The night the goblins stormed the castle, Irenie's heart was pounding uncontrollably as if it was about to part her ribs. She was small, so small, once again a child of eight and the world was crumbling all around her as the dreaded goblins rose up from the mountain and overtook the castle.

A bang from her room door erupted in the princesses' ears and she spun out of her chair, her tiny heart beating so much faster it hurt. However, when she saw who it was that entered her private sanctuary, tears nearly leapt from her eyes.

"Curdie! You're here!" she exclaimed, running to him with both arms outstretched. They wrapped him in a tight embrace but the boy was almost wriggling to get out. "Irenie, the goblins are here."

Curdie brandished the enormous sword in his grasp as he pulled back to the door, but swords and other weapons never really did all that much damage to a goblin if you couldn't hit their feet.

"You have to stay in your room, lock your door," he said, trying to put a smile on his features. "I'm going to help fight them off."

Irenie's chest became too tight for her to bare now. "Can't I come too?" She pleaded helplessly. The princess would have stayed in her room or gone with Curdie to the very deepest places of the goblin infested castle, but she couldn't be alone. Why did she feel like such a coward? Always hiding behind people like she had been hiding in her room.

"No, you have to stay here, where it's safe." Curdie spun back on his heel and nodded firmly to the princess. Still, she had been sort of glad Curdie had asked her to stay behind.

Princess Irenie took several steps out of her room. They seemed so small at the time, she hadn't even thought about some shadow slinking past her senses. She was so on edge she thought even a scurrying mouse would have made her jump.

"You will come back, won't you?" Irenie asked, her tiny legs shivering. She wanted him to catch her, for someone to catch her, because she was going to fall.

Curdie flashed a daring smile and rose his sword above his head like a proper, courageous knight. "I'll be back... and that's a promise!"

But then he was gone and Irenie quickly backed into the room, her hands shaking as they locked the door. Blurry shapes that were indeed the key in her hand and the door handle swam in her vision as she tried to hold back tears.

She should have been braver than this! Irenie wiped a hand over her eyes and turned back to her vanity and mirror. She was the princess! She should have been brave...

Irenie's eyes went to the mirror, expecting to see the sad, whimpering reflection, however, that wasn't all her mirror revealed.

It was like watching through a window except on the other side there was a girl that looked exactly like her and behind the girl was the most horrifying creature she had ever seen. Irenie wanted to cry out, to warn the girl in her vanity mirror.

A small whimper escaped her mouth, and princess' eyes went white with fear. The goblin standing behind her grinned gleefully, the peculiar pink hair bristling as he leaned nonchalantly against the stone frame of her door.

Irenie spun around to see Prince Froglip, the same one she and Curdie had escaped when they had been trapped in the mountain.

Except there wasn't any Curdie now.

A scream leapt out of Irenie's mouth. But no one would hear it. Everyone else was fighting off their own goblins and it was just her and the Prince of Nightmares behind a door she, herself had locked.

The goblin prince let out a snicker, his claws gleaming in the candlelight. He took several steps towards Irenie, his long strange feet scraping the stone floor as Irenie dragged hers back and screamed again, but the sound rung emptily in the room.

The prince stopped and she stopped, mimicking him. "In combat the goblin woman goe'th, fir'tht." The young goblin prince cackled, his smile gleaming eerily since it looked like half his front teeth were broken. They were both frozen for such a long time it felt like someone should have at least tried to check up on the princess by now. Of course, they were all probably still fighting, but she needed them. Their princess needed them.

"But I thuppose I can begin if you want." Prince Froglip said before curling in on himself, looking ready to pounce.

A stifled cry hit Irenie's mouth but she bit back on the response and grabbed the nearest thing -her rocking horse in this case- and threw it at the prince as best she could. It went barely above knee height and just missed the prince's shins and toes. What she would have given if he could have been but five inches closer.

However, standing where he was, the prince dodged the wooden horse effortlessly. He was nimble and quick like none of the other goblins Irenie had ever seen. The prince's eyes peeled themselves away from the horse he had just avoided and went slowly to Irenie, a smile curling on the sides of his horrific face.

"Ladie'th fir'tht, then," the young goblin smiled widely as he swept out one leg and leapt forwards.

Irenie screamed again, but managed to flee from the antechamber to the bedroom, just missing the prince by a hair. She grabbed a vase from one of the tables and ran to her bed so it could separate him from her.

The princess held the vase defensively as Prince Froglip smirked at her from the other side and swaggered towards it.

"Ith that your battle cry? You ought to be making it louder and deeper!" The prince laughed maniacally before he bellowed at her with those frightening teeth exposed and a grin pulling tight on his lips.

Irenie screamed again and while the goblin was roaring, she threw the vase at him with all her might. It would have surely hit him. Prince Froglip clawed at it mid-air and the clay went crashing into the wall instead, where it broke into a hundred pieces.

"You're not a bad fighter for a thun girl," Prince Froglip hissed from the other side of the bed, his claws cutting through the mattress like water, making ribbons out of the fabric. Again, he launched himself at the princess, but Irenie was at the very least determined to keep him from coming anywhere near her. She managed to drag the bed curtains forward and threw them at the prince who was wrapped in their gold instantly.

The princess backed away thinking that she might at least be able to unlock the door before the prince escaped, but alas, he tore that to shreds as well and found her instantly with those awful, yellow eyes.

He was grinning wildly now as Irenie ran to the door, her skirts thrashing about. She hit the surface and scrambled with the key, the prince's ugly face in the back of her mind.

She didn't have enough time.

Two hands on either side of Irenie's head hit the wooden door with a thud causing the oak to shudder.