## Preface

Kiss the Burned Grey
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/62265093.

Rating:
  Mature
Archive Warnings:
  Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Category:
  F/M
Fandom:
  Slay the Princess (Visual Novel)
Relationships:
  The Player | The Hero/The Burned Grey (Slay the Princess), The Long Quiet/The Burned Grey (Slay the Princess), The Player | The Hero/The Princess (Slay the Princess), The Long Quiet/The Princess (Slay the Princess), Voice of the Smitten/The Burned Grey (Slay the Princess), Voice of the Cold/The Burned Grey (Slay the Princess)
Characters:
  The Burned Grey (Slay the Princess), The Long Quiet (Slay the Princess), The Player | The Hero (Slay the Princess), The Grey (Slay the Princess), Voice of the Smitten (Slay the Princess), Voice of the Cold (Slay the Princess), Voice of the Hero (Slay the Princess), The Narrator (Slay the Princess)
Additional Tags:
  Gothic Romance, Ghost love, ghost - Freeform, Fire, Burning together, dying kiss, Hero is afraid, Hero is the only voice with self-preservation, Smitten is completely on the Princess's side and self-destructive, Cold gets much more into it than he'd admit, More dialogue and a few extra scenes compared to canon, Content warnings:, Burning (and graphic descriptions of it), Murder-Suicide, Toxic Relationship, (Just Burned Grey things), Mutually self-destructive love between a ghost and the bird who killed her, Burned Grey deserves better but she'll take what she can get, Burned Grey is a little bit fucked up, Horror, Romantic Horror, Slayer tries to be manipulative, it doesn't work very well, Quiet isn't really showing his best sides in this one, and neither is Hero, Grey seems gentle and calm like Damsel but is actually a raging fire on the inside, Consensual yet extremely fucked up kisses
Language:
  English
Series:
  Part 15 of Kiss the Princess
Stats:
  Published: 2025-01-16 Words: 6,324 Chapters: 1/1

# Kiss the Burned Grey

by Vickysaurus

Summary

> After slaying the Damsel, the Slayer returns to find her ghost still carries a torch for him. Now that he's made it impossible for them to be together in life, she intends to make sure they're together in death instead.

> (What if you could kiss the Burned Grey?)

Notes

> Content warnings for Burned Grey things: graphic descriptions of burning, murder-suicide, and toxic relationships.

> This one starts as you enter the Burned Grey's cabin.

See the end of the work for more notes

## Kiss the Burned Grey

The Narrator: “The interior of the cabin feels dry and brittle. Ancient dust-covered wooden beams hold up a crumbling ceiling like mummified ribs, each elegantly carved detail of the stately building preserved in extended stasis. Everything here has been kept safe and dry and lifeless. But you’re not alone. You can feel something watching you. There is a figure faintly outlined against the dusty wood of the far wall.”

Voice of the Hero: “Is that… her?”

Voice of the Smitten: “Our beloved! So she does live!”

Voice of the Cold: “She doesn’t look very alive to me. More like a faded old memorial painted on a wall than a person.”

Smitten: “And yet there she is! She moves, she exists, her beauty is not yet faded from this world despite you monsters’ best efforts. Call out to her, beg her forgiveness. We may not yet be utterly damned.”

The Narrator: “Before you can make a move, the figure is gone, vanishing behind the door on the far side of the room.”

Cold: “Oh, it's the mirror again, how boring. In her current state, the Princess vanishing through it doesn’t even tell us whether she can see or touch it.”

Hero: “What do you mean? She clearly can’t if she just walked through it.”

Cold: “Except that she’s obviously a ghost. Doesn’t tell us anything.”

Smitten: “The ghost of our past sins, but if we follow her we may yet be forgiven.”

Hero: “I really don’t think it’s a good idea to follow a probably vengeful ghost around.”

Cold: “Are you scared of a little ghost? What’s she going to do, stare at us until we feel bad?”

Smitten: “If anything could pierce your icy hearts and make you feel the weight of our crime as I do, it would be her baleful, beautiful gaze, villain! But other than our own inevitable guilt, we have little to fear from her. Someone as perfect as she must surely have wells of forgiveness big enough even for us.”

