“Hey, Akane, you gonna bring that to table six, or what?” Yui prodded at her new sister with an outstretched finger.

Akane looked down at the pepperoni pizza she still held in her hand, shifting her weight from the bar counter behind her back to her feet as she snapped out of the haze she found herself. It wasn’t fair. How could anyone be expected to focus on hauling appetizers and drinks between tables while the human embodiment of joy that was her wife moved on the stage like that?

It was an interesting and ironic juxtaposition indeed, watching Ranko name herself a hellspawn while she looked like a princess on Casual Friday in the soft pink dress she’d bought for herself before her first date with Akane. Whatever she wore, Ranko’s ensorcelling power over everyone in the room was absolute, and Akane was no exception. So much so, in fact, that Akane did not hesitate to answer alongside her wife’s other three hundred and some-odd thralls as the lyrics commanded.

“Yes, mistress!”

Having finally managed to deposit the pizza in her hands at its destination before it had gone cold, Akane sidled back up to the service bar. “I will never get tired of watching her up there.”

Mei giggled, one of her pigtails whipping Akane on the shoulder as she whirled behind herself for a new bottle of rum. “I sure hope not! It’s kinda too late to back out now!”

Akane fingered the silver band around her left ring finger with her thumb, her face a portrait of infatuation. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The redheaded newlywed on the stage snapped her head in Akane’s direction. Indeed, she had followed Akane with her eyes from the stage every moment of her first performance back at the Phoenix after their honeymoon, despite Shinji having admonished her not to twice already. The final line of her song slithered off her tongue in an almost sultry burlesque affectation, it having taken on entirely new meaning in the current moment from the one it had originally carried.

“Now that I’ve got you, I ain’t ever gonna let you go! No escaping from the demon in your radio!”

Her duties be damned, Akane joined with the crowd in the chanting of her wife’s name. However rabid her growing legion of Firebirds became, Ranko Tendo would never have a bigger fan than the woman who had married her.

It took longer than usual for the chant to die down. It had been almost a week since her last performance on the little stage that was her kingdom, between the two nights the Phoenix was closed for the wedding and her subsequent honeymoon, and it was clear the regulars were grateful to once again have the opportunity to party with one of the rising stars of the Japanese pop scene. Finally, though, Ranko waved downward with both her hands to tamp down the appreciative audience.

“Thanks so much, you guys,” Ranko said with a bright smile and a wave. “I missed you, too.”

After another cheer of acknowledgement, Ranko sighed contently, an almost-purr carried through the room over her headset microphone. “You know, everybody, I’ve been through a lot the last couple years. Some hard times, some really hard times, and some times that were just mind-bogglingly, amazingly perfect. Every day, I wake up, and I wonder what I did to earn enough karma to deserve to be as blessed as I have been. I haven’t come up with anything yet. My story should not have been possible, and I still struggle to understand how it happened.”

She gave a reverent nod to the middle-aged woman in the leather jacket that was clearing the empty glasses from table fourteen. “When you’ve had nothing, you appreciate more than most people do what it means to have everything, and gods, do I. I have my family, my friends, my music, and of course, my Firebirds.”

The crowd gave themselves another cheer at her acknowledgement of them.

She turned slightly, nodding over her shoulder to Jake. Her eyes returned to the packed room from the stage on which she had been married not four days ago. Here, in this room, in the arms of people who loved her, she had been reborn anew.

Twice.

An upbeat, playful melody began to tinkle through the speakers under the command of Jacob Trimble’s nimble fingers. The Yamaha DX7 sang in the voice of a bright electric piano, but none of the other instruments had yet joined in. Ranko whispered a silent thanks to him and Crash for having put the music together so quickly to pair with the lyrics she’d written as she watched her new wife sleep in their marriage bed on the fourth floor of a beach hotel a few short days ago. Akane had extracted a tax from her to allow her to disrupt their vacation and make a work phone call from the hotel, but neither of them minded the hour and a half it took Ranko to pay it.

“I just wanted to say thank you to my mom, my sisters, my friends, and the love of my life, in the best way I know how. I love you all, and I’ll never stop being grateful for all of you.”

Hana returned the empty glasses to the table she’d started clearing, sliding into the booth with one knee on the red vinyl bench to watch. Izumi, Mei and Yui’s work all came to a halt behind the twin bars. Off to stage left, just beyond where the VIP table would have been had it not been removed for the night to accommodate more standing patrons, Akane leaned on the kitchen wall and rapturously watched every breath of the woman she loved.

Crash’s guitar joined the synthesizer with a ferocity that might have fit better in a metal song, and Ken’s drumsticks flailed as quickly as he could move them behind his drum set. Shinji showily held his bass away from his body as it lay a foundation for the danceable tune.

I love you all, Ranko thought as she opened her mouth to sing.

“Story opens on a cold, dark street, with a girl who was frightened, hungry, broke and beat. Goin’ nowhere fast, runnin’ from her past, no one to turn to.”

