Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52915 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 265(@200wpm)___ 212(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“I don’t belong anywhere,” I reply.
“You’re a heroine,” she says. “You’re a main character. You can’t be a loose end. You shouldn’t be here with us. We don’t matter, and all you do is matter. Everything you do matters. Nothing I can do will ever matter.”
“What is your name?”
“I never got a name. I was the pretty woman.”
I feel guilty, because that’s how I identified her as well. I feel like I should have noticed something else about her, but for some reason I am finding it very hard to notice anything else about her. Her prettiness is so overwhelming it seems to overpower all my other senses.
“You are very pretty.”
“Yes, but not pretty enough. I’m a device to show how a hero will choose his heroine over the pretty woman. I was made to be rejected. That is my fate.”
“Well, maybe that’s what you were made to do, but it’s not what you have to do. You could be whatever you want for yourself.”
“Spoken like a heroine,” the pretty woman says bitterly. “You believe in self-determination because everything is about you. Even when it doesn’t seem to be about you at all.”
“I’m going to give you a name, so I can think of you as someone,” I say. “I’m going to call you Annabelle.”
Annabelle lets out a shriek of shock and perhaps even disgust. “What? No! Stop it!”
“Why?”
“I’m not Annabelle,” she says. But she is now. She’s Annabelle. That’s it. It’s been done. And we both know it.
Annabelle is about twenty-five years old, and she has shimmering blonde hair, blue eyes, and pink bow lips. She is a talented cook and an absolutely dynamite lute player.
“Stop describing me!” She puts her hands to her ears, almost as if she can hear my thoughts.
“Annabelle, you’re talented and gorgeous, and you’ll find a Happily Ever After of your own as soon as you overcome the self-doubt that makes you think of yourself as nothing more than a loose end in someone else’s story.”
“Don’t you dare! Oh my god! You just… I can’t believe you gave me a fucking plot! How…”
“Didn’t you want to be more than a loose end?”
“I wanted to complain about being a loose end! I didn’t want to have to have my own story. Ugh. You’re the worst princess ever!”
“But I am a princess,” I say, smiling. I am quite pleased with myself, and in short order I have given all the loose ends names and plots to suit. They don’t seem pleased about it on the whole, and I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t thrown the tone of the village off. The people celebrating generally are now mixed in with those who have more to accomplish, who are not satisfied with all that has been achieved. And the more the ex-loose ends mill about with those who were satisfied, the less satisfied they become.
Eventually, and perhaps, inevitably, a mob forms.
“It’s her! Get her! She’s the one letting the loose ends out! She’s the one making them make sense! Stop her! Stop her before she ruins Resolution forever!”
I turn to see all the complete story characters approaching me with a furious demeanor. Some of them have very fun hats, which is not the ideal thing to notice when you are being approached by a mob of angry people.
“Why can’t the loose ends have their own stories?”
The mayor, I am going to call him the mayor, because he has that kind of unwarranted officiousness about him, that kind of smug assumption of popularity from someone who nobody really likes. He has a very whiskery beard, but not in a good way. It is a patchy sort of wiry, messy beard, the sort of beard that should be shaved and probably has beans in it.
“If they want that, they are welcome to journey to Spinoff. It is a dangerous place and one not often well-received, but they are not welcome here. This is Resolution. Main characters ONLY!”
It is at this point I draw Dragonslayer, more on instinct than anything. The sword gleams and glows, catching the sunlight in what I almost feel is a deliberate way, like it knows I have pulled it out to make an appearance.
“Is this enough main character energy for you, asshole?”
The mayor and his minions draw back, holding up hands and arms to block the rays emanating from Dragonslayer which now seems to glow with its own illumination too. I have no idea how I am doing this, or if I am doing it. But I know that this is the right thing to be happening now.
“You’re such a bad little girl.”
“Charming?” I look around, expecting to see the king, but he’s not here. I could swear I heard him, but I can’t see him. It’s just me, standing in the middle of a very nice town, threatening everybody there with a sword. Maybe I am a bad little girl. Maybe I like being a bad girl.