Her Deity

"For the love of Granithor," Emeline moaned, gazing at her hair in the silver mirror, "it's blue now?"

"Actually," the author said apologetically, standing at her elbow with her writing tools in her hands, "Granithor isn't the name of your god anymore."

Emeline turned on her author, her mouth open. "Pray tell me, Linda, what is his name, then?"

Linda shifted, her pencil tapping on her notebook, "Well, now it's a she, and her name is ... Actually, I don't know yet. But Granithor seemed too ... dark. Now that's your archnemesis' name."

"My arch—"

Emeline cut herself off, shutting her eyes and mouth and inhaling deeply through her nostrils.

Forcing herself to calm down, she opened her eyes and ran her hands through her long, curling, blue hair.

"Listen, Linda, I don't mind you changing the small things every once in a while. It was actually a rather stunning effect when my gown kept shifting colors during the king's ball. It certainly helped Francio notice me, and he never would've started courting me if he thought me an inconsequential peasant girl. Which I am assuming I still am, regardless of where I am currently living. But changing the being I worship to the person I despise ... I can't do that! Don't you think that would cause some serious psychological distress?"

Linda chewed her eraser. Her eyes were large and dark, exactly the same shade and shape of Emeline's own. That detail, at least, had never changed.

"You're a character," the author whined. "You're not supposed to be aware of these changes."

Lifting her hands to either side of her face, Emeline scoffed, then let her hands fall and slap against her things. "What do you expect? That I blindly accept them?"

"Actually, yes."

"Well, I don't." Turning back to the mirror, Emeline began pinning her blue hair into a simple braid. "And neither does anyone else in Kalimor."

"Rallian, now," Linda quietly corrected.

"Whatever. I have to meet Francio in fifteen minutes for a meeting I'm sure you've changed the purpose of, and he'll wonder why and how my hair has suddenly become blue, and I will have no answer! What will I say? The goddess of the sea came and revealed I'm secretly a mermaid?"

Even as she spoke, the hair under her fingers reverted to the bright yellow of a summer sun, the very first color it had been. It was better than the black hair she had through chapters six and seven, and definitely better than the flaming red hair she had during half of chapter nine, but Emeline still didn't like it. It just wasn't her. Sighing, she dropped her braid from her fidgeting fingers, catching a glimpse of her author's reflection in the mirror.

Behind her, Linda scribbled furiously on her pad of paper. Emeline thought for sure her eyes shone.

Emeline blinked. She swiveled to face her author, her eyebrows screwed together in uncertainty. "Linda?"

Linda sat heavily in a richly embroidered armchair that was not in the simple apartment a moment ago. Bending over her work, the author's yellow hair fell before her dark eyes. She blinked incessantly. Her writing did not slow. She sniffed.

Emeline took a hesitant step closer. "Linda, are you alright?"

The tip of Linda's pencil snapped. She threw it and her notebook aside. "No, I am not alright!"

And then she was in tears, her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking, her sobs echoing around the castle's bedchamber that Emeline was borrowing from a servant friend so she could better spy on the king and his son, Francio. Except Francio had suddenly become a love interest instead of an enemy, and the king's name had changed from Henry to Garret to now, Emeline supposed, Granithor, and Emeline could not even rely on what her next action would be since Linda changed her motives every ten minutes. And now here her author was, weeping on a chair much too expensive for a servant to own, with her work—which gave Emeline life—thrown aside.

As if she stooped to touch a relic, Emeline gingerly picked up the notebook and broken pencil. "What is wrong?" the character asked, kneeling beside the armchair.

Linda hiccupped. She waved a hand at the items in Emeline's grasp. "This!" she moaned. "Everything about this. You, and the king, and Francio, and ... and everything!"

She sobbed harder. Emeline glanced nervously at the door. The walls in the servant's wing of the castle were not the thickest, and she didn't want another servant coming to inspect what was the matter. No one else seemed to notice the author, but her effects certainly didn't go without attention, and Emeline wondered if her loud crying would be heard despite her seemingly invisible presence.

"What do you mean, I'm wrong?" Emeline said, hoping Linda heard the jest she tried to put into her voice. "I think I'm remarkably right, all the time."

Linda did not laugh. Shaking her head, she sniffled, at last quieting. "Every decision I make you hate."

"Only because I know it won't last."

"I should just give up." Linda glared at her notebook in her protagonist's hand. "Burn the whole stupid story in a bonfire."

Emeline's heart skipped a beat. What would happen to her, then? To Francio? King Granithor could burn for all she cared, but his gentle son?

