The Reader sat slumped in a chair, searching through an archive of fanfiction on a laptop. It hadn't been a very exciting day, and so the Reader thought some entertainment was in order. Now, to choose a good enough story…

A knock echoed through the empty room that the Reader sat in. Before the Reader could respond, the door to the room opened, and a girl entered with a laptop carried like a book against her hip.

"Hi there," she said, and smiled at the Reader.

The Reader raised an eyebrow. "Hi. Who are you?"

"I'm the Writer. I saw you were looking for something good to read, and I thought I might volunteer a story of my own. Well, sort of my own, anyways."

"Is it any good?"

"Sure it is. Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Revenge. Giants. Monsters. Chases. Escapes. True love. Miracles. Does that sound like 'any good'?"

The Reader shrugged and closed the laptop. "I'll try to stay awake."

"Thanks, Reader. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming." The Writer rolled her eyes, smiled, and sat on a chair opposite the Reader. She opened her laptop and cleared her throat.

"Wait, why did you just call me Reader?"

"Because you are," the Writer said.

"You're reading this aloud to me. Wouldn't that make me, like, the Listener?"

"Readers, listeners…they're both audiences, aren't they? And I don't particularly care to call you an audience, so you're the Reader. Now, would you let me read?"

The Reader blinked and decided not to comment on the Writer's slight insanity.

"'The Princess Bride—Underland Style'," the Writer read, "'with The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins, The Princess Bride by William Goldman, and the combination of the two by the Writer. The Writer does not own either The Underland Chronicles or The Princess Bride, and credits all ownership and profits to their respective authors/geniuses. Chapter One: Gregor had lived in Virginia for as long as he could remember…'"


Gregor had lived in Virginia for as long as he could remember, which wasn't very long at all. Most of his memories started at about age eleven, when he moved to his uncle's house with his parents and two sisters. His parents were both very sick, and his sisters were always making up stories and asking him to get into them. Gregor thought these stories were to repress the grief the girls felt that their grandma had died, so he didn't question it too much.

He'd decided to go to New York City—the place he'd moved from—for college. He figured they offered a really good scholarship, so why not? He was an incredible sports player, and most of his teammates turned to him for advice. He didn't exactly know how to explain instinct, but he showed them what he did and wound up very popular as almost every member on any sports team was trying to figure out his secret.

There was, however, a slight catch to this college plan. The only apartment Gregor could afford that was even remotely close to his college was the apartment that he used to live in, the apartment his parents advised he never enter again. But what choice did he have? He needed to be close to the field, and he just didn't feel right living in a dorm where everyone would soon know how mysteriously talented he was at sports. So the weekend after he graduated from high school, he packed up his clothes and drove up to New York with his parents.

Now, Gregor felt a sort of déjà vu upon arrival at his old apartment. The only neighbor he remembered, Mrs. Cormaci, had passed away when he was still in Virginia, so nearly every face was unfamiliar. He did, however, keep glancing around as if expecting something to pop out of the walls. In fact, the walls almost felt like they were breathing, watching him.

It must have freaked out his parents a little as well, because they drove home almost the minute they had helped Gregor unpack. Mom did have to get back to her job, they said. But Gregor could see the looks they cast around the apartment. He shrugged it off. It had been a long trip, he was tired, and it was almost nighttime. He ordered a pizza for dinner and was about to set up his blankets on the floor when he noticed opened the box and realized that the top blanket was stained brown and sopping wet, seeping into the clothes underneath it.

Gregor grumbled to himself. Mom had spilled her coffee on the box with his blankets. Rolling the wet blanket up and setting it under his arm, he stomped down the stairs and to the depths of basement, otherwise known as the laundry room. He prayed that no one closed it overnight.

Luck was with him for that, though, and he was able to toss the blankets into the washing machine in complete solitude. He fed the machine quarters and was just about to go upstairs and grab another slice of his pizza and a college brochure, when he heard it.

It was a short intake of breath, like someone stifling a sob. The noise paused, and then echoed once more throughout the basement.

"Hello?" Gregor called out hesitantly. The sound halted, right in the middle of another sob. At the end of the row of dryers, a piece of cloth slid behind the white metal. Gregor stepped over to find—

A girl. A girl no older than he, with the palest skin he had ever seen. It was as if she was a walking circulatory system, from all the veins of blood he could see. Her hair, a mixture of silver and blonde, had a small compressed part at the crown of her head, as if a band had been there for many years and removed only recently. And before she hid her eyes from him and crouched closer to the dryer, he realized her eyes were violet.

