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Atop the castle of frost do I sit, locked away by ice and visions of white.
Seventy-five long months, seventy-five cold months have I been trapped, a princess from a northern kingdom lost to a terrible blizzard. I am the last. I have forgotten the name of my kingdom, forgotten the names of the people who inhabited it. In my memories, all I see are silhouettes in a flurry of snow, devoured by its gaping maw.
Tears have long since fallen down my cheeks. They are frozen icicles that stick to my skin, that clasp and clutch at my fur, that rake and rend me. I no longer feel such pain. It has been much too long.
Now, I simply wait for the bravery of a hero, for a promise long forgotten—long broken—to be fulfilled.
Seventy-five heroes have been claimed by defeat at the hands of this tower. Seventy-five promises broken, seventy-five lives taken.
And then I hear him from the gates, his voice howling with bravery.
"Princess! I'm back! This time I'll free you!"
I clutch my chest and smile down the ramparts, through the frostbitten iron bars that hardly allow even vision to escape and I see him.
A knight in jet black armor.
I wave to him as I have always done, my limbs sluggish but remembering. I cry out, my voice cracking like ice, "My hero, save me, won't you?"
He says something in return, his voice deep as an abyss, bleeding severely with confidence. But I cannot hear him over the sound of the pounding of my heart.
My breath is stolen in a wisp of fog.
A hero has come to save me and, oh, how it makes my glacial heart melt. My knight in shining armor with a fire that can burn away the crystal thorns embedded into my chest. I feel it then, a ray of hope once more, a shining shiver that gives me reason to go on.
My hero is on the way.
Suddenly, I remember.
How desperately I have always wanted to be saved. How I am living in such a dream that covers my skin in goosebumps and frostbite. Snowflakes swirl before me. My vision swims in a blur of beautiful kaleidoscopic memories, thawed out in this brief moment.
I see them but they mean nothing to me. Red faced and smiling. Laughing and crying. Crying out to me. Crying out to each other. I see someone familiar in the dark. Someone who I will never recall, yet they have never left me.
Perhaps this is why I'm crying. Perhaps this is why I'm awaiting my knight. That dark figure, shaded in ache, blackened by the soot of an ashen and burned heart, always wanted to be a knight. It is only in these moments of rare lucidity that I remember, that I yearn, that my skin thaws and my blood flows freely, steaming, hot, fresh.
And I try to forget. I try to cauterize that wound in frost. Keep it frozen in time, forever bleeding, forever hurting, forever numbing. Numbing.
Until I am numb.
Clash!
The icy glass in my eyes fades. I return to the present, a moment that I won't remember, that cannot hurt me, that leaves me blissfully numb. I look below to my hero.
Seventy-five minutes I have watched him struggle on his climb, his jet-black armor gleaming like a grin in the dark. The creature he fights pulses and writhes in agony, a shell of itself, nothing more than a shadow of a nightmare, a horrible memory filled with hate. Its sword strikes true and I see it happen.
Blood falls from his helmet. That shadowy sword, that hatred, that excruciating pain has been sharpened into a brilliant edge that cuts through his armor with ease. He tries to dodge, but this darkness, this nightmare, it has taken seventy-five before and I pray it will take mine someday as well.
Pink groans into view, coated in dark red as he bleeds out. It is the first and last time I will see a glimpse of my savior. He will fall just as the others. And it is then that my heart dares to beat, dares to keep me alive despite my own wishes. I am forced to watch yet another hero fail, forced to watch another promise be broken, forced to watch as they become nothing more than a screaming memory.
I close my eyes. I cannot watch. I yearn to return to numb, to the sweet embrace of cold and nothing. Tears freeze into my fur, and I understand this must be why I am crying, why I have never stopped crying. I can't bear it. I cannot bear to see them fall again; I cannot bear to keep reliving this—
And I hear his voice.
He is booming with laughter, an avalanche of unstoppable confidence.
"What are ya cryin' for, Princess? This is nothing! I'm not stoppin' here!"
His axe finds its mark. The apparition is banished beneath his blade. Despite the blood, despite the cuts and scratches on his armor, I see the white of a grin at his wound. He looks to me and says something else.
But my heart is pounding so loudly. But I cannot breathe. But my hands are shaking. But my body is failing. But my mind is gone. But I am nothing. But I cannot have faith. But I cannot hear. But I cannot live.
