Conversation

Obviously word was getting around. It eventually reached the hinterlands where Michael and his family lived. The prince was looking for a bride named Dahlia and it was all anyone could talk about because that's what peasants do in fairy tales if they're not busy dying of plague or being eaten by ogres or dragons. Michael heard about it in the town when he went to run his father's errands.

Michael... Well, changes had taken place. The binding was becoming slightly tedious, and Michael was also fairly certain that other young men his age had an easier time of things fairytales don't talk about involving urination while standing up, for example. Plus, what was worse, those other young men, dirty, flea-ridden, prone to dying of plague, and ignorant though they might be, were starting to seem alarmingly attractive to Michael. He found himself thinking fond thoughts of Prince Gideon as well, deeply confusing thoughts and dreams of being swept off to live in a palace which Michael had thus far been able to write off as a desire to perhaps BE a prince and not have to shovel dung quite so much.

So it was into this situation that the realization that Prince Gideon was seeking a young woman named Dahlia was dropped from the back of the turnip cart, as it were. And while Michael tried very hard not to, he had this strange sensation that maybe his name should have been Dahlia. And let's face it, he was pretty aware at this point that boys generally did not bind their chests nor did they have curves in the way even his impoverished form managed.

Now, you know the rest of the story. Michael is really Dahlia, and she emerges from the cocoon of her family's imposition to blossom like only a mixed metaphor truly can, becoming a princess and marrying Gideon and living happily ever after.

Except...

3/