You dash at the princess and catch her unaware while she mulls over your warning.

In the end, her own hesitance and clumsiness does her in.

She shrieks as you move with lightning-quick reflexes and reach her on the landing. She readies her magic and teleports far enough to avoid you, but her wood-bound hoof catches on the stairs' edge. The performatively-tall okobo shoes slip and her hooves have no way to find purchase. She totters and starts to teleport again, but her head strikes against protruding bamboo and her body recoils with an equal and opposite force and she falls and impales herself on a sharp stick of bamboo. Blood trickles.

She lies on the bamboo, dying. "You--" she says, between chokes and bloodspurts. "You--"

"I killed you."

"You have slain the princess!" the narrator rejoices.

"This went far better than I could have guessed," the voice of the clumsy asserts.

"You remind me...", the dying princess sighs. "So fast... So loyal to your friend..."

"The narrator isn't my friend!"

"You trusted what... it... the first... to talk to you... said."

"It? Not he? They? Ey? Em?"

The princess gurgles and whispers something so soft you cannot hear.

You lean over the stairs' edge, to better hear her dying words.

"Don't do that--" the voice of the clumsy warns. "I'm not sure we're able to keep upright. What if a strong breeze blows?"

"We're inside."

"Even a gentle breeze could be deadly for us!"

"Maybe..." You straighten and move away from the edge.

"Just like... my friend... Rainbow Dash."

"Who?" you ask, although the name seems a bit familiar.

But she doesn't reply.

"Congratulations again," the narrator says. "And goodbye."

"Aren't you going to help me get out?" you ask.

"I never said I'd do that."

"You said I should slay the princess, which will save the world."

"And you did."

"And now I'm going to get my reward."

"We didn't discuss a reward... other than the obvious."

"Which is?"

"Saving the world."

The narrator's voice echoes obnoxiously, growing quieter and quieter until it disappears. You're left in the room with the royal corpse, a now-rotting smell and gentle music that has turned hauntingly discordant. The bamboo starts closing in on you. The door upstairs, though, has cracked open. You could make it to the top--if you don't fall.

"Come on, clumsy, don't curse me now."

"I'm trying not to!" the clumsy says.

"Try harder!"

"If you die, I die too!" the clumsy insists.

"If we can make it upstairs, we can get outside."

"I hope..." the clumsy's teeth chatter. At least they sound like they're chattering as much as a disembodied voice's teeth can. Your teeth chatter in sympathetic response.

You clamber on all fours, to better keep your balance, and, after a grinding and perilous climb, you make it to the summit, and crawl through the door. And you are back in the room with the mirror and the table that you neglected to carry. You reach for the table, which offers an easy hold to brace yourself on to stand. But the table slips, its legs buckle, and it collapses. You roll to the side, and the table falls down and collapses and slides past the doorway, falls down the stairs and clatters until it rests on the princess. Even though the narrator is gone, you realize you're still receiving narration, although the words are growing increasingly faint.

Huffing and puffing and heaving, you pull yourself completely through the door, then slam it shut with a kick from your feet. You turn and look at the mirror, which has become more visible. You see your mouth and your eyes and your hands--scaly, reptilian, with bloody claws that you could have used to tear the princess apart.

"Once again... this went better than expected," the voice of the clumsy relates.

You take a deep breath, rise to your feet and approach the door leading outside. You tug at its knob, but it doesn't open. You rage against the door for hours. Nothing happens. You turn to the mirror.

"Narrator!" you call--to no answer.

"Why am I a prisoner? Why treat me like the princess? What have I done?"

"Maybe you are treated this way... like the princess is... because of what you may do?" the voice of the clumsy suggests.

"But I killed the princess."

"Maybe that's the problem."

You sit and stare at the mirror--into your soul. You extend your feet and their claws prick the unsecured mirror and tilt it. Before you can react, it tips over and the last thing you see is the falling glass--the shattering glass, striking your head, shards penetrating your heart, your brain. You see your reflection in them, the princess' reflection, a crow's, and it's all fleeting, flying, gone.

And you die.

This is an end. There are others.

Author's Note

You have reached "an" ending.

Ending Type A: Slay the Princess
Ending Variation: "The Loyalist"

Play again from the beginning to reach another ending type and to unravel more of the mystery of what is happening.

Some key questions:
1. Why is the princess developing the way she is developing?
2. Why can't the princess leave the cabin... except when she can?
3. Why seemingly can't you stay dead?
4. What does the narrator really want? (Ending Ds give some insight into the narrator and its goals.)
5. Is there one or multiple universes?

Ending Types:
A. Slay the Princess
B. Free the Princess
C. Failure
D. Stasis