Work Text:
You become friendly with the sensation of steel between your ribs. The Princess has a deft hand.
Voice of the Hero: Shouldn’t you try a bit harder to avoid such common deaths? The past few loops have been, well, rather un-heroic.
You forgo responding. You must. You can only take suggestions, not give them out. If you could give them out, undoubtedly you would have told The Voice to go blessedly silent ages ago.
You admire your clawed hand in the lamplight, knowing you will never see your full reflection. You are not permitted the simple courtesy of determining who you are. The nails, blackened and razor-sharp, are a ghastly sight. If you were a princess, you would take a knife to your form with swiftness.
The Narrator: The knife lies on a bed of green, winking at you like an old friend. Pick it up. Go on, head down into the cavern to slay the princess.
The Narrator does not know you have been exercising your right to a death wish for the past twelve cycles. Being killed is less agonizing than killing.
Voice of the Hero: You don’t have to roll over and die in order to protect The Princess! That’s-- that’s anathema to our role.
You’ve been here each time, you think. I’ve been stuck with you, The Hero, since the very beginning. Or what I believe to be The Beginning. You were a constant companion in the killings, the horrors, the dying. You should know better than to portray such robustness. But you can’t say this to The Voice, as you do not have a voice of your own.
You pick up the knife.
The Narrator: Good, good. Now is your chance.
You bring the knife to your throat.
The Narrator: What are you doing? Stop that this instant!
You do not ‘stop that this instant!’, because you are feeling a bit contrary. You’ve never killed yourself before. This, at least, will be a new experience.
The blood is thick and warm, like a woolen blanket. You drop the blade and fall to the ground.
The Narrator & Voice of the Hero: Oh now you’ve done it.
You smile up at the ceiling, black spots dancing across your vision. The Princess awaits you down in the cavern, clambering to break free of her chains.
You hope she takes the second to pass a palm over your eyes when she finds you. If she does not, however, you cannot blame her. She will not be having a visitor for a while, and she gets testy no matter what form she takes when that happens. It is fair. There is no one else to visit her, afterall.
You awake in the woods, on a quest to slay The Princess and prevent The End of the world.
You awake in the woods, on a quest to slay The Princess and prevent The End of the world.
You awake in the woods, on a quest to slay The Princess and prevent The End of the world.
You would be lying if you didn’t have a favorite version of The Princess. You like her human—what you would choose for yourself if you had the choice to choose—but you also want her capable of slitting your throat if need be. The Narrator would no doubt be fed up with the number of times you visit her in this form if he knew enough to be aware of the world’s repetitions.
The Princess welcomes you if you don’t bring the knife. You chat about inane things in the moldy air of her cellar. You learn that she has a voice as well, from The Beginning. Or what she believes to be The Beginning. She calls it the Voice of the Princess.
Voice of the Hero: Is she saying she’s Princess, Princess?
The Narrator: She’s untrustworthy, don’t you see? She won’t even tell you her name.
But you haven’t told her yours. You can’t speak, afterall. And, if you could, you wouldn’t have one to offer. You are pretty sure you had one, once. But that title has been forgotten in the sea of repetitions.
Something occurs to you. You take your blackened claw and bring it to the worn stone of the floor. You perform a cursory glance of the room for inspiration, but your eyes are drawn back to her. Upon her brow rests a singlet of rubies and amethyst.
You scratch into the floor: Jewel.
“Jewel?” Her tone is sweetly surprised. Her tone is spiteful and mocking. Her voice is an unbearable echo, a bright spot in the darkness, a birdsong and a warning all at once. Your chest feels light. How wondrous, you think, that a being of infinite possibilities continues to exist in your presence. Nevermind your eventual parting. You always come back here, to her. Perhaps it is not so bad.
You nod.
She traces the letters with a pinky, humming to herself. The characters occupy her for a moment, two. Then she offers you her wrist as a lady would a knight. Obligingly, you take it and cut away her thumb in a quick downward splice. She wriggles her hand out of the cuff and stands.
“Are you coming?” She asks. She’s gotten tired of killing you before heading for the door; a test to see if your death makes her escape from the narrative possible. You can appreciate her thorough scientific mind, as well as her foresight in forestalling another slaying.