"Hey," he said, crouching down to her eye level. He noted a scar on the side of her face, running down from the temple of her head to the tip of her chin. Okay then. "Hey, Scar Girl," he said, trying to get her attention. "Are you okay?"

The girl lifted her head to meet his gaze. Through the tears, something stirred inside her violet eyes, something like a mixture of recognition and hope...and something else Gregor couldn't name.

"My name's Gregor," he said. "What are you doing all by yourself?"

The girl didn't answer. That something in her eyes had gone. Another few tears trickled down her cheeks as she tried to regain control of herself. Her chin stuck out, an almost natural position for her. She looked to be defiant.

"Look, if you're not going to talk to me, maybe you should go home," Gregor tried.

The girl shook her head. The defiance came stronger.

"Maybe a friend's house?"

She shook her head again.

"Well you can't stay here."

Now she just stared.

Gregor sighed. Defiant as she was, tears still tore at her eyes, and he could tell there was something much more problematic than the fact that she was in a laundry room at nine at night with no belongings of any sort.

"Tell you what," he said. "Maybe I won't tell anyone you're here, and you can stay here all night or whatever you want. But you can't get in trouble, okay?"

"As you wish," she murmured.

Gregor did a double take. That accent only added to the déjà vu of this whole apartment, the weird feeling in his gut that something monumental had happened in this building. Or near it, anyways. Oh well. He offered his hand.

"Come on then, Scar Girl."

They waited for his blanket to be washed first, Gregor trying to pry information out of her all the while. She kept giving him these strange glances whenever he tried to guess what had happened, as if she didn't know about half of what he was talking about. And Gregor could tell she couldn't believe he couldn't get it right. Finally, when his blanket had finished drying and he was ready to leave, he grumbled, "I bet you won't even tell me your name, will you?"

"Luxa."

Gregor looked at her oddly. There was that accent again, but he didn't think it was the accent that added to the eeriness of all this. That name intrigued him so much, stirred something inside him that just wouldn't go away. Enough that he made an offer:

"What if I let you in my apartment tonight? I mean, if you don't steal anything," he added. "You can help me unpack or something. Okay?"

"As you wish."

Luxa followed him upstairs and to his room, where he set out another few blankets for her in the middle of an empty bedroom. He slept in the kitchen with his things. The next morning, he reheated pizza for the both of them, and started the day with, "Okay, Scar Girl, we need to unpack today."

"As you wish."

Gregor wondered if, if she was going to take such a formal tone, he should call her Luxa. It'd mean she could be casual with him. But no, he liked Scar Girl a lot better. It didn't give him nearly as bad a feeling as "Luxa" did. He didn't want to think this "Luxa" name was a very important detail that he had forgotten, like he seemed to have forgotten the rest of this life in New York. So "Scar Girl" she was, and Gregor liked it that way.

That day of unpacking turned into two months of Scar Girl staying at Gregor's apartment as he worked a summer job. Even if his scholarship was paid in full, Gregor still needed furniture; he needed groceries; he needed textbooks; he needed rent and utilities and all those things he'd never thought about buying until all the finances depended on him.

And he needed Scar Girl, as much as he ignored her. He never introduced her to anyone; the one time he tried to take her out for Chinese food, she suffered a sunburn (at twilight, Gregor thought exasperatedly) that kept her lying on the couch for two days. But she hardly said a word, then or otherwise. He'd tried several times to start a conversation, to compare colleges, to ask where she'd come from and where she'd gotten that scar. But she clammed up most often, if clamming up meant going to one's room and staring out the window at the traffic.

So Gregor decided: if she wanted to stay, fine. She'd leave if she wanted to, that he knew. But if she wanted him to pay for her to live there, she was going to have to help out. So she was the one who microwaved dinner and cleaned the windows and searched online for his school supplies (once he showed her how to use Google—and seriously, who didn't know how to use Google?). He'd taken to adding Scar Girl to everything, just because it seemed about the only way she would respond.

"Scar Girl, I need you to find me some basketball shoes. I'm a size ten."

"Scar Girl, clean the kitchen floor. I'm going to be late."

"Scar Girl, call the doorman and tell him the elevator broke again."

And all Scar Girl would say was, "As you wish." Not another person interacted with her besides Gregor, and they both rather liked it that way. Scar Girl didn't have to go into the sunlight and get strange looks at her skin, and Gregor could avoid questions about why a girl he never talked about was living in his apartment. That, and this was the first time he could remember where he didn't have to do a single chore around the apartment.

Until the day that Gregor woke up, headed down to the basement with Scar Girl carrying the basket of clothes, and found an elderly woman with the same skin, hair, and eyes as Scar Girl. The elderly woman turned towards the two when she heard their footsteps in the concrete stairwell, and smiled when they froze at the door.

