Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“A narrator is proud”, Brooke repeats to herself. “A narrator is digilant, a narrator always does what's right - nothing.”

She has a frown on her face as she walks down the long hall of the archives, her destination awaiting her at the end.

“A narrator doesn't fall in love with one from the world they narrate”, she says, the sentence tasting bitter against her tongue. “A narrator can't love one from the world they narrate. It isn't right, it isn't…” she trails off, balling her fists.

“A narrator doesn't feel”, her hand wanders over her heart. “A narrator cannot feel. They cannot feel anything for the world and people they narrate for.”

And yet, that's not true, is it?

Otherwise, Brooke wouldn't be walking through the archives, to obtain the single greatest and most powerful thing in the entire World of Stories.

It's a book. A book of great power, one of prophecy. A dark, dangerous book the narrators have sworn to never open again.

Nobody who has ever opened the book has been happy.

Brooke doesn't care.

Brooke isn't happy now.

Brooke is never going to be happy again.

She was happy, she was happy when she accidentally fell into Wonderland due to a wishing well malfunction and woke up to the face of a kind stranger, who had given her aid in her time of need. She was happy when she got to know her, when the stranger became a friend. She was happy when she met with her more and more, a hushed secret hidden behind metaphors and subtext, when that friend became her lover. She had never been happier than when she was with her.

She has never been more heartbroken than she is now.

Her lover had been taken from her, ripped away from the land of the living, discarded as something to be disposed of for the crime of loving a being she wasn't supposed to know existed.

They had disregarded Brooke's anger, her grief and her sorrow as nothing more than a temper tantrum, akin to a child's who had their favorite toy taken away from them.

Brooke isn't a child. Her lover isn't a toy. None of the ones living in the World of Stories are.

They are people. Wonderful, amazing, extraordinary people. And Brooke loves them. Brooke has learned to love them through her lover. She loves these people more than her own kind, and she tries her best to keep them out of harm, to help and protect them in their time of need.

She couldn't protect her lover.

Her best isn't enough.

She couldn't protect the one she loved most.

She can't protect anyone.

The book has power. Great power. Immense and inconceivable amount of power. With this power, Brooke can do as she pleases. She can enact revenge, she hopes to bring her lover back, and she is determined to create a world where they can love with no restrictions. A perfect world where nothing matters but the two of them.

Brooke stands in front of the case.

The narrators are a proud lot, displaying their greatest weapon in a glass case for anyone to see, for anyone to take. Brooke stares intently at the glass, watching it crack, watching the crack grow and grow until the glass finally shatters into pieces.

She hears the alarms blaring and the room is bathed in a red light around her.

Soon, there will be guards, reinforcements, and whoever else they can find.

But that doesn't matter.

None of it does.

Brooke has become the strongest being in the entire universe, just with the turn of a page.

As of this moment, there is nothing in the universe that is stronger, more powerful than Princess Brooke Page, Heir to the Narrator Throne, Owner of the Dark Prognosticus, the Book of Prophecies.

Nobody can stop her now.

Nobody.

Brooke holds the open book. She reads of her success, her win over the narrators that had dared to take her lover away, she reads of the world finally being hers and hers alone, she reads of her happiness and how she will never obtain it, of how it will always seem so close yet be forever out of her reach, she reads of how she, Brooke Page, will bring about the end the world, and she cracks a smile, one of her very last ones, as bitter tears roll down her face.

Chapter Text

“It appeared a few days ago. There wasn't much at first, barely a puddle on the floor, but it's spreading. It's spreading, very slowly, consuming everything in its path. People weren't sure what it was at first, but it became clear the more it ate away at the world.

“It's lava.

“Gray, glowing lava, tearing apart the world at its seams. Anything it touched it turned into the words it was made of. One particularly curious teen decided to touch the mass, he was the first who found it, when it was still small, and he screamed as his hand became a husk of letters.

"Nobody knew where it came from, but one thing was clear: it had to be stopped.

“Unfortunately, nobody knows how, and they are scrambling as the mass expands day by day. Soon, in maybe a week or two, the lava will have completely taken over Ever After and Wonderland, and the world will be no more.

“Do you understand?”

Maddie nods her little mousey head. She'd been listening to her friend Earl Grey's tale very, very closely, even though she has heard this story before, quite often by now.

