She wore the black dress with a long train, fitting her heavy crown on her childlike forehead. From today you will be our queen. You will learn to live without fear, you will lead the army on the horse left by your father, and you will not whimper in the face of any capital decision. You judge, you build, you destroy. You don't belong anymore, you won't know a man, you won't be a mother. You understand? You can't ruin your ancestors' dream. The child smiled, but her heart was torn. She was secretly in love with the son of the enemy king.
(Translated by Ana-Maria Mușetescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)Real Fiction is a collective project started in 2013 by Florin Piersic Jr. The concept of Real Fiction continued to exist as a Facebook group, after a volume of stories was published at Humanitas Publishing House. (In March 2023, the group has 10,790 members.) The authors write ultra-short stories, with the texts limited to 500 characters (in Romanian, so the length of the English translation might be a little different) - a flash-fiction exercise on a topic that changes every few days. The group's coordinators are Florin Piersic Jr., Gabriel Molnar, Răzvan Penescu, Luchian Abel, and Vlad Mușat. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale. 