The Narrator: “These pointless little Voices babbling away in your ear, you find yourself surveying the room, which is still mirror-less in spite of their nonsense. The only thing here is the table in the corner with a… Wait, where’s the pristine blade? There’s supposed to be a blade here! You’re gonna need it if you want to do this right...”

Cold: “But we already did it right. Maybe that’s why there’s no blade. There’s nothing left of her but a memory, she didn’t even leave footprints in the dust. The only thing she left are… What are those?”

· [Examine the Princess’s path leading to the mirror.]

Hero: “Are they… petals lying on the ground?”

Smitten: “A trail of black roses' petals! It’s a sign from her, a path guiding us to her love - oh be still my heart, then she does still love us!”

Cold: “A trail of mutilated dead plant matter luring us somewhere , to be sure...”

· [Approach the mirror]

The Narrator: “You pause in front of the door. It may be closed, but there’s an obvious doorknob. You can just open it.”

Smitten: “Are any of you ready to look a killer like us in the eye? Because I’m not.”

Cold: “It’s probably going to disappear again before we see anything. I’m not very interested to look at us anyway.”

· [Touch the mirror]

The Narrator: “You rub your hand in a random spot on the bone-dry wood of the door, picking up a few splinters. After pausing for a moment, probably reflecting on how stupid that was, you reach for the doorknob and just open it.”

Smitten: “We are too hideous for even a mirror to behold… We can only hope the Princess might still see some good in us.”

Hero: “It vanished last time as well, and I’m just gonna say I think we’re actually quite handsome. I’m really not comfortable sharing a head with all this self-flagellation.”

Cold: “What, does it bother you? I think it’s quite fun to have him squirm and twist in disgust against our own body.”

Hero: “It’s stressful! I wish he’d lay off us for a while.”

Smitten: “Do you really think you deserve any kind of grace with her blood staining our hands?”

Cold: “Not just hers, but our own too. Not that it matters. It all washes off so easily.”

· [Enter the basement.]

The Narrator: “The door to the basement creaks open, revealing an antique staircase lit by weak torchlight. The air here is so stale it practically stands still, as if the very molecules of this place have been fossilised, trapped for aeons until your arrival. Even the blaze of the torches can’t penetrate the odourless air, as if they’d run out of fuel to burn ages ago, their light still flickering more out of habit than from adhering to a physical reality. The only things in sight with even a hint of moisture and life to them, the trail of black petals, leads down the stairs. As your eyes follow them down, you see a wispy figure watching you from the bottom of the stairs, face veiled in shadow.”

Hero: “There she is again!”

Smitten: “My love! Forgive us! Wait for us!”

Cold: “You’re chasing a ghost. But then again, that’s what you did last time too. The love you yearn for has never been real. It was just us and some Princess we didn’t know playing pretend.”

Smitten: “What a miserable Voice you are, if only you could spend a single moment feeling my heart burn. But yours is a cold and frozen lump.”

Cold: “Hearts are so overrated, you know they’re just glorified blood pumps, right?”

Hero: “Hey, while you guys were arguing, she left around the corner, throwing us a single glance.”

· “Hello again, Princess! Sorry about last time, I panicked. I won’t do it again, I chose not to bring a blade this time around to show you my peaceful intentions.”

The Narrator: “There is no response, the silence of the grave hangs over the cabin’s dusty air.”

· [Proceed down the stairs.]

The Narrator: “As you descend the final step, you emerge into a dark and isolated cell, with not so much as a window to allow starlight to penetrate the gloom. Dry, splintery wooden columns hold up a distant roof, robbing you of the view of the other side of the basement. You follow the trail of petals through the murk, occasionally seeing a white dress slip away behind a pillar. After a while in the dusty darkness, you reach the end of the trail. A skeletal body lies on a shallow black bed of petals, her wrist still bound to the wall by a heavy chain.”

Smitten: “No, my love! But we saw you alive just moments ago, floating away transparently!”

Hero: “What we saw was a ghost. I thought we were all on the same page here.”

· [Examine the Princess’s body]

The Narrator: “You kneel by the Princess’s body, a desiccated heap of brittle bones. Her skeletal grin, fallen open without tendons to hold it together, gapes up at you with dead, empty eyesockets. Between her loose ribs, where her heart once was, there is no pristine blade to be found. Instead, there is a single sign of life: a wilting black rose.”

