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“I love you.”
“And we love you, too.”
Your hand meets the doorknob. They place theirs on top of yours, fingers teasing, almost interlacing; soft, pale skin against leathery scales. You can feel the excited thrum of their pulse through the touch, and are certain they can feel yours, too. You’re both holding your breaths. You have stepped outside with the Princess before, and you think of those vessels now, but you know it’s different this time. It’s clearer. More final.
More real.
You give the door the slightest nudge, and it slips open without so much as a creak.
You and the Princess are at a cabin at the end of a path in the woods.
The first thing you notice is color— color, not just grey punctuated by the occasional sickening red of blood but blue and green and orange and you and the Princess gasp in unison, stumbling and blinking like newborn fawns in dawn’s first light.
You cling to each other for support, trying to regain your bearings. You’re both crying, and the Princess lets out a breathless laugh.
“W-we made it,” they gasp.
“It’s beautiful,” you breathe, and lean a little further into their warmth. You look at them, their pale white skin, white hair, white dress, grey eyes, silvery tiaras. You look down at yourself for the first time, finding your body a similar monotone; ashy grey feathers, lighter grey scales. The two of you are still the same colors as the construct you escaped from, but perhaps that only makes sense. The sky overhead looks like it’s on fire as the sun climbs in its ascent, burning away the endless silver stars and warming your bodies.
The two of you make your way down the steps from the porch on trembling limbs, two of your wings tented over their back, your claws still interlaced with their soft fingers. The wooden steps creak gently, then the gravely dirt underfoot crunches softly; you flex your toes and dig them into the soil, enjoying the feeling so much you barely realize the Princess is giving you a look, or more like a bunch of looks (multiple faces, you know)— until they burst out into giggles.
“Hey, it’s nice!” you protest. “Take your shoes off and give it a try, and then we’ll see who’s laughing!”
“It looks delightful,” the Princess says, a few of their other mouths still laughing.
Comfortable silence settles over the two of you again, though you still feel breathless; your chest is heaving as though you’ve just run a mile, and honestly? You feel as if you could run a few miles more.
“Come on, let’s go.” You take two of the Princess’ hands and spin them around in a gleeful circle, then begin to pull them down the path, giddy excitement quickening your steps. They let out a yelp which breaks up into another chorus of laughter, their strides accelerating into a run to keep up with you. You spin around, just one hand in theirs now, and raise your head to the wind, spreading your wings to feel it rushing through their feathers. You feel like you could fly; maybe you can. You feel so much more aware of yourself then you ever did before, even as the Long Quiet with the Shifting Mound. You can even feel a trail of feathers tapering off behind you, dancing in the wind.
Your tether to the universe is cut.
You and the Princess are free.
What you still can’t get over are the colors. There’s every shade of green and brown imaginable in the leaves and bark and earth around you as you and the Princess sprint down the path and leave the cabin behind, the rich hues of the forest bathed in the golden-orange light of sunrise, augmenting everything as though gilded. It feels like the birth of creation, like the world itself is being woven from starlight before your eyes. This beauty is more eternal than any divinity, you’re certain of it.
This time, turning away from the cabin does not ultimately lead you back to it. You’d felt the briefest flicker of terror when you’d first started off down the path, but you quickly release that dread when the trees begin to part, and it is not the cabin that you can make out through the thinning branches.
Really breathless now, you and the Princess come to a stop at the edge of a meadow, tall grass swaying with lavender flowers opening up before you. On the other side of the clearing, you can see a smattering of wooden-and-brick buildings; a village. You can see smoke rising from some of the chimneys.
You double over, chest heaving as you suck in air. One breath after the other. Ardent blood pumps through your veins. You feel the Princess place a hand against your side, steadying themselves.
“Are… are there really people over there?” they pant, looking up across the meadow. Their voices tremble with what might be trepidation. “This close? This easy?”
“It’s okay,” you say, not really sure if it is. “We can— totally do this. Um. If you’re ready.” Talking to people. Talking to people. A five-headed princess and a giant… bird… dragon… thing. How are the two of you, of all people, going to stumble through a social interaction with some random villagers?
The Princess hesitates. One of their faces hardens with determination, a few of their fists clenching; but fear is clear in some of their eyes, and still other hands come up to grasp at one another. “…We aren’t… sure if we are, just yet.”
You lean towards them, gingerly cupping some of their faces in your hands. They lean towards you in return. The two of you are vast celestial bodies, drawn together by your mutual gravity.
“Don’t worry. We have nothing but time.” You press your forehead to one of theirs. They reach up for you, taking fistfuls of ashy feathers, and you wrap them in your wings. “I promise.”
