CHAPTER THREE
An Afternoon of Prophecies and Eye Color
Mom led the old wizard Faylorn into the cottage, but she ushered Em into a bedroom and locked the door behind them.
Her bewildered expression hadn’t changed since the wizard arrived, despite her telling Em to settle for any story earlier; she’d finally seen the awful truth about stereotypical concepts.
“I can’t go with him!” Em explained in a whisper scream, dragging her hands down her face. “If this cliché of an adventure became my debut—fuck, I’ll be ruined. No Great Author would ever want to write me in a book again.”
“You can’t know that,” Mom argued.
Em moaned, too upset to continue their previous bickering. “But how do I get out of this? How’d the fuck did I get chosen?”
“Language,” Mom snapped.
“I think after everything that just happened, I get a pass right now.”
“I don’t even know how to guess why you were chosen. It’s never simple.” Mom slumped against a cedar chest, massaging her temples. “But from my experience, you can’t opt out of a plot whenever you want. Especially not if you’re a Chosen One.”
“Why the hell not?” Em demanded. “None of my teachers ever taught me that.”
“I heard rumors of Main Characters who refused adventures they were given,” Mom whispered. “They either died some tragic way or went home, never to be written without having another story come their way. Or worse, were sent to Fan Fiction Theaters.”
Em’s heart fell. “But if I join this story as you said, I’ll be stuck trying to survive a cliché plot that the Great Authors might not ever write because a hundred other plots identical to this one already exist.”
“Maybe ask about what he has to offer?” Mom asked.
“Hell no!”
“What else do you do?” Mom shrugged. “You were whining about having nothing earlier, but now you have a chance.”
Em opened her mouth but couldn’t find an answer. She clamped her jaw shut.
All around her bedroom were signs of her carefully curated life—her button collections, self-embroidered skirts, maps of Novella, and entomology posters.
Em had done everything she could to not associate herself with cliché traits or tropes like many of her classmates, but somehow, this basic archetypal wizard picked her.
She wrinkled her nose at the notion. How in Novella is this happening to me?
You asked for it.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Mom said. “Maybe the wizard’s adventure won’t turn out to be as cliché as it appears right now.
Surely there’s a plot twist waiting to happen.
But if this is chapter one, then I know you’re currently wasting any opening hook to your plot by hiding in your bedroom arguing with your mom. ”
Actually… It’s Chapter 3. But I guess I’m the only one who would notice that.
Dammit. Em flung her hands in surrender. “I hope you’re right.”
“Take this with you.” Mom handed her a small pocketbook. In swirling script of gold-leaf letters, the title Main Character’s Guidebook to Plots and Tropes stared back at Em.
“I’ve used this manual for all of my plotlines whenever I’m stuck in a pickle,” Mom said. “It will have everything you need to get through this.”
“I read that like five times my sophomore year.”
“But it’ll make more sense now that you’re experiencing a Main Character life firsthand.” Mom poked the book corner against Em’s arm with a smirk until she took it. “Plus, it’s travel-sized.”
“Thanks.” Em slipped the book into her skirt pocket. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be a need for it. Her future depended on whatever lackluster information Faylorn had waiting for her beyond the bedroom door.
“Maybe it won’t be too terrible.” Mom said as Em gripped the doorknob, bracing herself to exit and face the stereotypical wizard musing in the living room.
“Who knows?” her mom went on, “Maybe something original is hidden in this story, like you wanted. Maybe the wizard is pretending to be a mentor when he really needs a trainer. Never jump to conclusions about stories.”
“Maybe.” Em doubted it. She followed Mom from her bedroom, fiddling with her fingers in thought.
Maybe, just maybe, Mom was right. Her career as a Main Character depended on it. But most likely not. Everything she’d been taught at Sanderson said otherwise; this adventure required a hell of a miracle if its initiator was as cliché as Faylorn.
I can’t let this nonsense ruin me.
Faylorn of Rowling, Institute of Magics, grinned at her from across the cottage by the living room fireplace. He motioned for her to join him. “We have much to discuss, Miss Em Smith.”
“No shit.” Em sat on the floor in the doorway, keeping as much distance as possible between them, hugging her knees.
The wizard proceeded to give Em a boring, informative lecture about his entire life story over a plate of cherry-caramel taffy. Apparently, he liked to eat what the octopi-people and ninja hobbits ate because the candies were gone in seconds.
Her parents’ trophies and plaques throughout the room loomed over her as if to call Em a failure.