Smitten: “A rose in the heart, another sign of her love beyond death…”

Hero: “This is horrible, I don’t like looking at her corpse.”

Smitten: “You did this to her.”

Hero: “That’s enough with the self-blaming, I didn’t do anything to her!”

Smitten: “Oh, but you did. Our decider has followed your guidance since the very beginning! He’s never listened to anyone else.”

Cold: “You’re right, he always did follow him, didn’t he? In that first lifetime, you were so very enamoured with the Princess, told him to trust her, to free her.”

Smitten: “But then, after our first death, you just had to turn against her, didn’t you? You just couldn’t believe the truth of our love, doubt crept in, and you advocated for slaying her!”

Hero: “I never told him to slay her!”

Smitten: “But you implied it, didn’t you? Traitor.”

Hero: “I… I mean… I- I just thought she was really unsettling. There was something so very wrong about her, about the whole situation...”

Cold: “There was. You guided us well, even if there was no point in being scared of her. A perfect romance, true love found in a prison moments after we first met. What a sham. You’d have to be very stupid to be enthralled by it.”

Smitten: “Well, I am! ...Enthralled, that is, not- Hold on, do you feel that? That presence… Her eyes are on us.”

The Narrator: “You slowly raise your head and look up from the Princess’s dry bones to her translucent form standing over you. Her white bridal gown is complete with a veil that hides her face and in her chest… There it is! The pristine blade!”

Hero: “A g-g-g-g-ghost!”

Smitten: “My love… She’s still with us. Don’t startle her. She’s likely to be more afraid of us than we are of her.”

Cold: “Agreed. Slow, non-threatening movements. This’ll be much less interesting if we scare her off…”

· “Princess? It’s you, isn’t it?”

The Narrator: “The veiled form standing over you stiffens as you look up at her, hovering back a step.”

· “Please don’t go!” [Grab her hand]

The Narrator: “The Princess’s skin is dry and brittle as old parchment, completely hairless and sweatless. What you’re touching barely feels like a person. Her ruffled sleeves rustle like paper as a quiver goes through her body. Face hidden behind her veil, she stands still like a statue.”

Smitten: “Talk to her. Apologise for our misdeed. Beg for the forgiveness I know she holds in her heart.”

Hero: “Her heart’s not even beating, can’t you feel it? We’re in serious danger here, unless maybe we can get our hands on the blade again…”

The Princess: “...You came back to me. I missed you.”

· “Y-you came back too! To me! I missed you too, in fact the only reason I’m here is that I missed you so much I killed myself to be with you again.”

Hero: “Not like we had much choice about it…”

Cold: “Still, she seems into it.”

Smitten: “It’s hard to tell with her veil hiding her angelic face from us. Part it, let us gaze dreamily into her eyes once more.”

Hero: “I don’t like the thought of what we might see behind it…”

Smitten: “Hmm, yes, what if we see anger, betrayal, the weight of our own sins reflected in her eyes? We’d do better to apologise first...”

· “I’m really sorry for what happened last time. I panicked. I’m sure you know it goes. After all, you did kill me once too, so no hard feelings, right?”

The Princess: “Yes, beloved, of course I understand. I understood even as I lay there dying with your blade in my chest. It wasn’t you, it was the thing that possessed you, it was this place. These very walls hate us, they’re not befitting our love. I couldn’t find the right things to say, so I made you a path to guide you back to my heart and show it to you… Do you… still love me?”

Cold: “We never did. It was an obvious lie. Still, it’s not as if it matters. Tell her yes, if you like. I’d be curious to see how a ghost reacts.”

Hero: "Don't play with her feelings, we have no idea how dangerous she is. I really don’t want to see her angry.”

Smitten: “As I recall, you didn't even want to see her alive. Ignore these vile conspirators, let her know the love we do hold in our heart!”

· “Of course I still love you.”

The Narrator: “For everyone’s sake, that had better be a lie. But you're not even sure if it is yourself, are you? The Princess seems to glow under her veil.”

The Princess: “You do, you do! Then you understand it too! I love you, and you love me. I kill you, and you kill me. This is a bad place, it keeps making us do these things to each other.”