You spend the morning picking flowers. The sun has clambered to a perch high enough to let the sky fade of its gold, and now a pristine turquoise-cerulean bowl hangs upside-down over your heads. Speaking of which, the Princess’ tiaras are still perched on theirs, which strikes you with an idea.
“Hold still.”
They do so, looking up at you almost curiously as you approach them, a plucked violet pinched between your thumb and forefinger. You carefully weave the flower’s stem between the sparkling-clear gemstones and silver wires of one of their crowns. “Aaand there you go.” You tip your head down at them, cracking a grin. The rich, dark purple almost looks black against their white skin. It takes your breath away. They smile back up at you, and mischief glints in a few of their eyes. Your smile falls, but not with any real fear. “Oh, that look can’t be good.”
Before you know it, the two of you have matching flower crowns. And bracelets. And necklaces. And a few more bracelets and necklaces piled on top of those, you know, just for good measure. Little purple and yellow and pink and white flowers encircle your heads, wrists, and necks, bound with delicate green stems. The pollen tickles your nose and you can’t help sneezing, almost knocking your own flower crown loose, which of course elicits another chorus of giggles from your Princess.
“Well, I guess we’re the rulers of the field,” you chuckle, gesturing with a wing at your regal attire.
“We like that more than being rulers of the cabin,” the Princess murmurs sagely. Your mind flickers again to the table set with food, the looming shadow and the dousing torches. The resignation in the Narrator— the Echo’s voice. You understand now why He’d given up. He’d seen a glimpse of the future He hoped to bring when He created you, how hollow and meaningless it is to live a world without change. Even He had realized the end of the world was better than that. …Part of you almost mourns Him. What would He think of you and the Princess now, sitting in a field, giggling and pinning flowers to each other?
“Yeah, definitely,” you agree. The Princess notices your slouching, and you feel a hand firmly take yours.
“We know.” Those two words carry so much weight, so much meaning; every instant of pain and love and fear and confusion and determination and hopelessness and triumph and anticipation. They might even know you better than you know yourself.
You look up to see every one of the Princess’ faces frowning, some soft and worried, others with a hardness in their eyes. “But we’re out of there now. It’s over. You know that.”
You glance backwards at your tapering tail, at the trees, at the path snaking away into their leaves, ever shifting and turning over and rearranging in the breeze. The wind has begun to pick up, the air heavier, thicker somehow. There’s a storm coming.
“Is it, really?” Something still tugs on your spine, deeply rooted and inescapable. Those same threads that wove ending after ending, entangling shards of glass in endless strands. It doesn’t beckon you, but it’s still there. It doesn’t whisper for you to return to it, but if you wanted to, you know that you could. You catch a few of the Princess’ heads following your gaze, though some others refuse to. “You still feel Her, too, don’t you?”
They hesitate long enough before responding that by the time they finally do, you already know what they’re going to say. “…Yes.” It almost doesn’t scare you. “She’s… we’re still Her. A facet of Her, not the whole, but… but still a large piece of it.” A few of their hands reach up to some of their faces, some caressing it, some almost digging into skin. “Of all the vessels, this one is closest to Her. We’ve been Her the longest, and even on our own we still contain many perspectives.” All of their eyes suddenly focus, turning up to you with an unwavering stare. “We don’t know what happened to the rest of Her, though. We can’t hear anything, we just… know She’s still us, and we’re still Her. We’re still a shadow on the wall of the cave, an impression of a shape. And She’s still there, casting us.”
Your grip tightens on the hand they still have in yours, and a few of their mouths let out sighs while another almost cries. Their next words come out a mixture of choked, desperate pleas and quiet statement. “We don’t want to go back.”
“We aren’t going to,” you pull them closer to yourself again, enveloping them in your wings, and the scent of flowers fills your nose. It’s almost enough to smother the encroaching scent of blood, and metal, and stale wood, and damp earth, and nothing at all. You don’t sneeze this time. “We’re never stepping foot in that fucking place again.”
Your chest aches, and not just with the memory of a pristine blade sinking into flesh. You want to wrap the Princess in your wings and fly away from here and never feel any of this again— but that would just be going back to the Long Quiet. That would just be giving in to stagnancy.
Fuck that.
You squint your eyes shut, teeth gritted. Your head is so empty, every thought your own. There’s no voice to draw your attention away from yourself, no flurry of others’ suggestions and commands and observations to sort through. Just you. And you and you and you, stretching on and on and out and inwards and—
“Killer.”
“Dragon.”
“Hero.”
