The throne room grows cold.
Not from winter.
But from absence.
Time halts. Candles burn without fire. Courtiers freeze mid-breath.
Even her heartbeat slows becoming a distant drum, echoing across the broken storyscape.
Then she hears it.
Typing.
Click.
Clack.
Delete.
Rewrite.
It's coming from above.
"No," she says, voice low and lethal.
"I decide what stays now."
She rises from the throne. Not walking
floating.
The walls melt into paper. The palace shivers.
And there, at the peak of a staircase made of plot points and torn contracts
stands the Author.
Not human. Not god.
Just a hooded figure wrapped in red editing marks, ink stains, and deadlines.
"You were a mistake," the Author says.
"A side character we gave too much power."
"You were meant to provoke, not prevail."
Elóranth smiles.
"And yet here I sit on the throne your favorites died trying to reach."
The Author raises a pen.
A literal one dripping with narrative.
"I'll rewrite you."
She laughs. Not mockingly prophetically.
"Try."
The room becomes a war of realities.
Each word the Author writes sends beasts of plot her way tropes, clichés, tragic flashbacks.
But Elóranth absorbs them.
Her body reshapes with every failed attack:
The forbidden romance? She devours it.
The noble sacrifice? She turns it to ash.
The redemption arc? She spits it out.
"I'm not here for forgiveness," she says.
"I'm here for finality."
Then she raises her own weapon: not a sword. Not a spell.
A single page.
One that says:
"Elóranth writes now."
The Author screams silently.
Their form twists, blurs, and fades.
Because for the first time…
the character has the pen.