· [Part her veil]

The Narrator: “You slowly rise to your feet, your eyes briefly lingering on the blade in her chest, but you don’t try to take it. Instead, you let trembling hands part her white veil. Behind it, a ghastly yet gentle visage greets you. The Princess’s skin is sunken, clinging tightly to her skull, her eyes dark pits glowing with a distant light and her nose a mere slit in her face.”

Smitten: “My beauty… Look what we’ve done to you. Your sweet round cheeks have sunk into a skeletal grimace. And yet, even now you smile at us, undeserving as we are.”

· “There you are. Look at you. Still gorgeous past the veil. Still my one true love.”

The Narrator: “The Princess’s smile widens, her dry, cracked lips splitting.”

The Princess: “Oh, my beloved, do you really think so?”

Hero: “Look, I'm not opposed to patching things up with her. In fact it's probably wise. But we need to take care with this kind of talk, last time it was almost as if we were being drawn into something, as if we couldn't make normal choices in her presence. She could be even more dangerous as a ghost.”

Smitten: “That’s the power of love! Not that I would expect a cold-hearted killer to understand, but this is simply what happens when you’re deeply enamoured with the perfect Princess.”

Cold: “Hmm no. But it does feel different this time. I think we’re playing along with it, but only because we want to see where it goes. Not like last time. She’s a ghost, for one.”

· “Of course. That’s why I returned, I couldn’t stay away from you. I never could, even the time you killed me I came right back to you, no matter how much it hurt, remember? The thread of fate drew me back to your side, love.”

The Narrator: “The Princess throws her arms around you, her dry parchment skin folding and creaking with each movement, hollow eyes staring into yours with the longing of the grave. She is warm, far too warm to be comfortable. Yet her touch is bearable, as there’s no moisture to her to conduct the heat. She speaks in a husky whisper like the dying embers of a campfire.”

The Princess: “I’ve been waiting so long for your return, beloved, all alone in this horrible cabin. I don’t even know how long it was, the only way I could see time pass was to watch my body rot. First the bloating. Then the maggots came out and ate my flesh. Then they left and still you didn’t come. I waited and waited as my skin and cartilage dried up, and even the smell passed on. The air slowly bleached my bones, and I… almost started to doubt you’d come back any more. I’m sorry. I should have believed in you.”

Smitten: “It’s a good thing I avenged her on our own flesh as quickly as I did. Just imagine how much more solitude she’d have had to go through if I'd waited.”

Hero: “It can’t have been that long! How has it been that much longer for her?”

Cold: “Maybe time works differently for her. Or maybe she’s lying to get us to pity her.”

Hero: "Right! She's probably trying to manipulate us again."

· “I forgive you. You believe in me again now and that’s what matters.”

The Princess: “I just thought... maybe the cabin had succeeded in driving us apart. That the lies and violence it had wrapped around your heart had done so much worse than kill me and kept you away from me forever. Do you know what it told me before I came back, while I lay dead in a pool of my own blood?”

Hero: “The cabin? It… talks to her?”

The Princess: “This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve.”

The Narrator: “As the Princess speaks, the pale light in her eyes flares up, its heat and power increasing with every word until it's a powerful blaze visible through her eyes, her nose, and her mouth, an inferno you can see rage inside her skull. Her wispy voice raises and becomes sharp, then booming, a powerful force of fury behind it. The dry heat of her arms around your shoulders and her body pressed against yours becomes scorching. Even her hair rises up as she speaks, bigger and more voluminous, its strands waving in the heat of an invisible flame.”

The Princess: “This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve! This is what you deserve! THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE! THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE! THIS IS WHAT YOU DESERVE!”

Hero: “Take the blade, stop her, she’s-”

Smitten: “The poor thing, tormented by this wretched cabin. No wonder she’s angry, let her burn herself out. It’ll be good for her.”

Cold: “Oh. So there is some fire in her. I like this Princess much better than the last.”

The Narrator: “The flame inside the Princess douses, a serene calmth comes over her, her terrifying visage and heat simmering down as she smiles sweetly.”