“Little Bird.”
“Quiet.”
Five voices speak five names, all yours, or at least ones others have given you. You return to yourself in this moment, tides of black drawing back from your mind. You force a wheezing breath through your lungs, blinking away tears. The Princess brushes one away with their thumb. “Hey. If you’re not letting us give in, we aren’t letting that happen to you, either.”
You nod, bringing your hand up to rest over theirs on the side of your face. You don’t say anything for a while, and a long quiet stretches between the two of you, somehow still bound together. Eventually your breathing steadies, and you feel through the Princess’ touch your hearts beating in unison.
You turn your eyes to the opposite end of the meadow, away from the path and the woods and the cabin. “I think it’s time to meet them.”
The two of you approach the edge of the village with the wariness of wild animals, eyes flickering back and forth for the slightest stirring, the slightest sign of trouble. You envy the Princess’ omnidirectional faces, but trust them to alert you the moment they notice anything amiss. Your hand is once again clasped with theirs.
You had to return to the path to enter; its dirt-and-gravel makeup solidifies into cobblestones and bricks underfoot, warm to the touch from the midday sun. The buildings are all simple in construction, wood and brick and mostly single-story. The architecture reminds you too much of the cabin, but you swallow thickly and force your head to quit spinning.
In the end, it’s you who spots the villager first.
He looks like an older man, pushing a cart loaded with sacks that, at least from what you can tell, appear to be filled with fruits and vegetables. He’s walking in the same direction as you and the Princess, and with his back to you and the cart’s wheels bumping along noisily over the stones, it’s clear he’s not yet aware of your presence.
Here goes nothing. You don’t release your grip on the Princess’ hand as the two of you cautiously approach, timing your steps just so to land when the cart is making the least noise. You cough at the same time, hoping to get his attention.
He turns around, and you realize with a start that there’s a speckling of teal scales across his face, as well as his arms and hands. His eyes are practically squinted shut, and he leans towards you with a frown. “Eh? Whozzat?” His voice comes out shrill, but not unkind. “Better not be you kids again— you should know better than picking on your elders, I say!” He shakes his fist a little.
You and the Princess can’t help but exchange a glance, both of you freezing up. You almost imagine a chorus of voices erupting in your mind, each blurting out what to do— almost. Instead your head remains achingly quiet.
“Well, speak up! It’s rude to stand and stare at an old man, you know.”
“Er,” the Princess manages, switching the hand holding yours so that they’re able to step forward a little more and gesture about, “I’m the Princess. This is—” The face that’s facing you and consequently out of the villager’s view gives you the most clueless, desperate expression you’ve ever seen, lips pulled back in a totally lost grimace. You realize they’re begging you to tell him yourself.
“G-Gary,” you stammer out. The Princess’ face gives you an almost exasperated look.
“Right,” they manage, speaking only with the face pointed towards him. “Gary. Our— we mean, uh— m-my— guard. Gary the guard.”
It becomes very clear to you very quickly that maaaybe, just maybe, the two of you might not have totally thought this plan through.
“The princess, eh?” The man uses his thumb and forefinger to hold one of his eyelids open, long enough for a sharp pupil sitting in a yellow-green sclera to look you and the Princess up and down. Your stomach drops. “And… Gary. The guard. Hmm.”
You gulp, but force yourself to remain stoic. By your side, the Princess similarly holds themselves still, though the face pointing your direction is giving you a look like we might have to run, NOW—
But then the elderly man draws back, straightening his back with an arthritic snap as his expression morphs smoothly into a big smile. “Well, I’ll be! Boy, you’ve grown— and what a lovely girl you’ve brought back with you, a princess? And you’re her guard? I’m impressed! Honestly thought your dabbling in… whatever it is you’ve been so absorbed with in that cabin of yours would deter any broads that might so much as glance your way, but it looks like you’ve really gotten yourself together! Glad to see you’ve proved me wrong!” And then he gives you a hearty slap on the back and offers you some free vegetables as a “welcome back to society” gift, which you and the Princess awkwardly accept.
“I’ll just have to tell Mildred about this,” the old man mutters loudly to himself, cheerily bobbing off down the road. “Our little Gary the hermit, finally coming out of his shell! And bringing a princess with him, no less! Wow, miracles really do happen…” And then he disappears around a corner, leaving you and the Princess in utter bemusement, standing with your arms full of tomatoes and carrots.
“…What just happened?”
The Princess’ faces are all screwed up in some variation of complete confusion, some more shocked, some just totally lost. “We… have no idea. Did… you pick the name ‘Gary’ on purpose?”
