Chapter 37 A Side Quest of Reunification and Apologies
Em’s Subtitle: Getting My Shit Together
Reality blurred together, and smoky air cut into Em’s lungs.
She let out a gasp, jolting upright. Frigidness bit into the core of her bones, and she shivered.
The fields of melting snow, prickled with grass breaking through the slush, surrounded her.
Behind her, the FOURTH WALL stood, feeling less ominous or overbearing.
Instead, as she craned her neck to examine it, it felt like safety.
Finally, relief filled her. Gone was the dreaded weight of responsibility for her world.
Stephanie held that power again. Em could just focus on being a Main Character.
She pushed herself onto her wobbly legs.
A new energy rushed through her veins, beating in her racing heart; she needed to find her companions, organize a battle plan against Kriqir, and save her world.
Along the way, she could pinpoint the perfect ending to her story…
hopefully something that created a life-changing plot twist.
Em gave the FOURTH WALL one final glance.
“You’d better make this easier on me now that I’m cooperating,” she told me from through the pages as I wrote. “Don’t make either of us regret this alliance.”
I won’t. I promise. Just get out there and finish this.
Em checked her bare arms, but the wordy tattoos of shame were gone.
In place of her ragged dress, she’d been changed into a lavender tunic, leggings, and a soft wool cloak.
Even her fresh pair of boots fit a little better than her previous ones, the heels less precarious.
She smirked at my choice of attire for her, feeling more comfortable than in any other disastrously cliché outfits she’d been forced into throughout the quest thus far.
The two pockets in her leggings held her dragon relic stone and her journal, which had transformed back into her copy of A Main Character’s Guide to Plots and Tropes.
Technically, contemplating the way she looked was cliché in and of itself, but Em was recovering from her criticalness. I had promised to let her influence the finale of her story, so she held onto the hope of change.
All around, the Veil of Maas burned. The Fae forests crackled, spitting sparks into the ashen skies.
The stench of melting metal and hot wine choked the air.
Distant shouts of fighting people against howls of enraged orcs carried in the bitter winds.
Kriqir’s invasion of Novella was spreading, and Em had been too distracted the past few sequences to have realized the desperate state her world was falling into.
Unless her prophecy was fulfilled, the necromancer would overpower Novella into his tyranny.
She needed to find her companions.
And fast.
Where did they go? Em chewed on her bottom lip as her prior knowledge of stereotypes flew through her mind. No doubt, the safest choice was to find Polo Took-Took first. If the imp followed his usual tropes, his type of sidekick would’ve gone back home.
“Fast travel me to Tolk-Town, please,” Em requested aloud to me. Without Inky, she was fully dependent on me to jump realms across the expanses of Novella.
So, I granted her appeal.
The vibrancy of Tolk-Town snapped into existence.
Em blinked and knuckled her eyes as she swayed to keep her balance. No matter how many times she teleported, the disorienting woozy feeling after was nauseating. No wonder Gair always threw up. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat while considering the realm surrounding her.
She stood in the center of a quaint village square.
Small, grassy mound homes are scattered about the sides of rising hills.
Wildflowers bobbed from window boxes. Chimneys spilled thin trails of sweet-scented, colorful smoke into the blue skies overhead while swallowtails darted between willow trees.
Ponies hitched to wagons, bearing veggies and giggling imp children, bumbled along the winding, earthen paths that stitched the town together.
Everything was made up of the brightest saturated colors and plush and cheery.
Everything smelled like baked pumpkin bread. Somewhere, happy flutes and violins played a bouncy soundtrack to enhance the jovial atmosphere.
Guilt simmered in Em’s gut. This was the same town she’d typecasted being so dreadfully cliché and worthless the moment she’d crossed paths with Polo. But the realm was the opposite of awful, and its happy simplicity was infectiously charming. She even found herself smiling.
“Good morning!” an imp lady called from a nearby front porch, sweeping with a thatched broom.
Em waved back.
“What’s a young human such as yourself find herself doing in these parts?” another imp greeted from across the path as he fetched letters from his crooked, wooden mailbox using only his tail.
“I’m looking for Polo Took-Took!” Em called, projecting her voice so all the curious onlookers could hear her as they passed or watched from windows or doorways. “Did he happen to pass through here recently?”
“Oh, yes!” the sweeping imp lady said brightly. “He’s been back from that grand quest of his for a few weeks now!”