Something in her dreams or her childhood must’ve brought this stupid, stereotypical fate upon her.
Could it have been having a childhood best friend like Gair?
Was it the fact that she preferred Fantasy genres over Contemporary?
Had she missed a different beginning to another adventure?
No, I’m just mean and like torturing my characters. Like any good author would.
Dread twisted her stomach as Em endured Faylorn’s incessant droning about his research on Chosen Ones.
There had to be a way out of this. A loophole.
A miswrite somewhere. She’d worked too hard throughout her childhood for her debut to surrender this easily.
Mom had to be wrong about needing to settle.
Em was an original person; she deserved an original plotline.
“And so, after years of searching, I realized that you indeed were chosen, Em Smith,” the wizard concluded his info-dump. “You’re the Almighty Queen of Stars, Princess of the White Rose Valley, and Heir to the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower.”
“And you’re one hundred percent sure of this?” Em chewed her cheek.
Faylorn raised a bushy eyebrow. “Did you not listen to anything I just told you?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Hm, yes, well, um…” The wizard cleared his throat.
“Just give me the summary,” Em said. “Cut to the chase.”
“I know you’re a Chosen One because only Chosen Ones have the rare physical trait of green eyes,” Faylorn explained. “The mages and wise ones from the Rowling’s Institute of Magic’s knows this to be a fact.”
Fuck this shit. Em knuckled her eyes, wondering how painful it would be to gouge them out and chuck them at the wizard. At least she wouldn’t have to look at his stupid, cliché face anymore.
“So, lemme guess… there’s a dark lord in a tower I must destroy, right?” she asked sarcastically.
“You’re a wise lass,” Faylorn said. “And according to your prophecy, we must destroy him with a secret stone found in Brolzross the Nocturnal’s cavern. It was taken from the great dwarven lords Nedroic Beastpike and Sardrumlir Metalbender ages ago.”
“And Brol– how do you pronounce his name?”
“Brolzross.”
“Yeah. That.” She sniffed. “Are you sure he’s a dragon?”
Please be a griffon, a harpy, or even a vampire.
“The worst of all dragons.”
“Shiiiiiiiiiiiit.” Em leaned on a side table and hid her face in her arms. Her forehead slipped, bumping against the wall, and her parents’ fan art rattled in their frames overhead in disappointment.
“The prophecy and astronomical celestials all aligned for you, Em. It’s why I was sent to fetch you. Let me prove to you that it is indeed the truth,” Faylorn went on to recite:
A young girl with green eyes from a camel farm will destroy Kriqir the Living, the dark overlord necromancer who overtook the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower.
She’ll become Queen, aided by a mentor who will probably die and resurrect as a ghost.
Three other adventurers will join her for growth, dialogue, and future fans. Among these three, Side Characters shall be her One True Love.
Though she will doubt herself, the Almighty Queen of Stars, Princess of the White Rose Valley, and Heir to the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower will rise and take back everything that was once hers.
She will prove her worth through this prophecy.
She will redeem the world.
She will find love.
In the end, she will defeat Kriqir the Living and take back the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower and become the greatest hero Novella has ever known.”
“That doesn’t even rhyme,” Em grumbled.
“Don’t you see?” Faylorn beamed underneath his wide-brimmed wizard hat, oblivious to her fuming. “You were Chosen!”
“I know. You keep saying that.” She motioned for him to slow down. “But how come I’m the Chosen One?”
“Because you were chosen.”
“But why?” Em pushed. “Why not someone else?”
Faylorn blinked and didn’t reply.
Great. No Great Author in all of Novella would want to publish this shitty story.
This adventure already broke one of the simplest tropes she’d identified in her class final that morning: a main character is prophesied, but there’s no backstory or explanation why this person, in particular, is capable.
Em stared at the fireplace’s flames, her blood simmering to a near boil.
The mesmerizing heat and glowing flicker soothed her disappointment.
Maybe, somehow, something would flip with a major plot twist. Maybe this was a test, and she needed to cling to hope as Mom suggested.
Maybe she could still find a loophole and get out of this.
“What have I been chosen for?” she finally asked.
“An important quest.”
Em’s groan escaped before she could swallow it.
Quests were the easiest, most amateur stories to complete.
The simple tasks of riding into the sunset to find a treasure were a pastime to many of Novella’s bored Main Characters.
Her dad loved to roam along the borders of the dystopian Bradbury City for weekend Side Quests.