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You accept.
As you do, her eyes light up, cold embers replacing the glassy orbs that her eyes once were. She smiles happily and floats towards you, swimming through the very air itself. She stops, just inches before your face, her lifeless and freezing breath blowing onto your chin and neck, the breath seeming to freeze you in place from it alone. She looks deep into you with her sunken eyes, her gaze piercing into you, into your very soul, looking at it and you with a powerful stare. A stare of hunger, not of a predator, but of a castaway. One who wishes to be home, to be free, to escape from a timeless prison that holds no bars.
She suddenly rushes forwards, her body entering yours, her soul crashing into yours, causing your whole body to tense up as you fall to your knees, your very self shaking with the mere existence of another soul inside your own body. The room around you spins, cold frost creeping into the corners of your eyes, the room seeming to get dimmer and dimmer as you begin to pass out.
The cold. The cold covers your body, clutching it tight but gently as to not hurt you, like a gentle blanket placed upon you, a blanket with sentience, intent on covering every inch of your body with itself to keep you safe.
Having another soul inside you... it feels... nice? Right? Like something that is supposed to be, but isn't for some reason only known to the stars in the sky and the grass in the woods. Like this is how you should be. Should be whole. Happy. Content...
You get up with shaking knees, the Princess urging you onwards with an encouraging force which is usually only seen in those alive. One step, your foot hits the flooring like a sledgehammer. Your whole body feels tight, like the entirety of winter itself has become a cloak that surrounds your body, as if a giant full of ice were using you as crutch. But it is gentle, like a mother hugging their child after a bad dream, or a man hugging his wife after a long day at work. It brings you solace, comfort. Albeit comfort at a cost, with your body seeming to get heavier with each step.
Fifth step, you're at the base of the stairs. You can feel a tugging in your chest pulling you forwards, and a hole that must be filled right inside it. You take the first step onto the staircase and grab the banister tight. You can feel the Princess follow your body as you move it. You can feel her tight and baited breath as she waits for you to finish this ascension. You grip the banister even tighter, the wood splintering slightly and digging into your palm. A small trail of blood leaks from your new wound, a warmth you thought you would never feel again emanates from it, but is quickly snuffed out by the Princess' hug of winter around your entire body.
You ascend the staircase, your body feeling like pure lead, each step momentous effort, the floorboards, so old and dusty, almost breaking under you. But they hold on, they persevere.
And so will you. You continue onwards. Something feels different. You can feel the Princess closer than ever before. Your soul are touching in an embrace not meant to be, forever seperated by something beyond your sight, by the realm of the living and dead, or something more?
Now is not the time for questions. You're almost to the top. The cold is tighter now, responding to the Princess. You can feel her holding her breath, and it makes you hold yours. You reach the last step and slip, the floor beneath giving out as you fall backwards. The world seems still, in slow motion as you can see the dust you kicked up fly into the air like the trail of a comet of ice or snow falling off a tree's branch after a light shower.
As soon as you feel gravity's grip on you tighten, pulling you down to an inevitable death with a broken neck, a tightness releases from your back, and it is no longer cold. You turn your neck as much as you can. It's no longer tight. You see the Princess holding the banister and you, keeping you up. She saved you. Why? You killed her. You catch her eyes. She looks like she was crying. Joy? Anger? Sadness?.... Joy. She's finally getting out of here after who knows long... all thanks to you. She notices your stare and smiles. She promises she will keep you safe, help you along this journey as much as she can. You owe her now, even moreso.
You can't help but feel a tear form in your eye and fall. That tear was not yours, but it was also yours. Something beyond you is sad and happy and something incomprehensible that should be known but isn't. You ignore it and continue onwards.
You grab the banister as she did and steady yourself, gripping it so hard you were sure it would shatter again. It did not. As soon as you're steady again, you feel the tightness in your chest return, the cold flowing through your upper body once again. The Princess is back, and you can feel something new in her; nervousness and fear only quelled by the hope that we can finish this ascension.
And so you do, going past the last step and slamming your foot into the wood below, cracking it with your hope, your perseverance, your determination. You stand up and look ahead at the old, dusty door before. Beyond that lies freedom.
The weight pressing down on your entire being seems heavier now, as if this longing winter that coats your body does not want to leave, is afraid of what awaits beyond. You step forwards, the weight releasing slightly as you do. Again you step, the cold intensifying and the weight releasing. You step again and again and again, your will solidified as you see your ending, your freedom in plain view before, just beyond a simple door. You know that even if you were to fall now, slip down the stairs again, your body hurt and broken from the fall, you would not give up. Your will is steeled, cold as ice, and you would get up, again and again and again until you have reached-
The handle. You feel it's dusty metal in your palm, frost snaking across it as you touch it, going beyond it onto the door itself. The weight has returned, pressing down. Anxiety, fear, hope, joy, yearning, longing, produced not just from you but from the Princess as well. You tighten your grip as if your life depends on it, the metal seeming to bend under your very will... No. Not just yours. The Princess' as well. She is with you, just like she always should be and will be.
You push-
and the door does not budge.
Again, you push.
The door does not move.
Again and again and again you push, using both of your hands to pry open this cell door in front of you. The Princess emerges from you, using her own hands to push as well. You both push with all your might.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again....
Enough pushing. You ram your shoulder forwards into the final wall of this prison, meant to keep you both locked up, key lost and starved of the world beyond. You push, again and again, the old door finally creaking and folding under your weight- No, not just yours. You can feel the Princess inside you push as well, your bodies as one as you pour all of your might and hope and everything into breaking. The cold seems as warm as sunlight now. You finally understand it. You embrace it.
And finally, just when you thought the door would not yield, it shatters under your combined efforts, hopes and dreams, as your slam forwards one final time. You fly forwards, tumbling across the ancient wood balcony onto the dirt path and grass below.
You're not cold anymore. Where is she. Where did she go? Is she safe, is she okay? Are we free now-
You raise your head and look, to see the Princess, body facing you, head turned away to the world in front of you. You can see her shaking, a single tear of ice trailing down the sides of her face as she looks back to you, a look of accomplishment, happiness, freedom strewn across her face in a grin so wide her lips almost crack under the pressure.
Before you can say anything you rush forwards, your legs giving out under the stress they just endured. So you drag yourself on your knees towards her, scraping them across hard rocks and paved dirt as you stop just before her, as close as you once were to each other at the beginning of this journey, this ascension to a freedom you both deserve. You gently raise your hands, stopping just before her cheeks, with frightening precision, nigh-cupping her face with your still-weary hands, fingers and palms numb from the cold, the warmth slowly breathing into them from the world you both now reside in.
She reaches her arms up holds yours in place, her eyes meeting yours as you both truly realize you are free. Free to do whatever, be wherever, not stuck in an infernal Cabin-shaped cage. She hugs you, her cold, once piercing, now akin to a soft wall of snow pressing against you. You slowly lift your arms behind her, gently holding them against her ethereal figure.
You both cry into the night. Fear, anxiety, the cage once holding you both gone as they flow out of you in the form of frozen tears. Only joy, acceptance, happiness and freedom remains.
You close your eyes. You are free. Both of you.