THE END, for the no excuses game >:) (either one you wanna do of course)
Here’s the fake ending for The Stars Do Not Bind Us that also spawned an entire worldbuilding concept based around fairy bread and (tw: cannibalism) cannibalism. It’s unpolished and probably not cohesive but I had A LOT of fun. Oh! And trust me, the ending line makes much better sense if you remember that the main POV character’s name is Six.
In the end, you never do fulfill your destiny. You do not die a glorious death on the battlefield, forever immortalized by history as the young hero who gave their all for the divine cause. Fidei Defensor they would call you not. You do not even know what it is they even call you, or if the Temple has managed to bury you away in the very dredges of history as if you’ve never existed.
Instead, you are alive and well , living in a quaint cottage just off the border of The Forest. A place where the forest patters off into rolling meadows, and a lake, and great blue mountains off in the distance. Instead, you are fourteen-years-old and older than you ever thought possible.
“Do you ever regret this?” Aidonus asks. He’s sitting idly on their small, wooden table, cheek resting on his knuckles, and eyes watching the covered bowl just off to the side.
You eye the contents of the cupboard, humming something tuneless. “Regret what?” (’The strawberry jam!’ says Three. ‘Up at the top. Next to the— no, the other thing. It’s behind the— yes. Right there.’)
“Living here, I mean? The cycle of heroes hasn’t broken, and the gods will get what they want if you don’t stop them.”
“I have everything I ever want here— except for that blasted jam. Could you, um,” you gestures to the jar of red strawberry jam at the very top of the cupboard, remaining stubbornly out of her reach no matter how high you jump.
Aidonus stood up. “The great hero, beaten by her own cupboard.” He fetches the jam with ease. Bloody bastard and his tall legs.
“Bold words for someone whose groin is within punching distance.” Aidonus rolled his eyes and handed you the jar, though you could have done without him mussing your hair. You stick your tongue out at him before setting the jar beside the basket of previous bread-making attempts. The rejects weren’t inedible, per se, but they weren’t exactly what you would call tasty either. But bread was bread and you would be damned if you were going to waste all that time and effort. Thus, the jam.
“So you don’t want to get revenge against Dessia?”
“What are you talking about— oh, right.” You break off a chunk of bread and spread jam along its surface. “I could, I guess, if I really wanted to. But I don’t, so I won’t. Besides—” You cover your mouth as you chew and wow this bread is dry but it wasn’t too bad. “—I don’t know about you, but I’m too afraid of the consequences of killing a god. If there aren’t any cosmic disasters that would arise from killing the goddess of Fate, the other gods would surely retaliate. Becoming a god-slayer seems like too much effort.” You frown. “Is killing a god even possible?”
“Well, I killed you.”
“That’s different. I— or, well, One— was one of their creatures, but that doesn’t mean they were a god. You’re close enough to one, I guess, but you aren’t one either.”
Aidonus hums noncommittally and checks the covered bowl. “Proofing is done. I punch it next, right?”
“I’d like to emphasize that you gently punch it, please.”
He deflates the puffy dough with a single, gentle punch and folds its edges into the center to form a ball. You really hope that this attempt is a success or else you’ll end up having to ask Eira for help— and the gods know she’ll try to charm them into baking fairy bread. Morals aside, bones have very little nutritional value. Even if they were fairy bones.
You pop another piece of reject-bread into your mouth, watching him sprinkle some flour on the board they use for kneading and rolling dough. “What brought all this on, anyway?”
“I just remembered that, one day, you are going to die” he plops the ball of dough onto the board, “and I’m not. And you will be reborn as someone else. Someone who never knew me, someone who Dessia and the Temple will be absolutely sure is loyal to them and their cause. Some poor child who I will have to kill— or who knows? Maybe this time, they’ll be able to kill me.”
“Maybe.” You put the piece of bread down. “Or maybe not.”
He scoffed.
“Yes, maybe the next Hero will be subservient enough to follow the script. Maybe they’ll kill the last of the Cursed, maybe they’ll kill you, maybe you’ll kill them.—”
“Where are you going with this?”
“—Or maybe they won’t. The two of us have proven that Dessia isn’t some all-seeing puppet master. ” You look him in the eye. “Destiny, too, is a choice.”
He raises an eyebrow. “When did you get so wise?”
“All that dying must have taught me something, you know?”
He lets out a bark of laughter, the small cottage infusing with warmth at the very sound. He kneads the dough for a few more minutes before placing and covering it back in the bowl for the second round of proofing. You wordlessly hand him a slice of bread with a bit of jam—not slathered like how you tend to take yours, dry bread or not.
Aidonus takes a bite. He chews. Slowly. “Gods,” he says, between mouthfuls. “This bites like a rock. We really messed up haven’t we?”
You laugh, sliding the jar over to his side of the table. “Let’s hope we aren’t destined to be awful bakers.”
“With our track record, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. But who knows?” With a grin, he leans over the table and musses up your hair once more. “Maybe sixth time’s the charm.”
Happy STS! Tell me about the fathers in your work. Do you find yourself writing them a certain way? What are some of your OCs relationships with their dads?
tysm for the ask!!
I write primarily ya fantasy adventure, so fathers generally don’t show up much in my wips? One of the only relationship with an OC and their dad that actually shows up in tth is that between Ezra and his father Georg, which is distant and a little strained despite the fact that Georg only wants what’s best for his son. However, his father is also one of the only people that Ezra actually trusts.
