Anne and Corvina followed the Goddess Coris down the corridors of her pink-tinged castle. Although it had looked like a crumbled ruin from the outside, from the inside it looked like a well-appointed 18th century manor home, with paneled walls and intricate rugs and various pieces of art displayed on plinths. And all of it was dominated by a pink-and-white color scheme.
"It was just a summer fling, you know?" said the Goddess Coris—Cory as she'd asked to be called. "I knew he was married, but... I mean, He's a King and I'm a Goddess, so..." Cory shrugged. "The normal social rules don't, like, really apply to us. Plus it had to happen for the sake of the story anyway so I figured I might as well enjoy it, right?"
Anne was only half-listening. She was still feeling pretty out of it, and was kind of freaked out by the fact that she couldn't really remember how she'd gotten here.
She remembered starting down the Path of Ruin. And she remembered the moment when she first saw other elves walking alongside them on the path. But everything after that felt like the half-remembered jumbled nonsense of a dream you couldn't quite hold onto after waking up.
According to what Corvina and the Goddess told her, Anne had very nearly crossed the Final Threshold, after which point she never would have been able to return to the land of living.
Which meant that if Anne had gone alone like she'd initially planned, then...
Well, it just goes to show that elementary school teachers are right about the buddy system, thought Anne.
"It's a really big castle for only one person, you know?" said the Goddess, slowing down as they reached their destination. "Which is why I mostly just live in a few rooms, through here."
The Goddess opened the door to her living quarters.
The rooms beyond looked less like a medieval castle or 18th century manor and more like... a college girl's studio apartment from, like, 2005. Instead of art on display, there were movie posters (mostly for classic rom-coms) and various knick-knacks. Instead of nice rugs, there was pink shag carpeting. And far too much of the furniture was made of colored, translucent plastic.
Is that an iMac? wondered Anne, straining to see a computer desk on the other side of the room.
"Well, here it is!" said the Goddess. "Nice, right? I'm pretty comfortable here myself, but I thought the palimpsest ruins of all past and future eleven civilizations melded in space and time wasn't exactly the best environment to raise a baby in, so when you were born I... well, you know. Plus, I mean, again, the story called for it, so..." The Goddess shrugged. "Why don't you girls take a seat there and I'll go make us some tea so we can talk things out properly, hmm?"
The Goddess had indicated two purple beanbag chairs for Anne and Corvina to sit in.
Corvina looked at Anne with a confused and pleading look. "Is this supposed to be a chair?" she whispered.
"Just follow my lead," whispered Anne, sitting down heavily in the beanbag chair. She immediately sunk super deep into it, so her feet weren't even touching the floor anymore. Anne suddenly felt less confident she'd be able to get back up again.
Corvina sat down, too, although she was significantly more slow and careful about it. Nevertheless, once she fully put her weight onto the seat, she sank just as deep as Anne had.
Anne and Corvina exchanged glances and neither of them could stop from giggling at how ridiculous they both looked.
The whole situation felt ridiculous. They were wearing vaguely-historical fantasy garb, sitting on beanbag chairs underneath a The Wedding Planner poster, talking to an elven Goddess who called herself Cory. And this conversation could potentially affect the fate of an entire world full of living, breathing, feeling people.
Anne really couldn't be sure she wasn't still lost in some sort of absurd dream.
Corvina adjusted herself in the chair until she could reach out and put a hand on Anne's shoulder. Laughing fit over, her expression had grown more serious again. "Didn't you have something important to talk to her about?" she whispered. Corvina nodded her head towards the Goddess, who was busying herself at a small kitchenette over on the other side of the room.
Right, thought Anne. I need to focus.
First-things-first, Anne wanted to double-check that everyone was on the same page, so they could really have the conversation they needed to have.
Anne cleared her throat. "Excuse me, ma'am..."
