A Chapter of Banter and Poetry
It took almost ten minutes to convince Roden Trislee to bury himself under a pile of gold and keep out of sight. He’d refused to leave Em’s side until she snapped that he was more useful hiding with the prophecy sword in case something went wrong.
Sasha had disappeared without another word, likely keeping a keen eye out for Polo as the imp hunted somewhere in the hoard of treasure for the relic.
This meant Em was alone, standing thigh-deep in gold.
She took in a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t about to be her last.
“Brolzross!” Em kicked and threw handfuls of coins, disrupting the glimmering trove as much as possible. The clatter of rolling metal echoed throughout the lair in harmony with her screaming. “Wake up, sleepy head!”
The world shifted.
Em flailed to keep her balance as the gold tugged at her legs from all sides. Treasure rolled in spilling waves throughout the cavern, the rattling and clinking growing louder. The piles shed their gleam to reveal blood-red, scaled muscles beneath the hoard.
A metallic tinge of blood filled her nose.
A massive, ruby-colored dragon unfurled and loomed over her. His snout sneered to reveal chipped fangs, and his crown of crested scales rose like peacock feathers. Brolzross’ fiery eyes locked on her, the slit pupils narrowing.
“Who dares to throw my treassssssure?” The dragon’s deep voice boomed through the chamber. His plated chest puffed. Streams of dark smoke wavered past his flared nostrils. The beds of gold quivered around him.
Em swallowed, blinking tears from her eyes. Somehow, she spoke past her numb, quivering lips. “I dared.”
“Foolish mortal!” Brolzross bellowed. His neck swayed slithered closer to her. Heat emanated off his scaled body.
Em wiggled her toes in her boots, heart shriveling. She struggled to keep her gaze focused with his, and not the dragon’s arm-length claws and razor teeth.
There’s nothing to fear. He’s just another trope.
Still, her pulse raced, hammering in her chest, begging her to run away and find safety.
“Doth thou know whost am I?” Brolzross growled.
Temptation itched at Em to get the serpent to brag about himself, but a monologue would be cliché. Besides, Gair was probably dozing at this rate.
Cut to the chase.
“No!” She shouted up to the dragon. “We’ve never met.”
“I knowth who thou art. Thy eyes are green. Thou art a Chosen One.” Brolzross hissed. “A slave to Wood Elves, curse them.”
“You’re absolutely correct,” Em bragged. “I’m the Almighty Queen of Stars, Princess of the White Rose Valley, and Heir to the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower, wielder of Destiny’s Song, Reaver of Diligence!”
Please don’t ask to see the sword.
It was still buried somewhere with Roden under all the gold.
Brolzross snarled past the saliva webbing on his lips. Everything quivered with his rumbling growl.
“I’ve come to steal your relic, Brolzross!” Em shouted. “And there’s a whole army of Wood Elves right on your doorstep, wearing pompous golden armor and singing of your prophesied destruction!”
She crossed her fingers behind her back, holding her breath for the dragon’s reaction.
If she’d actually been with Elves, he would’ve smelled them before she even announced it—then there’d be a stereotypical huge battle and a party at the end.
But not this time. She hoped Roden’s proximity was enough to trick Brolzross into believing her lie so the dragon would exit the lair.
“Foolish mortal!” he sneered. “My armored scales and extensive wingspan art too strong for even a thousand Elves to pierce.”
A distant jingle of shifting coins warned Em she was running out of time. Somewhere behind the massive dragon, Polo dug through the troves for the relic—thankfully out of sight. She needed to lure the dragon out of his lair before Brolzross realized the Chosen One was a mere distraction.
“Well, they disagree,” she shouted back. “The Wood Elves said you’re puny, and weak, and… a brainless bitch.”
“WHAT?” The dragon roared, a fiery glow swelling along his throat. The smoke streaming from his nostrils darkened, and a few sparks flickered out. Em cringed against the heat boiling throughout the cavern. The reek of her singing eyebrows flooded her nose.
“Yep.” She grinned past the shakiness in her voice, motioning toward the mountain’s entrance. “And they’re right outside. Just waiting to kill you.”
Brolzross crouched, a low rumble shaking through his inflamed chest. “Thou wast foolish to inform me of their presence with thine pompous arrogance.” He let out a deafening roar, and a shudder ripped through Em’s core.
She stumbled to keep her balance, cringing.
“Now I shalt smite them and consume their blood!”
That’s what you think, she covered her grin.
At the slap of his veiny wings, the dragon launched from his golden mounds. Metal rattled in his wake. His tail swished through the oceans of treasure as he prowled to the exit. Brolzross’s lanky body slithered as he made his grand exit with another ear-shattering roar.
A storm of treasure flung through the air, bouncing off the cave walls and vaulted archways. Gold smacked against her body, pelting her like hail. Stinging agony bit at Em from all sides. She screamed and ducked away from his flapping wings.
Reality became nothing more than a shimmering blur. Her skin was cut by sharp objects, stinging and smeared with blood.
Shit, shit, shit! Em thrashed in a weak attempt to protect herself from the onslaught.
Somewhere in the chaotic distance, Roden and Sasha’s yells were muffled in the clamor.
A force slashed at her from behind.
The world flipped as stars shot across her vision.
Em collapsed in the gold, pain exploding across her back.
She spluttered out a cough, choking on her own hot blood.
It splattered across her torn dress, and she spat it from her lips with a moan.
Air was cut off from her lungs. An ache swelled through her mind, colors flashing across reality as everything blurred and melted together. Her ears rang.
Agony gripped her side.
Shit. I think I broke a rib. Em rolled onto her stinging stomach.