"Luxa," she beamed. "It is such a pleasure to see you once more."

Luxa's eyes narrowed, and she took a step back.

Gregor looked between the two. "Uh…hi," he said. "Can I help you?"

The elderly woman's eyebrows rose. She still spoke to Luxa. "Have you been with him this entire time?"

"It is of no concern to you," Luxa murmured. Her eyes appeared to be on fire, contrasting with the elderly woman's soft violet ones.

"Oh, but I wish I had known," the woman said, walking through the aisle of washing machines and dryers until she stood in front of the two. "We have missed you, Luxa. Your family has worried greatly for your disappearance."

"You are no family of mine," Luxa spat. "And it was no disappearance."

"Regalia needs you, Luxa."

Luxa looked about ready to retort, but something caught her. And Gregor, too. As he froze, Luxa dropped the laundry basket, turned on her heel, and ran up the stairs.

With just her and Gregor left, the elderly woman seemed to have no other business left. "I will return to see you once more," she said with a smile, "Gregor."

Gregor frowned. This just got odder and odder, and he didn't like the feelings of déjà vu that hadn't gotten stronger until now. The woman turned, walked to the end of the aisle of washing machines and dryers, crouched down, and did not emerge. It was like she'd just fallen through the floor.

Gregor intended to investigate, but the sight of Luxa running away appeared in his mind. With the spare key he had given her, she had likely returned to the apartment. But what about that woman would make her run away so suddenly? If she hadn't run from him in two months, there must really be something about this smiling, somewhat creepy woman that wanted her more than Gregor ever wanted her.

He started up the stairs, a feeling of dread settling in his stomach. This woman had wanted to take away Luxa. He couldn't bear to call her Scar Girl at the moment, now that she had a voice and a personality and a past—and a very unpleasant past at that. It must have been something, really something, if she ran away from a woman and family that seemed to need her.

Oh, why did they need her? It wasn't curiosity that gnawed at him. Something further. He closed his eyes in a sigh—

And saw Luxa running away.

Luxa, leaving him and his apartment empty, forever. After he'd given her a room and food and a spare key. It wasn't anger that boiled in his veins. Something more. He closed his eyes again, willing the image of Luxa leaving to disappear—

But Luxa still left.

He stifled it, but the moan came out. And in that moan, in that stairwell, it hit him. And suddenly he had to run up the stairs, run into the open-door apartment, run up to Luxa's room, and bang at the door.

Luxa opened it, dry-eyed and somewhat resigned to the emotions she had faced a few minutes ago. She stared at him.

"I just wanted to tell you that I love you. I have no idea how it happened, or why I realized it now, or why it chose you, or why I love you—no, wait, I think I know that. Your eyes are incredible, Luxa—and I've never called you that, right? Well, I will now. Luxa, Luxa, Luxa, is that good? I could say it all the time if you want, ten thousand for every time I called you 'Scar Girl.' I love your scar, and your hair right next to it. I always wondered how you hardly need to shower and it's still so…like that. And I don't want you to leave. I don't want you to go after that woman because you need to stay right here with me. I'll do all the chores and the cleaning and the online shopping if you want, if you stay. Just say you will, because I love you, Luxa, I do. Just say you do too, and we can forget that woman and go to a new apartment, and I won't ever take you out into the sunlight. Or maybe we can do it a few times and have dates. Just say you love me too. Please, Luxa?"

Luxa stared.

And blinked.

And shut the door.

Gregor stood at the door dejectedly, wondering whether or not he was supposed to keep trying. But no, suddenly all the breath that he had lined up to talk whizzed out of him, and it was all he could do not to collapse on his way to the couch. He lied on his back, his arm over his eyes, and cried. He didn't really mean to, but the last couple of minutes had been rather stressing on him. Especially when he had just figured out that he'd loved Luxa from the moment he heard her sniff in the laundry room, and that was why he let her live in his apartment and he spent half his money on her. He'd even given her chores just to keep her around.

Yes, well, this had been a chain of epiphanies.

Why wouldn't she even say anything back? She could have said "no." Or "sorry," she could have said that too. Even that would have been better than a door in Gregor's face. But no, she responded with just that.

Luxa entered the living room and sat on the floor in front of him.

"Oh, Scar Girl," Gregor said, drying his eyes with his sleeve. "Sorry about that joke and everything. I thought you might have needed it, after you ran away from that woman, but I think you might have actually believed me. But you have to admit, it was a little funny, right?"

"I am leaving."

"Wait, what?" Gregor sat up on the couch. Finding this to be not good enough, he fell off of the couch and sat on the floor in front of Luxa.