The Princess: “But then I realised: I loved you once. I loved you twice. I loved you in every single life. And even as I lay there dead, the cabin wasn’t the only thing that haunted me. The only other thought as I drifted in the darkness between worlds was of your eyes. The cold fire in your eyes as you leapt forward, blade raised, and sunk it into my heart. I will never forget how they looked in that moment. They were wrapped around my soul, and I couldn’t go. That’s what pulled me back, brought me into this world, standing over my own dead body. And that's when I knew: death is weak, and we are strong. I knew you’d return to me, and that this time, we’d be together for all eternity. I will make sure of it. This place will not stop us.”

Smitten: “Yes… Nothing can stop her. Our love will be a glorious, eternal one!”

Cold: “She certainly is more formidable and wilful than last time, isn’t she?”

Hero: “Does neither of you think it’s a little ominous when a ghost tells us we’ll be together for eternity?”

· “You’re right, nothing can keep us apart! Not even death and not this place either!”

The Narrator: “The Princess grabs your hand, her dry desert heat desiccating your scaly skin too. She pulls you along, rushing through the dark basement, the stale air billowing and blowing around her, raising dust and petals from the ground to flutter.”

The Princess: “I knew you’d understand, beloved! Come with me, this won’t take long.”

· “What won’t?”

The Narrator: “She throws you a sweet giggle over her shoulder, her eyes shining with little blazing lights.”

The Princess: “Death! Dying apart kept us apart, but dying together will keep us together!”

Hero: “Oh. Oh no. Take the blade, while she’s not expecting it. Whatever she’s planning, we need to make sure she's the only one who dies here.”

Smitten: “Don't be so cruel, it might sound like a bit of an escalation of her passions, but what’s wrong with that?”

Hero: “What’s wrong with that? From the sound of it she’s gonna kill us both, that’s what’s wrong with it! We should never have gotten close to a ghost.Why are you so self-destructive, I'd think you'd want to live with her at least?”

Smitten: “Well, it’s too late for that, thanks to you. But we can still die together, and that’s incredibly romantic, though I hardly expect you to understand.”

Hero: “Why am I trying to reason with a Voice that killed us? Don’t you have anything to say about how irrational he’s being, creepy guy?”

Cold: “He’s obviously very foolish, but I do rather enjoy what’s come over both our lovebirds. It’s different, and I like different. I think we should see where she’s going with this.”

Smitten: “What is curiosity but another form of affection? Welcome on board, dear fellow, I knew there was hope for you yet!”

Hero: “You changed your tune quickly.”

Smitten: “Everyone deserves a second chance, a chance to be happy in the Princess's loving embrace. If she can forgive us, I can forgive him.”

Hero: “She’s not forgiving us, she’s trying to draw us into some kind of murder-suicide pact! Ugh, why am I the only Voice with any sense of self-preservation here? Just get the blade!”

· [Make a grab for the blade]

The Narrator: “The moment you put your hand around the handle, a searing pain slices through you, the metal almost aglow with an intense heat. Yet before even your reflexes can retract your hand, your skin has already melted to the steel, bubbling and hissing. The Princess pauses for a moment, throwing a disappointed glance down at the blade and then at you.”

The Princess: “Oh, beloved. You don’t need the blade any more. It can destroy us, but not that which drives you to do these things to me. But don’t worry, soon you’ll be able to love me the way I know you want to. When I’m done, it will all be gone. The fear, the violence, the anger, the pain, the cabin.”

Hero: “Why is the blade so hot?!”

Cold: “The metal is conductive.”

Hero: “That still doesn’t make any sense!”

Cold: “Well, it’s touching her, isn’t it?”

Hero: "Ha. Ha."

Smitten: “Its point is right there, touching the burning passion in her heart, no wonder it’s hot enough to melt our skin!”

Hero: “Yes, real funny and romantic, but meanwhile our hand is being fried!”

Cold: “Smells delicious, doesn’t it?”

Hero: “You’re not helping!”

Smitten: “Do you think the Princess would like to go out for kebab together?”

· “Aaah, my hand! Princess, what do you mean? How are you going to destroy the cabin?”

The Narrator: “You have reached the stairs, the flickering torches on the wall making your eyes water with their brightness. Or maybe the tears are just because when the Princess prances up the stairs enthusiastically, you trip over the first one and rip your hand off the blade, leaving your baked skin and a significant number of strips of flesh behind. Your flayed palm stings in the dry air as the Princess closes the door with a click of the lock. She takes a torch off the wall.”