Earl Grey smiles weakly at her. “Good.” He hops onto a table, a table Maddie had been told is hers, aswell as the rest of this house, and he motions for Maddie to follow.

Maddie scurries over the floor, aiming for a leg of the table and using it to climb up on the top, her tail swishing behind her. She would have been able to follow Earl Grey faster, were she human, but that right had been taken from her a few days ago by people who wanted her done away with. She wasn't supposed to turn into a mouse, of course, she was supposed to die, be erased from reality entirely as if she never existed in the first place. But, as you can tell, that's not what happened.

I managed to save her.

I found her, writhing, yelling and clawing at the floor hoping for any sort of relief from the unimaginable pain she was in as her body turned against her, tearing itself apart bit by bit until she was no more, not even a memory, and I saved her.

Don't ask me how, it would be too long-winded of an explanation. Maddie is a mouse now, like me, and she doesn't remember much. I told her only the essentials, not everything, just enough for her to know who she is. She can't hear me like this, I'm afraid that ability has been lost in the transition.

I don't think I have to explain to you why I'm narrating the story, I believe you may already know… Don't worry, I spared Maddie those details of her life, she will learn about that herself eventually. It is not my place to tell her.

On the table is a book, closed for now, but Maddie knows her companion will open it soon, and she's right. Earl Grey wedges his tiny claws between the pages and opens the book square in the middle.

Earl Grey has studied these pages many, many times since he stole the book from Ever After. You'd be surprised how useful a shrinking potion can be when you have to steal the most important book in all of Ever After.

This is the antithesis of the Dark Prognosticus, a book of joy and hope.

Maddie and Earl Grey look over the words written in the book again.

Maddie is destined to save the world.

Maddie is destined to stop whatever it is that's trying to take apart reality.

Maddie is the key to keeping all of us alive.

How worrying.

The two books display different futures. While the Dark Prognosticus tells the tale of the world ending at the hands of a heartbroken god, this one tells of a brave, yet mad young woman who will rise up and become a hero, defeating the darkness for good.

Neither future is the definitive truth, one will be wrong, and the other will prevail, as it always has.

Maddie knows by now that she is the hero the book speaks of, she can feel the words of the Light Prognosticus resonating in her chest.

Maddie has always been a bright and chatty girl, a fact I'm very glad hasn't changed since her transformation. She's been very open about how she wants to go about defeating this big bad evil.

“Once I'm fully recovered”, she says, her eyes trained on the book, “I'm gonna find this ‘Lady of Darkness’ and I'm going to talk to her!”

Earl Grey smiles. “You think that will be enough?”

Maddie nods vigorously. “I think she just needs a friend! The book does sometimes call her ‘Baroness of Loneliness’, after all!”

Earl Grey rolls his eyes. Not at Maddie, mind you, but at the book. “I will never understand why it can't just use actual names.”

Maddie hops down from the table. “That would be too easy”, she explains. “Where's the fun in that?”

Maddie never fails to make those around crack a smile, to make them laugh, which is exactly what Earl Grey is doing right now.

“So, all I have to do is find a way to the Lady, and then talk to her! Easy!”

“And where do you think she is?”

Maddie's face falls. “Uh… Well, the Prognosticus says where, right?”

Nodding, Earl Grey points at the passage of the book that details where the Lady of Darkness hides. “In a land that is no longer itself, where the line between reality and fiction blurs, the Lady of Darkness sits upon her throne, waiting for the end to come.”

“That doesn't help”, Maddie deadpans, “I still have no idea where she is.”

Earl Grey shrugs and grins mischievously. “Ah, but where would be the fun if they just told you where to go?”

Maddie sticks her tongue out at her friend. Then she starts to think. “A land where the line between reality and fiction blurs… Why does that sound so familiar?”

“I'm afraid I don't know”, Earl Grey admits. “There are a few things I never learned while you were human.”

“Ugh”, Maddie groans, letting herself fall on her back. “Why did I have to keep so many secrets?!”

Earl Grey sits next to her, patting her head. “You didn't, there were… some things that I just couldn't understand very well.”

“I could have explained it to you.” Maddie is pouting now.