Cory winced. "Ouch, don't call me ma'am, I'm not that old," she said. "Well, okay, technically I'm as old as elven civilization, but if you looked at it another way, you could say I'm only a couple years old—since The Foundling's Wings was only written a couple years ago. Anyway, what is it?"
Anne tried to think of the best way to word it. "It's just... you know I'm not actually your daughter, right? Not exactly, anyway."
"Oh, I know," said Cory, pulling some novelty mugs out of a pink-painted cabinet with a glass front. "You're a different soul in the same body. But then again, souls are in many ways shaped by the vessel that contains them, so I think you may be my daughter in more ways than you assume. Not my original daughter, of course... but..."
Cory stopped what she was doing, staring at the mugs in her hands with a sad and wistful expression. She wasn't looking at Anne when she said, "I am sorry that she dragged you into this..."
"No, that's okay," said Anne, trying to sound reassuring. "I mean, it's not... really your fault, anyway."
Cory turned towards Anne and smiled a little sadly. Then she went back to preparing the tea. "In a way it is my fault," she said, switching on the electric kettle. "That girl was always coming here to try to ask me for help, but I couldn't help her the way she wanted me to, so she started looking for... other ways. This option was kind of out there, though, if you ask me. I actually told her that, but, like... you know how kids are." Cory sighed. "Anyway, it's my fault she was so... aware in the first place, so, you know."
"What exactly do you mean by aware?" asked Anne. The way Cory spoke was disorganized and confusing, but Anne felt like they were circling around the real core of things—the ultimate answer that all other questions stemmed from.
Cory stared at Anne, and just for a moment Anne could see behind her exuberant facade, and what she saw was a middle-aged woman full of guilt, and grief, and all sorts of emotions she had never figured out how to share because she had never had anyone to share them with.
The electric kettle flipped off.
Cory cleared her throat, and turned away. "Anyway, I hope you'll forgive my Anne for what she did," said Cory, plopping a tea bag in each mug and pouring hot water over them. She had fully ignored Anne's question. "I only have chamomile, so I hope you girls like chamomile. It's my own special blend, actually, but chamomile's the main flavor."
Anne and Corvina exchanged glances. Corvina had clearly also noticed the odd moment, but she didn't look like she knew how to respond to it, either.
Cory handed each of them a mug of tea, offering a momentary distraction. Corvina's mug featured a cartoon picture of an old lady in sunglasses with the text 'Too Sexy to be Fifty' written in a block font underneath. Anne's mug was bright pink with 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' written in an excessively curly font across the front.
"Just let them steep for a bit and then I can get you some milk or honey to put in it if you want," said the Goddess, taking a seat in her own beanbag chair across from the other two. Somehow she actually managed to sit in it gracefully.
Corvina was staring at her mug with some fascination. The teabag was apparently giving her pause, too. She picked it up by its string and bobbed it up a few times, like she was testing something. "What is this?" she asked.
"Oh, it's this remarkable invention from the other world called a teabag," Cory explained cheerfully. "It saves a lot of hassle compared to loose-leaf tea. You don't need an infuser or anything, and they're fully disposable, if you believe it! They just love to dispose of things over there. It's so convenient, you know?"
"How much do you actually know about the... other world?" asked Anne, warily. A thought suddenly occurred to her. "Wait, are you actually from the other world, like me?"
"Oh, no no no no no," answered Cory. "I actually only know a little bit, but I find it so fascinating. I have full omniscience in this world, but I can only see into other worlds a little, if I really focus on it. I think the lack of full knowledge is part or what makes it fun, you know? Say, did you watch much Disney Channel growing up there? I think it's mostly meant for kids, right? But I love all those shows. I'm a huge fan of Lizzie McGuire."
At the mention of Disney Channel, Anne nearly choked on her tea.
"Are you okay?" asked Corvina, setting her tea down on a little pink-plastic side table so she could pat Anne on the back.
"Oh, look at you two..." said Cory, placing a hand over her heart as she watched them. "You are so sweet together. I've always found it so ridiculous that that human church claiming to worship me keeps using me as an excuse for their own homophobic views, you know? I don't agree with that at all. I'm a total ally. Love is Love, you know?"
