I just got done telling Amelia this bizarre faerie tale about a hideously hairy prince named Sinjun, his magic harp, and a Robed Stranger. It was off the top of my head, really, and told largely in a hope to distract her from a bout of stomach pains, and I wish now I’d gotten it on tape, because psychotic as it was, it was something of a gem. Something about the idea of someone who hates to have people listen to him play, and then falls in love without even realizing it with someone who insists that they can’t hear him play even when sitting beside him is mildly awesome. The fact that I had no idea where it was going, even within a single sentence, was a kick I haven’t had since I was very small and used to scrawl squiggly lines on a piece of paper and then trot off to the kitchen and “read” them to my mother while she made dinner. Also? I really liked how I ended it, with Sinjun, now a king, brought back to his Stranger by his dying mother and her trusted handmaiden, being informed that after the wedding he would be playing his harp for the sheer joy of it again, because he was proposing, wasn’t he? and Sinjun and the Stranger bantering back and forth a bit, before finally confessing that yes, they do mind each other’s faults, but not enough to keep them apart.

“Do you mind? That I can’t hear you play?”

“I do. But not enough. Do you mind that I’m so hairy?”

“I do…but not enough.”