He says the words aloud, and the roof answers with nothing but wind. The real moon hangs above him like a silent dare, cold and untouchable, while the city below keeps breathing in traffic and sleep. For once, he does not mistake the pavement for a portal or the stars for a promise; he understands, dimly, that the voyage he wants begins with work, not enchantment. The absurdity of it strikes him as a kind of honor, a quest with no magic but enough difficulty to feel sacred.

He looks down at the clutter of his life with new, embarrassed clarity: the unopened mail, the dusty books, the cheap coffee, the half-finished plans. None of it is a dragon, and yet all of it asks something of him, all at once, with a strange and ordinary urgency. He takes one step back from the edge, then another, and the fantasy world he loved does not shatter so much as fall away like a costume at dawn. In its place remains the city, stubborn and alive, waiting for him to become someone who can truly leave it.