Yet I think of her.
My knight in shining armor. Long gone. One of the first to fall. It only brings me pain now to remember the flutter in my heart that she brought me. Such a sweet memory laced with razorblades, unable to be held, unable to be touched. I can only look on in utter pain.
And that is all I know. Pain. Hurt.
But. When I hurt. I feel her. When I hurt. I remember. These bittersweet memories that only scorch my fingertips, these memories that strangle the air from my lungs, these memories that slowly kill me.
And then. I think of her. I think of her. Through the pain. Through my own death. Maybe if I remember her, maybe if I think of her enough, I could finally… … …
I hear his armor ringing.
My hero is so close. My hero is so near. Perhaps I will finally be saved. Perhaps I could finally be free of this aching prison that throbs with frozen blood. His armor is ringing, ringing, a toll for me. A toll for justice.
Justice for me.
I feel it then. I feel it. It has devoured me, it has set my soul ablaze in screaming torrents of joy, in agonizing happiness, in tortured love, and unending brilliant despair. Oh, how it pounds into my skull, oh, how it bludgeons me with its silver-clubbed mace of ecstasy, oh, how it pierces my heart in a blissful pointed edge.
I revel in this nightmare. I scream in delight. I cry out in horrific love. My voice has long since been stolen, yet I wail in anticipation of my hero, my knight, my love.
And then.
I hear him gasp. I hear his armor crack and splinter as a trap takes his life just as all the others. When it is silent, when his ringing armor has left my ears, I allow myself one final whisper, one final farewell for the seventy-fifth time. His life has come to an end.
I allow one final memory. I allow one final kiss as I plunge the sword into my heart, as I remember her smile. Farewell, my dearest friend. Farewell, the only one I shall love. I breathe farewell to this final remnant of pain, farewell as I may put one more nightmare to rest and return to my numbing and sleepless slumber.
I will not dream. If there is any happiness left in the world. I will not dream.
…
The door creaks.
I am forced to breathe again. Forced to inhale frostbite and needle.
It cannot possibly be. Terror breaks the skin of my face as the ice fails to envelop me.
He made it. He has survived. My knight, my hero, will soon be here.
How?!
Every trap, every slip of ice, every beast made of my torment….! How?! Everything I've made, everything I've done to stop them! For so many years, none have made it to me!
Don't they realize?!
Doesn't he know?!
It won't be long now! He's going to know! He's going to know!
The Princess he so loves is nothing more than an illusion.
He's banging at the door, he is calling my name, but doesn't he understand?!
If he rescues me, I won't be myself! If he rescues me, he'll find out! He'll find out! I'm not a princess! I was never a princess! He can't know. HE. CAN'T. KNOW.
My heart is bleeding freely. My eyes are vibrating with frost. No. No. It's melting. It's melting.
If he rescues me, I will melt! I will finally die! No! No!!!
Not just me! Not just me!
The ice statues that surround my prison, that watch on in frozen horror, forever trapped in the moment where I took them! They'll melt! They'll melt!
No!!
I can't lose them.
I can't! They are all I have left! They are the only thing left I know! These statues! These statues trapped here with me!
DON'T TAKE ME AWAY.
He can't know! He can't know what I truly am! These statues are my only friends! My only family!
He wasn't supposed to see! He would join them without ever knowing, without ever reminding me!
No, no, no, no, no, no. NO. Memories flood my open wound like gluttonous flies. I continue to remember. Please. Stop. Please. Stop!
Turn away, brave knight! Fall on your sword, my hero!
Don't you feel it?!
Pulsing. Throbbing. At my .
Finger.
It.
Is.
There.
It.
Is.
Still.
There.
It
Will
Kill
Him
I
Will
Kill
Him.
To forget. To forget. To forget.
The ThornRing.
It has opened.
My mouth is screaming. I am screaming. I can't hear it. I am screaming. I cannot stop screaming. It is all unbearable. I know what I am! I know what I am!
My knight, please don't look at me! My hero, please don't realize what I truly am! Please! Please, I am begging you!
PLEASE LEAVE. PLEASE DIE. PLEASE DIE. LET ME. DIE. JUST. LET ME DIE.
I prepare. He'll be here soon.
Icicles have fused to my fingertips. My claws click together. I close my eyes. I brush the tears away, the snow, the ice. There is no hiding it anymore. There is no hiding it anymore.
