for special nights?

No matter what time it had been, nothing could change the way that Charlotte looked at fairy tales now. The heroines no longer spoke to her, nor did she try and imagine herself in their shoes. The princes were drawings and words - figments of a hero passed down through lips and paper.

There would be no stories in her books like what she faced. Princesses never fell in love with other princesses, let alone waitresses.

But, as Charlotte watched Tiana spin across the floor in her satin green dress that stuck to all the right places on her, she supposed that was alright. Why would she need a worn out old children's book to reassure her when she had Tiana? Tiana, warm and soft skinned, with a bright smile that no artist could recreate. Every word she spoke in her satiny, smooth voice was better than any printed on a page.

Charlotte didn't those old fairy tales any more.

Not now, when the pen was in her hand and she was writing her own story.