Ranko stalked the edge of the stage, motioning with an upturned palm to the whole of the room and everyone in it. The brightness of her smile could have been seen from orbit.

“Don’t know how she managed to get that far, but somehow, she stumbled into an old dive bar. Didn’t know how to change and grow, but was about to learn to.”

Ranko clasped her hands over her sternum for a moment before holding her left hand up and miming writing something in the air with an invisible pencil. Her heels had not yet touched the stage since the song began. She was positively electrified.

“Who could imagine what the hands of fate had decided they would scribble on her blank slate? Who could see all that her destiny was just about to bring her?”

She turned to her side, embracing Crash with her eyes and a scintillating smile of gratitude as she bounced with joy on the little wooden platform that had changed her life forever.

“If you’d have told her then, she’d have said you’re lying! She could barely crawl; couldn’t imagine flying! Not naive enough to believe she could become a singer…”

Ranko’s eyes darted up to Yui and Izumi behind the bar, beaming. This is our story now. All of us. This is what you’ve all done for me. This is what we’ve done together. It wasn’t possible, but it happened anyway.

Crash’s guitar intensified in volume and tempo both, and the voice of Jacob’s synth changed from a light piano to a more modern, electric keyboard.

Ranko leapt nearly a meter straight up into the air, pumping her fist in the sky in time with the first hard hit of the chorus from both guitars.

“Once upon a rhyme, not so far away, there lived a little girl who had lost her way. Her fairy tale had been an epic fail from the beginning!”

Ranko leveled her arm across the bar, pointing directly at Mei with two fingers. Had her mischievous big sister not humiliated her on the night before her eighteenth birthday, Ranko’s life could never have been the same. Ranko would never forget it so long as she lived.

“Her heroes taught her how to make her stand, went and put a microphone in her hand, turned the page, put her up on stage, and now she’s winning!”

Ranko moved across the stage at almost a run, riling everyone within the sound of her voice into a frenzy. Every seat in the Phoenix was empty on that Monday July night. You ready to see the new stuff, guys?

“Sure, it seems just like a fantasy…” The huge speakers at her sides struggled to produce the stunningly high note that soared from Ranko’s lips, and she stepped it down in a run through the word to a more comfortable place in the upper fourth octave.

“... that fate would reach backward for a girl like me…”

Her eyes found Akane in the back corner of the bar. As her hips slammed left and right with the intense cadence of Shinji’s bass guitar, she held her left hand out in a fist in front of her. The diamond in the center of her wedding ring scintillated in every color of the rainbow as the stage lights refracted through it, until she blocked the beams of light by rubbing the back of her fist with her right hand in a circular motion.

“But now, my happy ever after happens all the time… once upon a rhyme!”

Ranko spun on her toes thrice through the audience’s roar, channeling Ms. Kanzawa’s ballet lessons as she brought her left foot up to her right knee, bending the left at a ninety degree angle.

If the first verse had been for her family, her second was for an audience of but one. She’d written it in the last four pages of a little black notebook four days ago as she sat at the side of her marriage bed, watching as the keeper of her heart slept on the first day of forever.

“Some time later, finally doin’ alright, when magic came knockin’ one December night; when someone from the past she’d run from came and found her. And it came as such a big surprise that she could see eternity in those brown eyes, but knew that she’d always have a need for those arms around her…”

Ranko hugged herself on the stage, closing her eyes and imagining Akane’s arms enveloping her. Her smile outshone the sun.

“Started slow, but they both wanted more. They rented an apartment on the second floor. They both grew, and as they did, they knew the way things were progressing. Barely had a yen between them to their name, but every day, it felt like they had won the game!”

The songstress turned her head to the right, to the booth where Hana still rested one knee on the padded vinyl bench watching her youngest daughter declare her joy for all the world to see.

“Didn’t take long until that little girl’s mom was asked to give her blessing…”

Hana whooped loudly, clapping her hands in boundless pride.

Ranko hopped twice as she moved to her right, back in the direction of Akane. Her third jump launched her high into the air again, her dress fluttering around her knees as she fell to her feet. She was still in midair when the second chorus began.

“Once upon a rhyme, not so far away, there lived a little girl who had lost her way. Her fairy tale had been an epic fail from the beginning!”

Her eyes locked on Akane’s, drinking in a lifetime’s worth of love and pride from her wife’s eyes in the space of a heartbeat.

“Her heroes taught her how to make her stand. An angel came and put a ring on her left hand! She turned the page, got back up on stage, and now, she’s winning!”

Ranko packed her lungs with air in the two beats before the next line. Adding such a strenuously high note in the chorus where it would have to be repeated was a risk, but the sentiment demanded no less than the best she could give.

“Sure, it seems just like a fantasy that fate would reach backward for a girl like me, but now, my happy ever after happens all the time!”

