A/N: Odd little ficlet that just sort of wrote itself. Whoo, symbolism. The definitions listed herein were created from an amalgamation of dictionary.com and MS Word's definitions.

Chihiro's POV.

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"My Father's Dictionary"

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My father's dictionary says that a fairy tale is a "fictitious and highly fanciful story for children about fairies and/or other imaginary beings and events."

But my father's dictionary also says that faith is a "belief in, devotion to, or trust in somebody or something that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence."

So what is true? Was it all a fairy tale, or should I still believe in it, even now? I'm not the world's most imaginative person- I don't know if I really could've dreamed it all up. And I felt pain while I was there, and learned things. It was my fairy-tale reality.

Here's another thought: a "fillet" is said to be "a little band, especially one intended to encircle the hair of the head." Yet a "talisman" is "a trinket or piece of jewelry thought to be a protection against evil." And in a way there are similarities, but they are not the same. They will never be the same.

And the most important definition in my father's dictionary: a "dragon" is a "mythical monster traditionally represented as a gigantic reptile having a lion's claws, the tail of a serpent, wings, and a scaly skin."

But "boy" means "a young, inexperienced man."

Still . . . definitions come not from books, but the soul. Using someone else's to understand your life can lead to trouble.

In my father's dictionary, the Kohaku River is just a filled-in old river.

But in my soul, "Kohaku" means . . .

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. : look it up, baka : .