Shit. Em’s heart skipped a beat. A few weeks?
I had to give everyone time to cool off. Anyway, time is funky when you cross between dimensional lines.
“A shame that quest was,” the lady went on, shaking her head solemnly. The flush to her cheeks drained a little. “We’d all had such grand hopes for him when we got word he’d been hunting Brolzross the Nocturnal.”
“What do you mean?” Em hugged herself awkwardly, hoping the imps wouldn’t notice her evident green eyes that might give her identity away to them. Did they know she was the reason the quest initially failed?
“The Almighty Queen of Stars, Princess of the White Rose Valley, and Heir to the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower disappeared about three weeks ago, leaving Polo stranded along the border of Kriqir the Living’s territory,” the imp man interjected, leaning on his mailbox and sifting mindlessly through his letters.
“Some rumors say she’d betrayed us all to that wretched necromancer.
His orcs are making their way to our lands soon. ”
Both imps visibly shuddered.
“What a shame,” the imp lady said.
“Yes, quite a shame,” the male imp replied.
“Oh well,” they shrugged in unison.
“What can you do?” the male asked.
“Exactly,” the lady replied.
“Where’s Polo’s house?” Em interjected. Her stomach twisted into tighter knots with each passing second. What spark of hope in reuniting with her friends smothered quickly the longer she stood aimlessly in the imp town.
“At the end of the street,” the imp lady said, pointing to a bend in the road that rose into the hill lands. “You can’t miss it. It’s the house with the biggest willow on it. His aunt planted it decades ago.”
“Thank you!” Em said.
Both imps plastered smiles across their faces and flicked their tails in salute to Em, then each other.
“Well, have a good evening!” they both said in unison before disappearing into their respective homes.
Em picked up her feet and jogged up the street. Worries knotted in her chest, but she ran quicker to push them all away. She had to trust Stephanie would keep her end of the deal and help Polo forgive her for her failures and sins. Hopefully, this could become the beginning of her redemption arc.
She dodged scurrying imps, chickens, and loose sheep as she cut through Tolk-Town. Everything was on a miniature scale, making her feel a bit like a giant compared to the impish villagers or visiting halflings.
Sure enough, around the bend in the road, a mound home with a towering willow tree on its roof peak awaited her. A wooden sign hung along the white-picket fence labeled TOOK-TOOK RESIDENCY over bobbing daisy bushes.
An elderly imp mused along the garden beds in the front yard, picking at carrots and tossing them into a red wheelbarrow.
She hummed in tune with the town’s soundtrack, her back turned to Em and face hidden beneath a wide sunhat.
However, it was safe to assume the old lady was Polo’s infamous mother, whom Faylorn knew.
Em leaned on the fence, which only came up to her stomach. “Hello?” she called out. “I’m looking for Polo Took-Took! Is he here?”
The gardening imp turned, brushing the dirt off her hands onto her floral apron, squinting in the bright sunlight toward Em. “Depends on who’s asking,” she said.
“My name is Em Smith. I’m a friend of his…or I… I was.”
“The prophecy girl?” Polo’s mother frowned.
“Yeah,” she said, the confidence draining from her voice. Em’s heart sank as the elderly imp woman shifted a few paces back. “I’m the Chosen One.”
Unexpectedly, Polo’s mother’s eyes lit up as a wide smile cut across her wrinkled face. In the expression, Em could see the similarities between the elderly imp and her son.
“Is it true?”
“Yeah,” Em said.
“Polo!” his mother turned and ran into the house, the round door slamming open on its golden hinges as she whisked past. Her voice echoed throughout the wooden floorboards and ceiling beams. “Polo! Why didn’t you tell me the Almighty Queen of Stars, Princess of the White Rose Valley, and Heir to the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower was coming? ”
“What?” his muffled voice sent Em’s heart into an aching storm.
She held her breath, awaiting his reaction upon seeing her. After this moment, she could no longer wonder how her companions would respond to her grand return from her betrayal, then her three-week disappearance.
Everything depended on Stephanie’s promise.
Quit worrying. I told you I got this.
Polo’s large nose and flashy eyes popped around the corner of the doorway.
A gleeful shriek escaped the sidekick. In a flash of yellow stockings and purple coattails, he slammed into Em, swallowing her lower half into a hug.
The imp let out loud, dramatic sobs, smearing his snotty tears all over the front of her tunic as he clung to her.