Her voice took on a softer, gentler tone for the repetition of the song’s title. “Once upon a rhyme…”

Perhaps it was because the new song was so upbeat. Perhaps it was pent-up excitement after days without a performance from the Dapper Dragons. Perhaps it was the infectious excitement and radiant joy that exuded from every cell of Ranko’s body. Whatever had caused it, the crowd of just north of three hundred sounded like thousands as they roared.

Ranko turned her back to the crowd, making eye contact with Jacob, and then Ken, and then Shinji in turn as the third verse began. She had one more group of people yet for whom her gratitude knew no end.

“She found a dream, and started giving chase, but kismet led our girl into a real dark place, and she found out she’d begun to doubt that she could ever make it.”

Flitting three steps across the stage, she wrapped her arms tight around Crash’s waist, squeezing her best friend close even as his fingers never stopped dancing on the strings of the instrument strapped across his chest. She owed him so much, from decking Takao to taking a chance on her by inviting her to his fledgling little band. She didn’t think she’d ever had a better friend, beyond the one she had just married.

“Then, a friend visited that dive bar, armed with just a hug and an electric guitar.”

All of the other instruments stopped during the line, giving Crash a three-second solo in acknowledgement that he, in fact, was the person being described.

“Let her scream, but promised her the dream, if she could only take it.”

Still bouncing in time with the beat, Ranko made her way to the back of the stage, wrapping her arm over Jacob’s shoulders as he played.

“When her faith had all but reached its end…”

Two more steps brought her within arm’s reach of Ken, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, not wanting to risk a hug interrupting the furious thrashing of his drumsticks against the instruments before him.

“... that guitarist introduced her to his friends…”

Ranko hurried to front stage right and slammed into Shinji’s back, squeezing him tight from behind. He tried to give her his trademark annoyed glare, but he just couldn’t. As much of a pain in the ass as that girl was sometimes, Shinji Yokota couldn’t help but admit it - he loved her as much as their other bandmates did.

“... and those guys wrote a song called Rise that they performed together.”

Sentimentality won, and Shinji flashed her a smile as she let him go. The crowd recognized that they had reached their place in the story, and the cheering somehow got louder still.

“Who could have expected such a charmed outcome? They spray-painted her name on the front of their drum, and they decided that this crazy ride was gonna last forever!”

The audience certainly hoped so, and they let her know it as loudly as they could manage.

Now that the band had entered the story, they joined her in song as well, with both Shinji and Crash singing backup as the third chorus began.

“Once upon a rhyme, not so far away, there lived a little girl who had lost her way. Her fairy tale had been an epic fail from the beginning.”

Ranko gestured behind her with both arms open wide, trying to indicate the people behind her. Her voice took on more of a rock tinge than a pop one as she introduced the chorus’ third variation, the one intended to acknowledge the young men behind her who had helped set her course.

“Her heroes taught her how to make her stand. Now, that little girl is in her own ROCK BAND! She turned the page, and they’re still on stage, and now, she’s winning!”

Clasping her hands over her heart as her waist rocked with every note, she pulled in enough air to hit the high note again, this time unable to keep the gasp to pack her lungs from being audible over the microphone.

“Sure, it seems just like a fantasy that fate would reach backward for a girl like me, but now, my happy ever after happens all the time…”

Again, Ranko launched herself into the air in victory. In celebration of the latest chapter of the story that she never could have dreamed up, had she not lived it.

“Once upon a rhyme!”

All four instruments came to rest, and the crowd’s roar raised in intensity. The bargoers silenced immediately, however, when Ranko continued to sing over the band’s silence. Without a beat to follow, she’d stopped dancing, and the hard rock edge to her voice was gone. What took its place was a sincere, soulful softness, more in line with how she performed You’re My Song, and, she expected sooner than later, There Are No Words.

“Once upon a rhyme, not so far away, our girl lives the impossible every day. Who could have guessed she’d ever be so blessed with how her life was going?”

She bit her lip tight. The slower, more emotional parts of her songs were always more likely to make her tear up, especially when she was singing them for the first time and she’d not yet desensitized to the feelings with which they had been written.

“She’s found family, friends, and true romance – doesn’t know how she deserved the gifts she got by chance – but her fresh start has filled up her heart until it’s overflowing…”

Ranko lowered her eyes to the stage platform, closing her eyes. I can do this. I can do this.

“Now, she’s living out her fantasy…”

Again, her voice soared into the sixth octave, but this time, it stayed there, sustaining the angelic note for a full second as the crowd howled in shock and appreciation.

“... don’t know how it happened to a girl like me…” The line was sung more slowly than during the rest of the choruses, and the last three words were pronounced through another soaringly high run, though it did not escape the fifth octave this time.

Ranko clasped her hands over her heart again, but this time, slightly higher on her chest. Akane noticed what most in the crowd did not: rather than her right hand resting flat atop her left like it normally did when she made that gesture, its fingers were bent slightly as she ever so gently wiggled her wedding ring.

“But now, my happy ever after happens all the time…”