He lights himself on fire again when the little ones try to swarm him. Otherwise he mostly ignores it all.

They switch to suicide tactics. Collapsing buildings on him, destroying bridges between him and the castle, flinging everything at him, all at once.

The city runs out of things to throw at him before he gets to the castle.

He smiles.

When he arrives, the dragon is trying to claw its way into the castle, to little effect. There are claw marks on the castle, especially at the front door, but evidently, the dragon was unable to enter.

"It's not supposed to be this way," he hisses, desperation coloring his voice. "Damn it, let me in, I can still fix this, I can wake her up, I just need to -"

"Just need to what?" he calls.

The dragon freezes. He turns his head to look at Siran with his only working eye.

"... What does it matter," he growls, "kissing her might as well be as impossible as killing you, you fucker, you've ruined everything. I could have fixed this!"

"What the fuck d'you think you're fixing?"

"Everything! The curse, this stupid body, her slumber - we were going to have forever, and now, it was all for nothing."

"This bride of yours," he says. "Has she, like. Met you."

"She would have forever to learn to love me," he hisses, which is an answer, isn't it. "She's mine."

"I contest your claim."

"Over my dead body!"

The dragon wreathes himself in lightning and launches himself at Siran.

"Happy to oblige," he says, igniting again and meeting the dragon's charge with a swing of his sword.

'Over his dead body' is relatively easy, really. He has an impressive healing factor, but it doesn't compare to Siran's.

What a pathetic dragon.

He yanks his sword out of the corpse and walks toward the castle.

The large set of double doors loom above him, scratched with years worth of clawmarks and sturdy in spite of them.

Then, with a rumble, they open.

Siran walks in.

He almost expects a trap, but - it wouldn't feel right.

Nothing jumps out at him from the shadows, though once he's through, the doors do shut behind him.

One set of corridors is lit. All of the others are shrouded in darkness.

Sure, he'll take the path he's shown. This castle hasn't done anything to piss him off yet, unlike the rest of the city.

The castle does nothing to piss him off, except maybe send him up a number of stairs.

An excessive number of stairs.

...the stairs are a bit much, but maybe it's feeling generous enough to put a bed at the end of them.

At the top of the tallest tower, lit unnaturally in a soft rosy pink glow and with a bright blue spotlight of light, is a large, comfortable looking bed.

It's got a girl in it.

She's very pretty, sleeping soundly on the far side of the bed, hands clasped over her chest. She doesn't stir at all at his entry, still as death itself.

...he blinks at her.

"If I'm supposed to kiss you," he says, "you're going to have to wait a few more hours."

And then he tosses his sword onto the floor and flops on the bed and is asleep almost immediately, nestled upon soft puffy blankets.

If she has any complaints, she's certainly not voicing them.

Peacefully, she sleeps on.