The Princess: “It’s going to burn, and so are we. And when the roof collapses and pulverises the cinders of our bones, our ashes will mingle in the wind and we will be truly inseparable for all time.”

Smitten: “Ohh, whisper more of your beautiful poetry to us, my darling… I always knew you still carried a torch for us.”

Hero: “This place is dry as a bone. We need to be very careful, and ready to take that torch from her if she tries something.”

· “I don’t want to burn! J-just put the torch back and open the door…”

The Princess: “Oh beloved, I’ll give you everything you don’t know you want. Sometimes someone else makes decisions for you, and those decisions are for the best. You should know that.”

The Narrator: “The Princess lobs the burning torch past you, but your unburned hand shoots out and catches it by the handle, swinging the flame around and pointing it back at her.”

Hero: “So she does carry a grudge!”

Smitten: “She wouldn’t, she just wants to be with us forever. But even if she did, don’t you think she’s perfectly within her rights to make us burn for what we did?”

Hero: “I… I don’t care, I just don’t wanna burn! Threaten her, get her to let us out!”

Cold: “I wonder if a ghost can be afraid. I’m guessing… no.”

· [Threaten the Princess with the torch] “You’re gonna stay away from those other torches and open the door for me. Right now!”

The Narrator: “The Princess’s eyes follow the flame with fascination as you wave it back and forth in front of her, its light reflected in her own glowing embers. Then, she giggles lightly, a hand raised to her face.”

The Princess: “Oh, beloved. I’m not afraid of fire, not when we’re supposed to burn together.”

The Narrator: “As her smile spreads into an unsettling grin, the embers in her eyes are no longer reflections of your torch; they burn independently, with an internal light of her own.”

The Princess: “I’m not afraid of death, not when it’s our salvation.”

· [Wave the torch closer to her. Let her feel the heat.] “I-I mean it! Let me out!”

The Narrator: “The Princess’s smile never falters, even as the flames lick at her chest. Against your orders, she calmly takes another torch off the wall. Her skeletal face and burning eyes look like the mask of Death herself in the two torches’ flickering light. Yet even now, her voice is light and affectionate.”

The Princess: “And I’m certainly not afraid of you!”

The Narrator: “With not even a hint of fear, the Princess throws the second torch past you. You try to catch it with your free hand, but its raw, skinless palm ignites in agony the moment you touch it, and by reflex you pull it back. The torch continues on its path through the air, except it's spinning now. It lands somewhere in the gloom behind you, where it instantly ignites the dry wood and dust of the basement. You dash down to stamp it out, but it’s immediately obvious the fire is spreading too fast to be extinguished. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. If you can get out of the cabin, you could leave the Princess to burn here by herself.”

Smitten: “Leave her at the sacrificial altar? After all we’ve put her through already? I can only hope that when we burn, you will burn away with us, villain!”

Hero: “He’s right, escape is our only chance. It doesn’t matter what we put her through, we’re not even the ones who set the fire. We gotta get out of here.”

· “Princess, please, it doesn’t have to be like this! Open the door. We could get out of here! We don’t need to share our deaths, not when we could share our lives instead!”

The Princess: “Too late, beloved. You took that option away from us. Now even if I could open the door, I wouldn’t. This place won’t let me leave. It hates me, it’ll even use you against me. We will burn like my heart burns. There is no other choice.”

Hero: “There has to be another choice. There’s always another choice.”

Cold: “Not necessarily for us. There was no other choice for the Princess but to die when we chose to kill her. Why would we always be the ones who make the choices and never the ones they happen to? Do you think we’re special?”

The Narrator: “You are special. You are the one who’s given a choice, while the Princess only has a role to play.”

Hero: “Oh, I didn’t know we were special...”

Smitten: “Flattery will get you nowhere, even if it did feel nice. We are special to have captured the Princess’s heart.”

Cold: “Now what does that mean, she only has a role to play?”

The Narrator: “I’ve said too much, just get out of the blazing basement, the intense heat is already making your tailfeathers curl! Smoke starts to fill the staircase and your lungs, yet the Princess’s smile couldn’t be happier. She wants to see you burn.”

