This Night

Well. This is certainly not what I had set out to write when I boldly declared several months ago that I was going to write another chapter to this story. I had the HARDEST time writing this chapter, and that I think was for several reasons. One, worst writer's block EVER. I just didn't feel at all inspired to write, and I had no idea what should happen next in the story. Also, I was having trouble getting past the fact that Dustfinger doesn't try to help save Meggie and Resa at the end of Inkheart, and this is a problem given that in my version of events, he's in love with Meggie (and has some unexplained feelings for Resa as well). So it wasn't until I realized that it wasn't going to work to go on with another Dustfinger/Meggie interlude until I had addressed this issue. So sorry if you were expecting a love scene—I rather wanted one as well, but I guess we'll all have to be disappointed together. Hopefully I'll be able to go on with the chapter I had intended to write after I've posted this.

ALSO, I am pleased to report that Inkspell, the sequel to Inkheart, was pretty cool (I was lucky enough to procure an advance reader's copy over the summer and finished reading it a few months ago), and should lead to a lot more fun stories like this. But I shall say no more! I won't include ANY spoilers until the book comes out and I've given you all a chance to read it (assuming I continue writing the story), but I'm trying to make what I write consistent with what happens so that it's all at least semi-canon.

And finally, thanks to everyone who has been reading and checking up to see if I've gotten off my tuchus and written another chapter-you guys are awesome! Please let me know if you want this story to continue. Otherwise I'll abandon fan fiction writing altogether and have to devote myself entire to graduate school-gah, what a nightmare!



Kind of Hero

Much later when he thought back on it, Dustfinger decided that he really had given a lot of thought into his decision not to help Meggie and her mother escape from Capricorn. He had spent many months agonizing over what he had done (or rather, what he hadn't done), thinking that perhaps he had come to the decision to quickly, that cowardice and lack of nerve had prevented him from coming to the rescue of two women for whom he had purported to have feelings. And he was sure that to the casual observer, or to one who might theoretically chance to read his story in a book (which Dustfinger ironically thought possible considering his own situation) he would certainly not come off as a sympathetic character. To think that he should have spent the hours leading up to Meggie's would-be execution of her own mother in hiding, playing with a self-absorbed fairy, and in Basta's house, no less! Dustfinger was hardly the stuff heroes are made of, the reader would think scornfully, flipping the page eagerly to see how Meggie and Fenoglio would manage to foil Capricorn's plans without the fire-eater's help. And Dustfinger himself could hardly disagree, though he found that no matter how he examined the situation, no matter what clever plans he thought up or how ingeniously he could have used fire to his advantage, he never found himself regretting his decision. And for this he had two reasons.

One, he knew quite simply that he was not the hero of this story. Not hero in the sense that Elinor would have meant, that is. For all his skill with fire and his cunning defeat of Basta in the cell, in the end he knew that he was no swashbuckling champion, ready to rush in at the last minute with his sword drawn and banner waving to save the fair maiden from the clutches of evil. Resa had told him (with a pencil and paper, of course) enough stories with just this sort of ending that Dustfinger knew backwards and forwards the stories that this hero inhabited. He knew the role that this hero must play, knew what he looked like, how he spoke, just what words he needed to say to make the beautiful damsel in distress fall in love with him at just the right moment. But it wasn't him. He wasn't that hero, and he knew that no amount of storytelling or study could make him one.

And the other reason was, now that he thought about it, almost the same as the first. For he knew that Meggie, and not he, was the hero of this story. And he knew the part of the hero, though he could never play it. In his mind's eye he could almost see the words scribbled across an invisible page before him, and as he struggled to make out the end of the story as Resa feverishly worked to finish it, he felt that sense of excitement tempered with the knowledge that in this kind of story, the hero prevails and everything works out well in the end. And through the clarity that love brings to a restless heart, somehow he knew that Meggie didn't need him for her happy ending, that everything she needed to defeat Capricorn and save her mother and herself she possessed already within her. For, Dustfinger thought with a satisfied smile, theirs was that kind of story.



Sorry it's so short! I wrote this in about 45 minutes at Espresso Royale whilst drinking chai. I'll try to do better next time-assuming someone wants me to!