The door swings open and I set free the blizzard that decimated everything and everyone I ever loved.
Seventy-six.
…
…
…
"Princess!" the corpse screams.
How can this be?
No. He cannot talk. It is nothing more than a memory. She is gone. She has been gone for so many years.
Eighty-two months have I waited atop this castle of frost, locked away by visions of frost and ice.
"Listen to me!"
Forty-three heroes have fallen before me.
"I'm not leaving you!"
Seventy-three knights have made it so close.
"I won't stop talking until you remember! Princess!"
One-hundred-and-Six floors, built upon the souls of those I have taken.
"Princess! Princess! Princess! You know it's me! Don't you know your own name?! PRINCESS!"
Seventeen memories. Fifty broken promises. Thirty-Nine failed rescues. One-thousand-twenty-five souls.
A claw grabs me. It is my own.
"PRINCESS!" my knight calls out from the gates.
I cheer for him, "My hero, save me, won't you?"
He is laughing. Booming. Screaming. Screaming. There is ice creaking in my ears, in my skull, in my brain.
"NOELLE."
!!!
She is back. For the ninety-ninth time. She is back. She is back. Her axe gleaming in cyan. Her visor dripping with blood.
One.
One knight has made it to me. She takes off her helmet. Pink hair streams down her shoulders like vicious blood. Sweat clings to her scales like parasitic memories.
"Noelle! I told you! I told you I'd come back for you!"
A vision. A nightmare. A memory that does not belong to me. A memory that CANNOT belong to me.
"Noelle!" she lies. "You can hear me! I know you can!"
It pulses. It throbs.
The ThornRing.
My friends. My memories. My love. She is missing, isn't she? She has always been missing. My collection of loved ones. My collection of those closest to me. Of course. That was her promise all those years ago, wasn't it? She promised to join them. To join me.
Because that is all I have left.
Because this tower is all that I have.
Because my Knight, my Roaring Knight, is all that stands between the rest of the world and me. My Knight in oil-stained armor, my silent knight that protects me from the world.
My Knight that protects the world from me.
Who… who has been my hero all this time? The knight in black armor before me? Or the Knight of roaring shadow that has protected my loved ones with all its might?
… …
…
And she vanquished my Knight? She has freed me? She has unleashed me?
…
My Knight always returns. My hero always returns. Trapped in an endless loop of failure and snow. How many times has she fallen? How could she escape?
The others didn't.
The others tried.
Now they are with me. Forever.
And all this time… she hasn't been with me? My hero?
How cruel. How unbearably cruel.
To embed thorns upon thorns further into my heart. To thaw me from my prison of numbness, to bring back such agonizing pain. How utterly cruel.
She must join them. Join me. I love her. I need her. She is everything. She is me. She is a part of me.
…
"Noelle," my hero calls out, fog crystallizing and melting before her maw. "You heard me, didn't you? You know it's me. I'm finally making it through to you."
Join me. Never leave me. Please.
My wings unfurl, millions of grains of sickly white snow cascading at my back. Oh, how long my wings have ached for flight, have ached to leave this tower. Just like my precious ThornRing.
My wings scrape against the walls, hardly contained by this shabby prison. I carefully avoid my statues, my souls, my memories. My horrifying appendages twitch and send forward yet another blizzard of catastrophic intensity, enough to destroy a kingdom, enough to freeze the world in time, enough to keep my memories safe.
And it overtakes her. She braces herself with false courage, with hopeless determination, with useless heroism. Her arms cross her chest like scars of hope at her heart, and I breathe a sigh of relief knowing she will finally be where she belongs.
With me.
When the storm clears, I eagerly await my new statue. Soon to be my most precious statue, my most precious memory among all. In my gluttony, my heart pounds, yearning to see her scales turned blue, to see this moment forever etched into eternity, never to be lost again.
I reach for my newest statue, fresh tears falling at my cheeks, freezing in my fur once more.
Susie…
I'm so happy you're here. I'm so happy my love has returned. I reach for her, to pluck her soul, to take it for my own.
Flames lick my fingertips. The ThornRing wills itself to recoil away from such dangerous heat.
"Noelle," she says, acrid smoke at her fangs, fire burning bright in her gullet. "I've changed too."