“What's done is done”, Earl Grey turns to Maddie. “Let's focus on the here and now.” He stands, straightening his back. “If I remember right, there is a place in Ever After with information on worlds beyond this one. We should start there.”

Using both of her paws, Maddie sits up before she gets on all fours and hurries to the door. “Let's go, then! I've never been to Ever After!”

“Yes, you have”, Earl Grey shouts after her as she squeezes herself through the mouse-sized hole at the bottom of the door.

“I've never been to Ever After as far as I can remember!” is all he hears from Maddie before she disappears completely out of view.

“Yeah, that's fair.”

Earl Grey follows Maddie out the door.

Chapter Text

The Land of Narrators is empty now.

Almost, at least.

Brooke sits upon the throne of an empty castle, staring ahead at nothing. The castle doesn't have a proper shape, or color. Such is the fate of the Land of Narrators, nothing really does have a tangible shape so long as it isn't narrated. Narrators can navigate the land without it needing to be real , in that sense. It's an idea, so to speak. An idea everyone within the Land of Narrators was aware of, and was therefore able to be moved around in.

Because a narrator is also just that: an idea.

A concept.

A narrator isn't their own person from what a Reader should be able to tell, unless the author pens them to be, the story requires them to be, or, in rare, rare cases, the characters encourage them to be more than what they are meant to, more than an unfeeling and untouchable entity without a name or personality or real life to speak of. Sometimes, sometimes a character changes a Narrator for the better, sometimes they ignite a flame in a Narrator that can never ever be extinguished.

There are places that are more fleshed out than others, like Brooke's guardian's neighborhood, the Grammar Forest, the Fourth Wall, and, since a few days ago, one hallway of the Archive.

Brooke thinks about the castle.

It would be nice, wouldn't it? To live in a castle with actual rooms, sit in a real throne she could touch and feel? Narrating the castle was a big taboo among Narrators, Brooke never understood why.

Brooke doesn't have to.

Brooke is the only Narrator left in the Land of Narrators, and she is the rightful ruler.

If Brooke wants a castle she can touch, a castle she can be proud of owning, one like the ones in the stories she has read and seen that always feel so grand and wonderful, then nothing will stop her from making one herself.

Brooke doesn't think of herself as an interior designer, but she can learn, starting with her throne.

Her throne is grand and majestic, fit for a princess– no, a queen such as herself, with black velvet draped along the seat and backrest, not too soft, and not too hard, perfect for Brooke to comfortably sit in. The throne is lined with shining, shimmering gold that forms into a crown atop the backrest, a big, spiky crown. Actually, it has a lot more spikes than that, it has spikes all around, surrounding Brooke when she is seated as if she was glowing like a star.

A good villain throne needs a lot of spikes, right?

Is Brooke a villain?

Brooke purses her lips in thought as she leaned back against the armrest of her throne, which is also covered in black velvet.

Brooke is just following her destiny, her destiny that has been exposed to her by a book.

A book that happens to call her “Lady of Darkness”.

No, no, Brooke isn't a villain, so to speak, she's just following instructions.

She isn't a hero either though, no. She doesn't think causing the world to end is a very “hero”-thing to do.

Perhaps she is neither, a grey area.

Brooke shakes her head.

She's not a villain.

She's not.

They deserved it. They killed my love. I was serving justice.

Brooke is not a villain.

She's just following instructions, her destiny.

To deny her ultimate fate would be futile, and quite frankly Brooke doesn't have the energy to fight against it, not alone, not without her.

Brooke stares ahead.

The Land of Narrators is empty.

For now.

Soon, new Narrators will appear, brought into existence by a story that needs telling, and they will be serving under Brooke's command, for Brooke is the queen, and they don't know any better.

…Or maybe they won't.

Maybe a new Land of Narrators will appear, maybe it already has, away and safe from the destruction Brooke has wrought. Maybe it doesn't even have to, because there are other lands already, there always have been multiple lands home to other Narrators who narrate in a different part of the World of Stories. After all, one land can't hold all the Narrators there are in the world. Maybe new Narrators will come to existence somewhere in those other lands. Ultimately, Brooke doesn't know.

Brooke doesn't know, but the very real possibility that she will never have company again, that she is doomed to forever roam the land alone, hangs over her head like a guillotine.

Brooke Page, the Baroness of Loneliness, sinks into her throne.