Ahead, Brolzross’ tail waved mockingly at her after apparently knocking the wind from her. The rest of the dragon wriggled free from the cavern, his booming voice deafening.
“How dare they challenge me!?” Brolzross roared for the countless, painful time.
Em screamed and covered her tortured ears, curling into an excruciating fetal position, cushioned by golden coins.
“I shalt bring them a swift end! I shalt destroy thy Elven soldiers, Chosen One, then I shalt kill thee and end this cursed prophecy!”
“I found it!” Polo’s faraway shout faded at the end of her tunneling consciousness. “The dragon relic!”
Thank Novella. Em let darkness swallow her.
A vision flashed across Em’s consciousness.
Great, another damn dream scene, she thought bitterly. Could my Great Author at least try to become somewhat fucking original?
Before her lay a snowy landscape burdened beneath thick sheets of ice.
Sharp blizzard winds swept across the scenery.
If she were able to, Em would’ve winced.
But once again, the cliché, telepathic dream from her Author left her formless.
She was nothing but a floating soul in the furious, wintry storm.
Barren pine trees bent in the gales, and gloominess hung over everything.
In the far distance, quiet violin music wept through the storm.
Wedged between jagged mountains loomed a solid wall of cement, nearly as tall as the peaks. Thin layers of snow clung to the wall’s smooth, glistening surface. Splattered graffiti spread along its side:
FOURTH.
The eerie flicker of bluish spotlights shone on the singular word. An ominous pressure closed in on her, as if the strange wall was trying to blow her far away into the blizzard from itself.
The desolated, frozen atmosphere and ghostly wall were foreign to any of Em’s background knowledge of Novella. She’d never seen something so otherworldly before.
Why are you showing this to me? She wondered to her Great Author.
“I need you to understand why I’m writing your story,” I told her through our joint thoughts. The words I typed across my keyboard entered her mind as if I had whispered into her ear. Like I was hovering beside her over the WALL.
The blurred edges of our crossing realities nearly crack.
I fought to keep Novella contained behind the FOURTH WALL and within my computer.
I didn’t need my imaginary fantasy world leaking into my own.
But I needed her to understand why I made the choices I did, why her plotline existed the way it did, why she was so important to me.
So, I typed up my jumbled emotions into a poem within the draft that Em existed.
Through our linked consciousness, she was able to experience and feel the words:
my childhood hopes are shattered.
I am not good enough.
but, good enough for what?
good enough to go dream?
what’s there left to dream,
while tears burn my eyes?
I may never ever succeed,
as so many told me
their positive words are poisonous.
they don’t want to help,
they mock my creative life.
“be sure to never dream”
I’m slowly learning their ways,
trapped in cages of work,
which devours at my passion
reality screams in my ears,
I cannot be good enough.
always failing and always rejected.
I’m lost to a cage,
tangled in their expecting chains,
left in dust to wonder,
why I started at all?
my words are not enough.
my soul says to finish,
to write and to persist.
my friends always encouraged me,
they always gave me hope,
always told me to fight.
“believe in yourself. Go write.”
Write: words, stories, worlds, people
my favorite are my characters,
they’re so complicated, so close.
wherever I go, they go
friends, siblings, and children altogether.
go write? Okay. I will.
“the promising book,” you said.
I’m trying to love again,
without needing to be perfect
making reality and dreams merge.
and so, I created Em.
“Who are you?” Em asked in the echo of my prose.
“My name’s Stephanie, if you really need to know,” I said. “I’m just a girl with her head in the clouds, wishing she could create something important enough to make a difference for other people. But instead, I’m stuck at home worrying about grad-school GPAs and taxes.”
The fracturing division between our realities wavered. I was already risking a lot by reaching over the FOURTH WALL to connect with her.
“So,” Em’s heart would’ve sunk if she were still attached to her body. Despite being a formless soul, she managed to shudder in the icy chill. “You’ve never actually published a book before?”
“No,” I admitted, bitterly. “I’ve written dozens of wasted words trying to land a deal, but unfortunately, I’ve never been able to write something interesting enough to catch a literary agent’s eye. I’ve never ‘made it.’ Just like you.”
“Are you telling me that you’re not actually a Great Author?” Em exclaimed.
“I’m just a writer,” I explain. “Maybe some would say I’m an author; just not a successful one.”
“Why the hell are you telling me any of this?” Em demanded. “You’re not exactly making me feel better about being stuck with you.”
“I can’t have you ruin my story, Em,” I told her. “It’s mine.”
“It’s my life,” my Main Character retorted. “And you’re fucking ruining it on your own anyway.”
“Yes, I’m aware. I created you.” I smiled past my annoyance, and although she couldn’t see it, I rolled my eyes from my side of the FOURTH WALL.
“But I need you to behave and follow the plot like a good character. I’m trying my hardest to reconnect with my love for writing—but you’re making it awfully difficult for me.
Consider this questline as like an author’s therapy project. ”
“A therapy project?” Em practically exploded through my laptop screen. “My entire career as a Main Character, everything I’m fighting against, is just a damn therapy project for yourself? You’re heartless!”
“I’m a writer. It’s an occupational hazard.”
“Sasha was right,” Em’s voice cracked with a threatening sob. “And I really wanted to prove her wrong.”
“If you want to make this story your own, you have to come take it from me,” I said.
“Is that a fucking challenge?” Em bristled.
“Sure,” I shrugged. “You want to be your own author? Come get my draft. I’d love to see you try to manage character arcs, plotlines, and world-building.”
“You mean it?”
“Yeah, girl.” I laughed. “Hop over the WALL and come get it. If you manage to break between dimensions and cross over into my world, then the story is yours.”