· [Push past the Princess and try to break down the door.] “Come on, open, open, open, please!”

The Narrator: “You throw the useless torch in your hand down into the conflagration. The Princess lets you pass her with a small curtsy as the flames lick at your heels. She calmly observes as you throw yourself into the splintery door again and again, your panic rising.”

Hero: “It creaks and it groans, but it’s not breaking! We need to hit it even harder!”

Cold: “We’ve never burned to death before. I wonder how it’ll feel.”

Hero: “Bad, I bet! It’s gonna feel really, really bad!”

Cold: “For a little while, probably. But it’ll pass. Pain always does.”

The Narrator: “You bash into the door again and again, but despite the noises it makes all you succeed in is bruising your shoulder and wasting what little oxygen you have. You throw yourself into it with a final, sobbing wail as the flames dance up the stairs. The Princess reaches for you, cupping your cheek with a brittle, papery hand, a pitying smile on her face.”

The Princess: “I know you’re afraid, beloved. It’s okay. The fear will burn away with everything else. Only our love will remain in the ashes.”

· “Princess… Please… It’s gonna hurt so much…”

The Narrator: “The Princess blinks slowly, a wry grimace on her dry face. There is a strange look in her eye.”

Smitten: “She can’t cry, there is no moisture, no tears left to shed for us. Yet she pities us. She has the compassion to care for us even now, when she does what must be done.”

The Princess: “I know it’s gonna hurt. But this time, we’ll share the pain. Sometimes, pain and fear are necessary, beloved. Sometimes, they’ll make you into something better, because what you were before wasn’t right. You showed me that too. I can see now, really see, where I couldn’t before. You too will understand. I love you. You love me. I kill you. You kill me. I kill you and me.”

The Narrator: “The flames spread up the stairs, closer and closer. The heat alone is scorching. You need to stop wasting time with the Princess and break down that door!”

Cold: “No we don’t. There is no escape. And isn’t that a rather calming notion?”

Hero: “How is that calming? We’re gonna die horribly!”

Cold: “Yes. And there’s nothing we can do about it. All we have to consider is how we’ll spend what little time we have left. It’s very liberating.”

Smitten: “Indeed. We get to spend our last breaths with the Princess. I would gladly burn to death if I get to stare into her blazing eyes while it happens.”

Hero: “But… but no, we can’t give up…”

Smitten: “It’s not giving up. It’s spending our final moments in what comfort we can muster. For both us and the Princess. She yearned for us even past her murder. If we’re to die together, don’t make her watch us scream and panic until our breath runs out. Let’s give her what she wants, here at the end. She’ll be worth it.”

Cold: “It’ll be different, at least. More interesting than bonking into a door over and over again.”

Hero: "...But..."

Smitten: “The fire will burn away the weight of our sin. Let it all go, dear fellow. She will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and together we’ll defeat death itself.”

Hero: “...Okay.”

· “Princess. If we are to die, then will you dance with me as we burn together?”

The Narrator: “The Princess croons happily. What do you think you’re doing?”

The Princess: “I knew you’d understand in the end, beloved. Let our bodies dance until they burn away, and then our souls will continue to dance into eternity.”

The Narrator: “Hand in hand, you walk down the stairs. Your feathers ignite, the flames leaping from one to the other. You hold each other through the intense heat, the Princess’s dry skin igniting too. Only her ruffled dress does not catch on fire as you begin your dance of the dead, yet there is a fire in her flesh inside.”

Smitten: “The petals she left for us billow in the fire’s currents. As we swing her around, her dress’s frilly train sweeps up yet more of them, more ash and more flames to form a blazing wreath around us as we dance through the flames that consume us. Has she ever looked more beautiful than in this moment? I wonder how we look right now. Fire makes many things look better.”

Hero: “W-we were handsome. And now the fire will burn that up too...”

Smitten: “Yes. But in this one moment, we are at our most beautiful.”

Cold: “It would have passed either way. The fire just accelerates time’s march.”

The Princess: “Your eyes… I’ve seen them look like that only once before, and they haunted me in death. This is not the end, beloved. You brought me back, and seeing those eyes again can only mean one thing. Our souls are destined to be together for eternity!”