You shake your head, just as lost as they are. “No, I just— panicked, and it came to me. Could it be..?” You trail off, the realization dawning. “That old man. He knew about the cabin.”
A few of the Princess’ faces still look confused, but slowly realization—ranging from horror to shock to hatred to awe—spreads across each one. “He thinks you’re…”
“…the Echo.” The Narrator. The creator of the construct that bound the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound. The man who tried to kill death (among other things). Despite everything, you can’t help your chuckle. “His real name was Gary?”
There are a few faces that join in your amusement, but one actually glares at you, and the others quiet. “This is serious. That man thinks that you’re Him. Which means that He lived here, or at least in the cabin just outside of town, and other people here knew Him. People who probably have better vision than the man we just spoke to.”
You understand. The jig will be up the moment any other villager here lays eyes on you; and there will be questions, regardless of whether people with scales or strange eyes are normal in this world or not. You glance upwards, realizing the sky’s darkened. Thick grey clouds have begun to gather, tainting everything in familiar, muted tones. “Doesn’t seem like we have a whole lot of other options, though.” You could leave. But you have no idea how far the next pocket of civilization is, and you want to live in a world with other people in it. Also, you don’t really want to get caught in the approaching downpour.
The way the Princess looks at you tells you they’re thinking the same thing. “We don’t.”
“We can make this work,” you insist. “Maybe I can say I’m… His cousin, or something.”
“And what about us?”
You gaze into their eyes, considering. “Well, who do you want to be?” This is supposed to be a chance to start fresh. “I’m not going to choose for you.”
They hum, one of their arms coming up to stroke one of their chins. “It’s… hard to narrow ourselves down to just one thing. We’re the Princess. We’ve always been the Princess. We’re not sure if any other name works, at least…” Again, a few pairs of eyes glance up at you; others avoid meeting your gaze. “…Not without some outside perspective determining what we should be. Even now, we know we’re bending to your perception of us.” They hold up some of their hands, almost defensively. “I-it’s not nearly as extreme, but—”
“I understand.” You take their hands again, an action that never seems to grow old. “You can spend as much time thinking about it as you need to. If the villagers have questions about who we are, they can suck it.”
The first raindrop plops fatly at the end of your beak. Snout? Nose? Whatever it is. Your face is the one part of yourself you’ve still never clearly seen, but you can feel that it’s not flat. You think back to the N— Echo in the mirror, a raven with a beak full of teeth. Just how closely do you resemble Him?
“Okay, let’s just hurry,” the Princess begins to urge you along, scattering your thoughts in favor of keeping pace with them. You can’t help but tease them a little, trying to make light of the situation.
“What, is the big brave Princess scared of a little rain?”
“It’ll be your feathers that’ll take hours to dry out if we get caught in it,” they snap back.
“Fair point.”
The two of you dash down the street, all while the misting of a few raindrops slowly builds to a soft, steady patter. You spot a sign hanging over a nearby building’s door— THE COME ON INN. “There!” You and the Princess duck inside just as the steady patter rises to a persistent drumming.
Inside is lit by oil lanterns and a fireplace, filling the space with a warm glow that reminds you of the sunrise. It smells like cedar and tree sap, and the lobby has a cushy red rug, comfy-looking chairs, and a front desk in addition to the fireplace. A doorway to the right of the desk leads to a hallway where the inn’s rooms presumably are.
“Welcome, come on in from the rain,” a voice yawns. A tired-looking… cat person? looks up from the desk at you, her whiskers twitching, eyelids drooping. Suddenly alarmed, she quickly straightens up, brown fur puffing out. “Oh! Um, uh, one second—”
Then she seems to get a better look at the Princess, and her alarm turns to shock, verging on fear. “BY ALL THE STARS SHE HAS FIVE HEADS.”
You never thought that, of the two of you, the Princess’ appearance would be more startling to outsiders.
“Whoa, hey, don’t freak out,” you try to placate, taking a step forward. “Please?” As you do so, you notice the cat person has a little plaque on her desk— it reads TALIYA, INNKEEPER. “Are you Taliya?”
She glances between you and the Princess, seeming to realize that neither of you exactly look like her usual clientele. “…Yes,” she affirms wearily, turning her head to the side. “Do you… er, two… need a room..?”
The Princess nods, which is an odd gesture to watch them perform, stepping forward with a bold sharpness in their voice. “That would be lovely, thanks.”
“Mkay…” Taliya writes something down on a sheaf of paper. “One room, for…” She looks up again expectantly.