Black wings of leather and sinew shield her fists, protect her face, her chest. Her armor burns with searing white flame at her chest, as if she holds a volcanic heat behind her breast. Ice streams down her obsidian greaves, evaporating into nothing but boiling water. Her legs break free.
"I am the dragon," Susie says, each word set aflame. "I've finally found myself. I've finally found who I am." Her wings return to her back, twitching as frost falls uselessly from their edges. "But I'm not just that. I'm not just some pawn in the story. I'm more than that." She clenched her gauntlet with a clank! "I'm Susie."
What is she saying? What could she possibly be saying to me? She is making no sense. I know what I am. I know what I have become. I know what I will always be.
I am the Princess.
She ignores me. She never listened to me, did she?
"I'm going to help you find yourself too, Noelle." She took a step forward.
I shriek. She cannot come near me. She cannot remind me. She CANNOT. After everything I've done. After I've created these statues, after I have thrown the world into an endless winter, how could I be anything else but a Princess?
No.
I know what I truly am. I know what I truly am. A monster.
I am screaming. My tears won't stop falling and I finally know the answer. I finally know why.
It's because I am a monster. I am a storm. I am death incarnate. I am destruction.
I am the end.
I am the end of this story. I am the end of everything. I am the inevitable. And yet.
"Listen to me!" Susie cries out, the scorching white heat at her chest spreading through her black armor, to her pauldrons, to her golden heart belt buckle. "We have the power to change, Noelle!"
She speaks to me of a name that is no longer mine. A name that has been shattered into pieces years ago. A name I could never remember.
"This doesn't have to be the end!" Susie takes another brave step forward. Her armor has completely transformed in incredible heat. Her armor has become molten, malleable, burning bright white. My ice reels, it cowers at her mere presence, melting into tiny useless tears at her feet.
What can I do? I can't freeze her. I can't…
"Nothing has to end if we don't want it to." Susie lurches forward, her pink hair glowing hot, burning bright along the flames that surrounded her. "And I don't want it to ever end."
Everything comes to an end. Everything must end. I am everything. I am the end.
"You don't have to be anything you don't want to be!"
But that isn't how the story works. That isn't how the story goes.
"Screw the story!" Susie bellows, flame erupting against charred lips. "Who cares what it says you are? Who cares what anyone says you are! Who cares what I say you are?!"
My wings flap. My brows furrow. I clench my fist. The thorns squeeze into my hand. Blood streams down my fingertips.
"I care what you think of me!" I shout back, the melted ice in my throat causing me to drown. But I refuse to die.
Susie shudders backwards, my blizzard pelting her with chunks of ice and pointed snow. Her armor cools momentarily but quickly blazes white once again.
"N-Noelle…! You…!" A hopeful smile breaks through her scales, even as the flame in her heart continues to blaze. "You really are still in there!"
"Of course I care what you think about me!" I shout, clutching the robe at my chest. The ice shatters. How many years have I gone, frozen like this? "That's why you need to stay AWAY."
Susie stumbles backwards, her boots slipping against the slick stone surface. She groans, she winces, and her color falters, but she refuses to fall.
"Then go back to being Noelle!" Susie cries, fire burning mournfully.
"I can't!" I scream. Another gust of wind. My prison becomes ever colder. Even Susie is struggling. "Look at what I've done, Susie! Look! They're gone because of me! And I've kept them here… I…" I can't bear to look at them. Yet I can't bear to imagine that Susie's heat might melt them. They are all I have.
"I can't be Noelle anymore. Don't you see? She's gone. The girl you loved died long ago, Susie. This is all that is left. And none of it is Noelle."
Susie shakes her head, but I see the tears boiling at the ends of her eyes. "Don't say that. Don't you dare say that." Her fire is fading. "If Noelle truly is gone, then why didn't you freeze me? All those other times? Like you did everyone else?"
It feels as though a knight's sword has pierced my chest, has punctured my heart and left me gasping for air. "I… I simply… You are…"
I remember. I remember. Memories buried by snow, trapped under the permafrost, sinking into an arctic abyss.
I see Susie in my memories. Battered. Broken. Bleeding. Freezing. She does not have her wings. She does not have her armor. She can't even stand before me. My Knight has brought her to me. And I remember. She calls out to me, awaiting her death, nearly begging for it.
And in that moment. I turned away. I freeze the Thorn at my finger. I freeze myself. And I disappear. If she were to escape in those moments, those moments where I let my castle freeze over, then… I could not have possibly known.