Placing her hand on Linda's, she whispered, "Don't give up. Please. I like this world. I like my place in it, and my mission. I'd like it more if I fully understood why Granithor is so evil or what exactly I plan to do to end his reign, but sometimes not knowing is just as thrilling as knowing."

"But that's just the problem!" wailed Linda. "You don't know those things because I don't know those things! What kind of author am I?"

Emeline paused. Her eyes lowered, caressing the front of her author's notebook—the book that her life sprang from.

"How many stories," she wondered, "have you written, start to finish?"

Linda sniffed, watching her character's hands. "None yet. I was hoping this would be the first."

Nodding, Emeline met her gaze. "How many times did I fall off that horse in chapter two?"

"At least five." Linda chuckled.

"Why did I keep falling off?"

"Because you had never ridden a horse before. You didn't know how to hold on."

"By chapter four, could I gallop without falling out of the saddle and bruising my side?"

"Of course. You had learned how to hold on by then."

Emeline offered her author a gentle smile and the pencil and paper. "All you have to do is learn how to hold on."

Tentatively, Linda reached for her tools. "But ..." She swallowed. "I keep making mistakes."

"Everyone does. This is just your chapter two. Your chapter four will come eventually. I know it will because everything you write is so real."

Linda gave her character a soft glare. "Of course you'd say that. You're the one I'm writing about."

Emeline grinned. "It is to you, too, isn't it? That's why you keep appearing to me: because I'm real to you. If I'm real to you, I'll be real to others, too."

"Not if I can't even make up my mind about your hair color." Linda sniffled again.

"Forget my hair color!" Emeline flapped her hand emphatically. "Forget all the mistakes you've made and will make. There'll be time to fix them. But right now, Linda, all I want is to get ready to see Francio. All I want is to convince him to see his father's evil ways without breaking him. And I'm worried that if I save the kingdom, I'll lose the prince. Maybe I can't have both. I don't know that. But maybe I can. And I'll fight like I can, no matter what mistakes you or I make. The only thing I know—the only thing I can rely on no matter how tall I am or exactly what my age is or whether or not I'm an orphan—is that you are in charge. And only you can write my story. So please, don't give up." The heroine's voice dropped to a whisper. "I want to be."

Linda stared at her protagonist with large, dark eyes. Emeline stared back, her expression almost identical.

As they gazed at each other, each trying to understand the other, Emeline's face changed subtly. Her eyes were not quite the same shape as Linda's anymore. Her eyebrows became a tad thicker, her hair a shade darker. Her clothes lost some of their theatrical shine, hanging looser off her suddenly thinner, runner-like body. She smiled. A dimple appeared where there hadn't been one before.

Linda's breath caught. She grasped Emeline's hand. "You are," she whispered, and pulled a new pencil out of her pocket.

As she set its tip to her paper, a knock sounded against the thick wooden door. Emeline jumped, but Linda didn't notice, her eyes on her notebook.

Crossing to the door, Emeline slowly opened it.

"Your Highness," she said, startled.

Francio stood in the hall, tall and dark-haired, eyes as light as the sea. He bowed his head, though Emeline didn't deserve such a formal greeting. At the gesture, she dropped into a belated curtsy.

"You ... You look different," she stammered. Her face felt warm.

Francio blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I know." He tugged at his silk vest. It had been leather before. And his eyes had never been so blue. "I can't explain it. I thought maybe it was just me, like when you look into a mirror and realize you've finally become an adult." Peering at Emeline from under dark, uncertain eyebrows, he asked, "Is it ... a bad change?"

"No!" Emeline reached out and touched his hand before she realized what she was doing. Her hand quickly dropped. "It's a good change. A great change! You seem ... more real."

As if he understood Emeline's sentiment, no matter how nonsensical it sounded, Francio grinned. "You look nice. Did you change your hair?"

Emeline touched her dark, golden curls. "As a matter of fact," she said, "I did."

"I like it."

He offered his arm, which Emeline gingerly took.

"Now, you said you had a very grave matter to discuss with myself and my father. Are you ready for it? I can't say what it might be, but I must confess I am slightly apprehensive."

Emeline took a deep breath. So was she. But she only said, "Don't be. Linda knows what she's doing."

Francio frowned. "Who?"

Gazing back into her apartment, Emeline smiled.

Her author sat hunched in the embroidered chair, a furrow on her brow as her pencil furiously scribbled Emeline's world.

"My deity."

"Actually," Linda called from the chair, not looking up from her work, "your deity's name is Dania."

Laughing, Emeline shut the door.