You follow her to the door.
The Narrator: You idiot, you absolute moron. You’re causing The End of the world as we know it!
Yes, you think. You’d much rather die than give this smug son-of-a-whore a single drop of pleasure. Though you must admit: The Princess’ hand in yours is preferable to her knife in your back.
You step out of the tower side-by-side. The light blinds you both.
You awake in the woods, on a quest to slay The Princess and prevent The End of the world; you let the world End.
You awake in the woods, on a quest to slay The Princess and prevent The End of the world; you let the world End.
You awake in the woods, on a quest to slay The Princess and prevent The End of the world; you let the world End.
The world begins again, as it always does. Is that not the problem? You are as sick of beginnings as you are of endings.
You bypass the knife and the mirror that is not a mirror. You trudge down the stairs and stop just to look at her. Perhaps, perhaps.
She is tracing the name you gave her into the smooth stone floor. The name that isn’t except in echos. You are both alive tonight, for now. She is saying: “I like the way you think of me.”
You walk past her to the wall and take up a cuff.
The Narrator: What are you doing?
You attach the cuff to your wrist and sit down next to The Princess.
The Narrator: No.
Voice of the Hero: No.
The Princess, “No.”
Her voice careens into the wall like a dagger and bounces off twice as sharp, “No. You think I haven’t thought of this as a possibility? You think I just wait for you to make up your mind? Well, I refuse it. I won’t be stuck here!”
She slaps you across the face. You become aware of the deep crevices in your cheeks, the ghostly lack of nose. It is the closest you have come to knowing yourself. You find you are monstrous in her eyes.
She slaps you a second time, but you just sit there. Perhaps, perhaps. It need not be so bad.
Her shadow climbs the stone and ivory like a beast of four legs. From her fingers protrude lengthening nails that morph into familiar talons.
“You hear me? I won’t, I won’t, I won’t—“
She bears you to the floor, your shackled wrist twisted behind your back. The Princess takes a length of chain and loops it about your neck. A dainty yet powerful foot presses against your chest as she pulls tight. The dark spots dance.
“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. You hear me?” She isn’t talking to you. But who else does she have to turn on? A voice is just a voice. You can’t batter something that is omnipresent.
You lift one of your monstrous hands to stop her, to comfort her, to encourage. She kills you, and she kills you, and she kills you, and she—
You enter the cavern without a blade. You have taken to throwing it out the window for amusement’s sake. The Princess is chained to the wall where you left her. Where she left herself.
Upon glimpsing you, she bursts into tears. “I’m sorry.” There’s a snarl in her mouth that makes you bleed fondness.
You head to the far wall and shackle your wrist. You sit beside her.
She sniffs. “I’ve never heard of a story like this one.”
You nod. You haven’t either. Stories are supposed to end, after all.
She lays down on the stone floor, her head in your lap. “I need you to think I’m strong enough for this. Can you do that for me?”
You find that it is not hard at all to fulfill her needs.
She laughs. It starts as a weak thing that builds into a roar. “Thank you.” She says, and pulls your head down to hers. Her lips brush your lips. Your lips! Amongst your monstrous parts, you find a sliver of humanity.
“If we’re going to live down here forever, then what’s your favorite color?”
Voice of the Hero: Excuse me? Live here?
The Narrator: No, no, no. That’s—unacceptable. Either she dies and your world ends, or she lives and your world ends. How else to begin The Beginning?
You scratch into the stone the color brown. Her eyes, whether beastly, ghostly, or maidenly, have always been the hue of warm summer wood. It is a shade you could rest under. It is possible you gave it to her, just as she is giving you the title:
“The Hero, My Hero.” Sighed into your feathers and breathed over your fur. It runs into goose-pimples on the crest where gill meets scale.
If you had a voice you would speak. You do not, so you simply touch her cheek.
The Narrator is saying something over your shoulder, but you are not alarmed. The imagination you hold is as vibrant and expansive as your princess’, having lived a thousand versions of a single day. The Narrator’s inner landscape is slug-like, dependent; he can only dream up one way to commit a murder, and the necessary tool for it has been vanished by your hand into the trees.
To Be Continued.