“Just put it under ‘Gary’,” you offer with a lopsided smile that apparently does nothing to soothe the innkeeper’s nerves, because she just eyes you even more suspiciously.
“You’re Gary?” Well, you were right about one thing— everyone in this town apparently knew the Echo. “I thought you’d be… shorter.” But to your relief, she just sighs and shrugs. “Five heads and six wings. You know what, I’ve seen stranger characters pass through here.” Taliya finishes writing and looks up one last time. “Alright, that’ll be sixteen tills.”
You and the Princess look at each other, once again mutually and utterly clueless.
“Your payment. For the room.” Taliya sounds slightly impatient. “Don’t tell me you’re broke.”
“Well, maybe—” The Princess gingerly touches one of their tiaras. Their fingers feel for one of the larger gemstones set in it, dancing around the flower crown that still rests on their heads, not yet wilted. They find their target and, with expert precision, pry it from its place and hold it out to examine, letting the firelight dance across the facets of its face. It’s pristinely cut, and about twice as big as a marble. “Would this cover it?”
Taliya’s eyes go wide, pupils huge and dark. She holds out a paw, and the Princess drops the clear jewel in it. She holds it up, looking it over closely.
“…Y…yeah, this should cover it.” The innkeeper’s voice lilts with awe. She doesn’t take her eyes off of the stone as she fumbles for a room key behind her and hands it off to you. When you thank her, she just mumbles a sort of “uh huh,” and waves you on your way.
“Well, that could’ve gone worse,” you murmur to your Princess as the two of you reach your room. “…That gem isn’t magic or hypnotizing or anything, is it?”
The Princess makes a face—five faces, really—and shrugs. “Not on purpose. It’ll probably be fine.”
“That’s not very reassuring, Your Majesty,” you tell them. Anger flares in many of their eyes.
“Well then you go and do better!” Their clenched fists immediately fly up to their mouths, as though horrified by their outburst. “Oh no, we didn’t mean—”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Flashes of red threaten to run rampant in your mind, but you force them down. They’re allowed to be angry. In fact, you realize, part of you is almost still waiting for the other shoe to drop on their forgiveness. After everything you did to each other, all the pain you inflicted, can a short talk really remedy everything just like that? There’s still tension between the two of you, violence and hurt that can’t be rescinded.
They still cling to your hand, though, and you make no effort to let go as you insert the key and hear the lock click. The door, made of dark wood, pushes open to reveal a quaint little room similar in style to the lobby; there’s another red rug and comfy chair, but also a bed, nightstand, and in the corner a wall that hides from view… a bucket.
Right. Using the bathroom. That’s a thing. You still screw up your face in mild disgust, but it looks like the bucket gets cleaned in between stays, or at least was cleaned since the last time someone used it. A basin filled with water sits adjacent to the bucket, over which a sign reads REFILL AT FRONT DESK.
“Doesn’t look like there’s a bath,” you observe with a pang of disappointment. Then again, you’re not terribly grimy. Aside from some scuff marks on the Princess’ dress from the floor of the basement and some of the dirt kicked up on the path, neither of you are looking too worse for wear despite the ordeal you’d just been through.
“Is it strange to say we feel like we could go to sleep right now? We know She was asleep for… a long time before awakening, but… wow, it’s been a long day.” They huff out a half-laugh, half-sigh.
As long as you don’t feel cold, you almost say, but bite your tongue. Even though you’d mean it, it seems in poor taste. That’s another fear you’ve had— that She was going to reclaim this fragile vessel once you got far enough, just as She always does. But that’s not going to happen this time. It’s not.
“No, it’s not,” you say instead, allowing your body to droop. “I’m exhausted, too. We’ve been through a lot.”
That seems like enough justification for your Princess, who promptly kicks off their shoes, practically rips their tiaras off (the only care taken is to avoid dislodging their flower crowns), and flops on the bed in the least princess-ly way imaginable. Due to the nature of their form, one of their faces winds up buried in the pillow— but they just let out a loud, dramatic sigh into it, a cathartic sound that makes you immediately clamber into bed next to them, folding your body carefully around theirs so as not to disturb their position.
“Oh, wow.”
The bed is by no means the most comfortable one in the world, but it might as well be heavenly clouds to your sore body. You melt into the mattress, allowing every limb to ache with unfiltered exhaustion as you let out a sigh of your own.
Your Princess flops an arm over you, and you do the same to them with one of your wings, not even bothering to expend the energy required to pull a blanket over yourselves.
Your mind turns foggy almost immediately, a thick black curtain rising up to cloud all of your thoughts.
That first blissful night of freedom, you are too tired to even dream.