Oh my god, thought Anne. She hadn't expected the Goddess to be so... well, for lack of a better word, cringey. Anne really had no idea how to respond to that.
Luckily, Corvina was there with all her diplomatic training.
"Thank you for your support," said Corvina, politely.
"Of course!" said the Goddess, with a big smile. "I always thought Pride parades looked like so much fun, you know? I wish I could go to one and wear a shirt that says 'I'm proud of the gay spirit possessing my daughter's body,' or... something like that, I don't know."
There was no way Corvina knew what a pride parade was, but she kept her face impressively blank as she ignored all that and moved on with the conversation. "To be clear, if you're not from Anne's world, then you're not the author of the 'original novel,' then?"
"What? Or course not!" Cory's brow furrowed in confusion. "Why would you think I was the author?"
"Because if reality is a novel, then it only makes sense that God would be the author," answered Corvina, as if that was obvious.
Anne had also been surprised by the question. That thought hadn't even occurred to her before, but Corvina's logic did make sense, in a way.
The Goddess sipped her tea, looking thoughtful. "That's an interesting perspective," she said, "But I think you're making some fundamental mistakes in regards to the nature of fiction."
"How so?" asked Corvina, sounding mildly annoyed.
"A story only really fully belongs to the author while it's actively being written," replied Cory. "Once a story is actually out there in the world, then it exits the author's control. Each individual reader then makes and remakes the story anew with each subsequent reading. It's this individual experience of the story, repeated over, and over, and over, ad nauseam, that makes up the bulk of the story's existential presence in the fabric of reality. You know?"
Anne was still trying to wrap her head around the meaning of the words 'existential presence' used in that order, when the Goddess took a sip of her tea and continued:
"Even that's an oversimplification because there are plenty of outside influences during creation of a story, and the author isn't fully divorced from the story once it's published, either, but it's like... If the author is god, then they are an absent god. Or, from a Gnostic perspective, it might make more sense to compare the author to the Demiurge—although that would place me even further down the hierarchy. Like, I might be an Archon or something. But that's all getting a bit cosmic, isn't it? Sorry about that. You two should be drinking more of your tea! Did you want milk for it? Sugar? Honey?"
Anne's thought process when she first arrived in this world was something like, book = real, so characters = people, and plot = fate. That was as far as she had gotten. She hadn't really considered the author, or the nature of fiction, or anything like that. And if she was honest, it all felt a bit beyond her, even hearing it laid out like that. Her eyes were starting to glaze over as she tried to keep up with what the Goddess was saying.
But Corvina was leaning forward in her beanbag chair, eyebrows furrowed, fully engaged in the conversation.
"Fine," said Corvina. "The author is an absent god, then. But you keep talking in circles. But even if you're not the author, you're still the Goddess, so you should be able to help us, right? That's ultimately why we came here. To ask for your help. Right, Anne?"
"I know that, dear." Cory sighed dramatically. "People only ever come looking for me when they need help with something. But I'm afraid if you're looking for direct intervention, you're going to be disappointed. I'm omniscient within this world, but I'm not omnipotent. "
"Then what's the point of you?" snapped Corvina.
Cory smiled sadly. "You sound like my daughter. My other daughter. It can drive you a little batty, can't it? Knowing that your world isn't really real, and that you're stuck on a little track moving around and around in circles with no real control over where you're going or when you'll get there?"
"But someone must have control," insisted Corvina. "If not you, and not the author, then who?"
"Not a who, dear. More of a what..." said the Goddess, tilting her head to one side. "I thought I made that clear already. The story itself has, like, a life of its own, built within the collective consciousness through repeated readings. The story has no consciousness of its own, but it has a will, which it can enforce through a variety of methods. Which is why I'm just as limited by the confines of the story as anyone else here is. That's what always made my other daughter so hopping mad, but it's not like I can really do anything to change that. I can't change much of anything, really. No one here can."
