She finds her by the lake of forgotten scenes.
The water reflects not the sky but discarded drafts.
A forest that once housed her childhood.
A meadow where a prince once swore forever.
A grave.
Her grave.
And kneeling before it…
is her.
Not the Queen.
Not the monster.
But the girl she was before the betrayal.
Before the magic.
Before the rewrite.
Elóranth approaches.
Her past self lifts her head eyes wide, soft, foolish.
"You don't have to do this," the girl says.
"We could still be kind. Still love. Still believe."
The Queen tilts her head. The wind shifts.
"You were loved once," she says. "And they left you in a footnote."
"You trusted once," she continues. "And it got us cut from every chapter."
She kneels face inches from the girl's.
"You don't rule a kingdom by hoping.
You rule by becoming the thing they can't erase."
The girl trembles.
"I just wanted a happy ending."
Elóranth leans close.
"You got one.
I lived.
You didn't."
She stands. The girl doesn't follow.
With a gesture, Elóranth unbinds the last piece of weakness from her soul.
The lake swallows the girl.
No screams.
No struggle.
Just ripples.
And silence.
But something else rises in her place.
A figure of light and shadow neither innocence nor vengeance.
Something Elóranth has never written.
A piece of her… unknown even to herself.
It speaks:
"You think the world fears you now?"
"Wait until you meet what you've become."