"I knew it." Susie's fire burns bright again. "I knew you were still in there."
"I wish she was dead!" I shout, countless souls swirling inside me, raging and afraid. This is why…! This is why I wanted to forget! To stay away! To stay in my tower! "Do you have any idea what I have done?! If she knew, if Noelle was still in here, she would have given in to the Angel years ago!"
"None of that is true." Susie flinches at my words, winces as my most horrible thoughts are finally spoken aloud. But she does not chide me. She does not back away. "You didn't do this, Noelle!"
"You don't know who I am!"
The water at our feet writhes with frost, sharp icicles piercing through the room and straight towards my hero. She is once again barred from me behind a barrier of frost. It's for her own good. It's for my own good. I can't let her… I can't… I can't face her…!
But she has grown much too strong in our years apart. Where I have slowed my power, slowed the horrid consumption of souls, Susie has been training for years upon years. She has learned everything about me. Even this twisted Princess I have become.
Susie sighs into her axe, flame enveloping its edge. The cyan edge has become its own molten hot white. A single strike rings out, and she shatters my ice into pieces. Steam and water droplets splatter through the air, drip down the walls, plop into useless puddles around our feet.
It feels like rain.
I haven't felt rain in so very long.
I had hoped to forget.
But I know. I know. I have lost. My knight in molten armor has finally rescued me.
I fall to my knees, into a puddle of slush and tears. My ice is melting. My statues are melting. Yet most horribly of all?
I remain.
I have lost everything.
"Noelle…!" Susie cries, throwing her axe to the side. Her boots splash into the water as she rushes towards me.
"Stop!" I shriek, using the last of my power, the last of my ice crackling into my knees, running through my hands. I have fused myself to the ground. "Leave me alone! Just leave me alone! You win! You win! Just go!"
She stops short of my pathetic form. I am nothing more than a starved deer. This frail body can't even hold my monstrous wings up. I try with all my might to hide myself beneath the ice, to stop her from seeing me. I have fallen so low. I have killed so many. And for what? To grovel, to squirm, to die before my love like a writhing beast?
I know I can't return to the times before. I feel myself crying. Sobbing.
There is a terrified girl rearing her ugly head through my body. Her antlers have become a crown of thorns, twisted and entangled together. She is crying. She won't stop crying. She will never be able to mourn everything that she has lost. She will never be able to understand what she has really done. It will drive her to madness.
"Leave me!" I croak, my voice hoarse and worthless. "Leave me alone! Or…" I sob into the smooth texture of my ice, pressing my forehead against it. It cannot numb me anymore. "Strike me down, Susie! End it! End all of it! If you do, you'll save—"
CRACK! Shatter!
Boiling hot arms take me, lifting me out of the frost to my shaky hooves.
Susie punched through my wall of ice, leaving sparkling snowflakes fluttering in the air. She is holding me.
Her heart is so warm.
"I'm not doing any of that," Susie says into my ear. She hugs me tightly, supporting my body as I feel myself melt further and further into her. Steam hisses from her armor, from her scales. Her blazing heat fades at my touch, yet so too does my cold.
She is so warm.
I can do nothing but fall against her, sob into her. After so many years, after so long, after so much pain, I can do nothing but submit to her. To allow her to hold me, to allow her sharp claws to stroke my hair. I feel the texture of her rough scales, covered in burns, in frostbite, in cuts and bruises.
Oh, how her hands have grown.
I can never return to what was once before. I can never go back. I feel her breathing. I hear every creak of her armor, the tiny sighs she lets out as she holds me tighter.
I don't deserve this.
"Why?" I manage to ask. "Why, Susie? Why?" I try to swallow the tears away. I look to my hand.
The ThornRing has burned into nothing more than black ooze, into nothing but char and hate. It's finally gone, but the pain will never leave me. The memories of what I have done will never vanish. I am trapped within myself.
But Susie takes me, holds me tighter still. She puts her chin against my neck, rubs her hot scaly skin against my frigid fur until it finally softens in ways I thought no longer possible. My tears no longer stick to my skin. They evaporate at her heat. She rubs my back, rubs my sides, drying me, blowing the dark away from my soul.
"Why?" Susie repeats, her hero heart pounding with mine, breathless. "Because, Noelle, so many years ago, you called me your hero. So that's what I became for you."