The Narrator: “The fire has spread to the Princess’s hair, intense flaming trails following it as you spin in the inferno. All of your feathers are ablaze. Under normal circumstances, this would help protect you, your feathers burning so your flesh doesn’t. But in this sea of flame, it only draws out the agony, your body cooking inside its own pelt before your flesh too starts igniting. And yet you keep dancing with your destroyer as if the pain doesn’t matter to you.”

Cold: “Why would it? If we can endure joy, we can endure pain.”

Smitten: "She makes it all worth it."

· “Princess, before we die… I do love you. I thought I didn’t mean it when I said that, but I did.”

The Narrator: “A thin hand with skin reddening and fraying as the fire devours it caresses your cheek. Her eyes look into yours with the yearning a fire has for dry wood.”

The Princess: “Oh beloved. I know. I could see it in your eyes, both your doubts and your sincerity. You’ve been so confused this whole time, torn between me and the thing wrapped around your heart. Let it all go. Let the flame of our love consume it all as it consumes us.”

Smitten: “Our tears don’t fall, they boil away immediately. But it is enough that our beloved knows they were cried.”

· “I will. I’m sorry I brought us to this. You terrified me, once, and I did something horrible to you. I should be scared of you again now that you’re burning us, but… I’m not. Maybe we’re both the same. Maybe that’s why I love you, in the end.”

The Narrator: “The fire scorches your skin and the smoke fills your lungs, yet even as your eyeballs cook in their own fluids you have eyes for nothing but her ablaze form. Her skin burns and peels, distorted by her fat deposits underneath liquifying. Bare, weeping, cooking flesh is exposed to the incandescent air. Yet through the pain, you smile at each other, blazing petals, ashes, and flames billowing around you. The Princess’s eyes blaze brighter than any of the other fire.”

The Princess: “I will love you... in every life.”

The Narrator: “And then, as you whirl around each other one last time, she pulls you in close, your rotation speeding up, and she presses you against her flaming body. In the middle of a vortex of fire, her charred lips find yours. For the very first time you feel any kind of moisture to her touch, the juicy softness of molten fat as her lips caress yours and stick to them. The intense heat of the Princess’s burning body, her skin curling up and sloughing off, bare muscles cooking, is a strange comfort in the agony of your own burning flesh. What hair remains on her head falls over yours in your intense embrace, the flames running along the dry strands scorching yet further paths of pain into you. Pressed together as tightly as you are, bony fingers digging into the fresh, open burns on your neck and shoulders, there is still comfort in the softness of her chest pressed against yours, if anything even softer now with her body fat melting. The pressure makes liquid grease leak out of the once deadly wound you carved into her heart, spilling over your own disintegrating body. The blade’s red-hot pommel pokes you, but there is little more it can do to you now.”

Cold: “It killed us once, and it killed her once. But we never needed it to kill.”

The Narrator: “Every bit of you screams as your flesh is stripped away, your muscles stiffening as they’re cooked, your blood boiling in your veins. Your eyes melt out of their sockets. You can’t part, faces stuck together, what’s left of them melted into one. But even as the fire takes your nerves and your bones poke through what little is left of your flesh, even as you drown in the boiling blood filling your lungs, your tongues are still more protected from the flame than the rest of you. The last sensation you feel as you keep holding on to each other, keep finding a final comfort in your burning passion, comes from them; the pleasure of her kiss, her taste, your tongues’ embrace as all other sensation dies. It is the last thing you feel even as the end finally comes and you collapse on the ashen floor, together...”

Cold: “He’s gone, just like the pain. The fire took our nerves. It’s just numb now.”

Hero: “But the numbness is so much worse than the pain!”

Cold: “You’ll get used to it.”

Smitten: “Love remains in the end, just as she said it would. Our carbonised skeletons will be so tightly intertwined nothing can ever separate us again. It’s the happiest ending we could have dreamt of.”

## Afterword

End Notes

> If you're looking for something else to read, may I suggest Kiss the Cage? You may have missed it, since it was released over the holidays, but I think it's some of my best work.

> The illustration of Burned Grey's inner flame may be found at https://www.tumblr.com/vickysaurus-art/772837559034314752/kiss-the-burned-grey?source=share

> Let me know what you think of this story in the comments! Comments are the fuel that keeps my fire burning.

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