"Lexington!"
The muffled thud of a heavy workbag echoed through the kitchen. The soft sound of tiny socked feet followed soon after.
A young girl of about seven or so came padding around the corner to stand at the top of the stairs, clad in pajamas, hair still wet from her nightly bath. She ran down the stairs and threw her arms around her father's waist.
"Daddy!" she squealed. As soon as she pulled away her mouth started running. "Today at school I met a friend and she's really nice and pretty and she liked the glitter that I had all over my face and hands cause it was like this kinda greeny-turquoise color with a little silver mixed in and I got it all over myself and Ms. Balm sent me to the bathroom to wash it off and that's where I met her was in the bathroom and she told me how pretty she thought it was and how she thought it brought out my eyes really well and I shouldn't wash all of it off, just the stuff on my hands but leave the stuff on my face and I told her I would if I could but Ms. Balm would send me back and make me wash it all off and she said that was a shame because it really was pretty and--"
"Breathe, Lex!" Her father placed a single finger over her lips to hush her. She smiled behind it and let out a small giggle.
"We had a very exciting day."
The man looked up to see his wife standing at the top of the stairs. Her shirt was wet in a line across a barely-pregnant belly. Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows and she was wiping wet suds off of her forearms with a small bath towel.
He looked back down at his daughter. "So I hear."
She smiled up at him. Unable to contain herself any longer, the question pressing at the back of her throat leaped from her tongue and out into the open kitchen air.
"Did you bring me anything, Daddy?"
Her father smiled. He had known this question was coming, as it does every night, and his hand was readily waiting to pull the answer from his pocket.
A soft chain was wrapped around his fingers. Dangling from it was a thin cross of sterling silver, a small emerald stone set at the heart of it. Lexington's eyes locked in on the gift and beamed.
"Want to know how I got it?" her father asked.
She nodded vigorously and ran into the living room, tugging on his sleeve. Before allowing himself to be dragged away, he kicked off dusty black boots, creased from years of use and kissed his wife who had joined them downstairs.
He sat on the edge of a couch cushion and leaned his elbows on his knees. His daughter sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him.
"Well first of all..."
He picked her up by the knees and turned her around so that she was facing away from him.
"Once upon a time," he began as he brought the necklace over her head and clasped it securely. It dropped down and rested on the girl's diaphragm before she picked it up to play it through her fingers admiringly.
"There was a prince."
The mother joined them on the couch, sitting in the space her husband had just surrendered for her. Taking up her daughters hair, she ran it through her fingers, separating it into sections.
"This prince was bold or tough. In fact he wasn't even very handsome." He leaned back into the cushion of the couch, watching his wife lace his daughters hair into braids. "He wasn't much of a prince at all, really. Oh, sure, he had riches and servants at his every beck and call. Plenty of damsels in distress to heroically save. Tens of hundreds of dragons to bravely slay. But he hadn't slain any dragons."
