Author's Note:

Lately I've been obsessed with reading Lani's original, totally rockin' Twisted Fairy Tales. To everyone who hasn't read her stuff, you really should check her out 'cause she's awesome. You can find her in my Favorite Authors section, under the user name Angel with Raven Wings. Her Alice story was what first hooked me and I've been reading her stuff religiously ever since.

I thought I'd try my hand at my own dark fairy tale since I've got massive writer's block for my current big fic project, 'Eating of Empty Eyes'. For anyone who cares, I'm still working on it but I don't know when I'll be done ploughing through Part 18. In the meantime, I'm having a ton of fun with this shard of demented fluff. This story is loosely based on the tale of 'The Princess and the Pea', which used to be one of my favorite Fairy Tales when I'd been but a wee lass.

All the quotes I've used come from to some of my favorite Black Metal and Punk bands and belong respectedly to them. Well blah blah...enjoy!

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Step Forth Into My Stained Nightmare:

A Retelling Horrific of the Princess and the Pea

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PROLOGUE

As sick and twisted as it is

For Her corset laced with arsenic

Hides snake curves within Her midst

Whilst Her halo of white lies supplies

Her Temple to what God forbids.

~*~Saffron's Curse – Cradle of Filth~*~

Patricide.

Matricide.

Fratricide thrice.

The killing of one's own flesh.

Seek not to sin for beneath yonder Demon Sky shalt singe of thine flesh unclean.

Was there a name for the slaying of one's lover?

Homicide.

Simply put, the murder of a man. Lover included.

Mine Dead, I did Adorn

With flowers fair and Angel's hair.

But the thing that was, that which was beyond what horror she had executed, was her own suicide.

Suicide splayed, crunching over her body like broken glass.

Raylah Scyon, Princess of Ardeth and now sole living member of the Royal Lineage, remembered taking the task.

A butcher's knife stained with the soggy flesh and pink coils of wide-eyed animals. A blade made for slaughter and that which colored the splashing steel had no longer been of farm creatures but of blood Royal. She'd played the butcher, in gowns of grey and ribboning locks.

As though in pleasure, her body had flushed and heated upon kissing metal. There'd been moans, cut short by her cut. Her hand was true and through well-caressed skin she'd shorn. Slipping from her, down her front like a lover's seed, her hemorrhage had given forth an experience akin to cathartic release. It had been delicious, smearing like a green apple. Tart and sweet and juicy...so juicy.

Scarlet painted the night, painted the limits of her world and grew bold. With hazy eyes and drooling flesh, from afar she'd heard the voice of her dead lover.

"You will not rest again, Princess. Watch the night, watch in fright and cry in silent terror when decay beckons."

Liquid jade had closed, lashes sweeping down upon cheeks pale. Raylah slept toward death.

But some things weren't meant to be.