"Wait," said Anne, feeling like something important had been glossed over. "Just a moment ago you were talking about the Saintess 'knowing that her world isn't real.' Is that what you meant when you said it was your fault she's so 'aware'?"
"Ugh, fine!" said the Goddess, throwing her hand up. "Here's some simple exposition, then: All elves have some inherent divinity, which is why they're immortal. But my Anne has a much higher concentration of divinity than most cause she's my daughter. And divine magic is mostly about vision and knowledge and truth, right? I'm, like, the most divine, so I'm omniscient. Anne was never omniscient, but right from the beginning she could sense the presence of the audience, just a little. But then she started being able to remember the loops. Every time the story restarted, she remembered more and more, and eventually she just couldn't get away from it, you know? She just wanted a way out."
Anne nodded. Some of that she had known, and some she'd been able to guess, but hearing it all spelled out like that answered her few remaining uncertainties.
Corvina no longer looked angry, instead she was staring into her tea with an almost haunted expression on her face. "Loops..." She whispered to herself so quietly, Anne barely heard it.
This whole conversation had been a weird mess from the start. The sooner they could get out of here and process all this, the better. So Anne decided to cut to the chase.
"You said you can't change anything. You said no one here can change anything," said Anne. "But I've changed things!"
"Yes, that's true!" said the Goddess, excitedly. "You weren't originally shaped by the story, so you have a bit more flexibility in your actions! But the story is still trying to reassert itself. Didn't you notice?"
"Is that what's happening?" asked Anne. "I thought I would be able to use my knowledge of the plot to change things for the better, but now it feels like everything is going wrong! So I thought it might be my fault because I never read the actual ending of the original novel. I just thought I could predict what would happen anyway, since fantasy romance is a pretty predictable genre."
Cory put her hand over her heart and looked at Anne again, that complex expression returning to her face, this time with an extra helping of pity.
"Oh, honey," she said. "You've got the genre all wrong. The Foundling's Wings isn't a fantasy romance. It's a tragedy."
After the public execution of Corvina Wyernmal and all other traitors-to-the-people, Grand Duke Marshal and Saintess Anne Coris had been married.
Anne was right about that much, the Goddess told her, but the story of The Foundling's Wings didn't end there.
The rebels had taken advantage of the war with Quellinia to storm the capital while the imperial army was weakened, but Quellinia didn't back down after the change of government. The war became the new governing council's most pressing concern, but debates over whether or not to implement a mandatory draft quickly devolved into petty factionalist squabbles.
In the meantime, Grand Duke Marshal and his dwindling forces were the only remaining military force with any real ability to fight, which gave Marshal a strong foothold to begin consolidating his own power within the new government.
And as the conflict wore on, Marshal began to treat his wife the Saintess more and more coldly.
With the war growing worse by the day and the new government seemingly useless in the face of it, there was once again unrest in the streets. This time, the people were calling for a return to the feudal system. The people didn't want an elected council that spoke high-minded words of equality without being able to offer them basic protection. What they wanted was an Emperor, if that's what it took to stop the invasion.
What they wanted was Emperor Robert Marshal.
When the Saintess voiced her opposition to Marshal taking the throne, he slapped her across the face so hard that it knocked her off her feet.
So the Saintess stood meekly by, lending the support of the Church of Coris when Emperor Marshall was crowned.
But in the end, even the return to Empire couldn't stop the Quellinians. Their forces were led by General Nia Lowmal Quell, a brilliant tactician who had been raised in Wyernwolf, so she knew the terrain better than any true foreigner could. And the Quellinians were armed with advanced alchemical weapons far beyond the technology of the Wyernwolf Empire.
When the capital city fell, it was a bloodbath.
Emperor Marshal refused to give up his throne, even when defeat had become inevitable. So he'd been killed, staining the golden throne with his iron blood.
The Saintess had been out in the streets, attempting to help
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