"I said that I am leaving."

"Well, that's great. Because, you know, I didn't love you or anything."

"That is quite a shame, because I do love you."

"Really?" All pretenses were dropped. "Seriously, Luxa? But…but you never said anything."

"I did, Gregor, but you have never heard it. The entire time I told you, 'As you wish,' I was actually telling you that I love you." Something lit up her eyes: the same light he had seen when she first looked at him. It was a look of love. "You must truly have lost much of your hearing over the years, Gregor, because I have said it so many times that I have lost all count."

"Wait, wait. I'm still getting over you saying my name."

"Do you want to hear it again? Gregor. It is not so hard to say, but you seem to have had a hard time saying my name."

"But if you saying 'as you wish' meant you loved me, why can't me calling you 'Scar Girl' mean I love you?"

"It does not matter to me." Luxa shrugged.

"Well, I love you."

"I have wanted to hear that for a very long time."

"I'll say it again. I swear, I will."

"Do your worst."

Gregor wanted to—he really did—but instead he simply leaned forward and kissed her. Normally, this would be a momentous occasion, something to celebrate and smile upon when reflecting old times, or perhaps to laugh about when you realize you did something completely wrong. But this kiss redefined all momentous occasions, and not one person could laugh at it, because they simply melted into each other, as long-lost lovers are wont to do. Not that Gregor knew, and not that Luxa cared.

An hour and several "I love you"s later, Luxa stood in a raincoat, hat, sunglasses, and a puddle of sunscreen, with Gregor at her side. They both stared at a rock in the middle of Central Park.

"You have to go under that?" Gregor asked.

"I do."

"I don't think I understand."

"I knew you would not. I will explain everything one day. But for the moment, unfinished business awaits me in the Underland."

"The Underland?"

"The world beneath this rock."

"Right," Gregor said, though she could have said nothing and it would have made as much sense.

"I will send word in seven days. Look in the grate at the floor of the laundry room for my letters. If I cannot write, I will send word to a friend, who will explain for me. If Sandwich allows, you may follow me one day, and I will show you the Underland."

Gregor ignored her mention of a sandwich. "And I can help you with the things you have to do?"

"Yes."

"You're going to have to tell me sometime what you're supposed to do, you know."

"I know this," Luxa said, and gave him half a smile. "Now come and help me move this boulder."

Together they pried the boulder from its position—if it was metal, Gregor would call it rusted to the ground—and soon they stared into a deep hole in the middle of Central Park. Luxa slipped into it without a second thought, and handed her coat, hat, and sunglasses to Gregor.

"Come back soon," Gregor said, and kissed the top of her head.

"As you wish," Luxa said, and helped Gregor close the boulder over the entrance that would separate them for what felt like an eternity to Gregor.

Gregor went straight to work, trying to act normal at his job, but secretly squirming. It had hardly been an hour, yet he was considering running home and checking the laundry room for messages because it felt so much like a week had gone by. He knew he ought to be signing up for college orientation, but Luxa captivated his mind every time he tried to focus on anything besides her.

A week passed, and then two. No word from Luxa. Gregor considered sleeping in the laundry room a few times, and did once, but forced himself to bed when the janitor woke him up rather rudely. Though Gregor's love never changed—grew perhaps, expanded perhaps, strengthened perhaps, but never changed—his worry soon overcame all but that love.

One day, just as Gregor had turned the page to one of his textbooks while sitting on the floor of the laundry room, a rolled-up piece of parchment slipped into the grate. He pounced on it, unrolling it so quickly it almost ripped.

The words registered in his mind. The Dread Pirate Roberts. Famous for no survivors. Luxa missing. Assumed dead.

Gregor left his textbooks and the laundry room, completely dry-eyed but clenching the sheet of paper as if it was Luxa's spirit flying into the heavens. His eyes could not leave the words alone. He didn't care who had written it—no matter that the paper was unsigned and anonymous—so long as it wasn't her signature.

The doorman stopped Gregor on his way upstairs. "Hey kid," the doorman said, "are you doin' okay?"

"I'm fine," Gregor said, his eyes still trained on the paper. "But I can't ever love again."

He never did.


"Wait, wait, wait," the Reader interrupted. "You made Gregor the girl? He's Buttercup?"

The Writer looked up from her computer, mildly amused. "Well…yes and yes."

"But you're not allowed to do that. He's, like, a boy."

"Well yeah, I know," the Writer responded. A moment of silence followed.

"So do something," the Reader said.

"No, thank you. I sort of like it this way." The Writer smiled and looked back to her laptop screen. "And now to introduce my Prince Humperdink…"

"Whoever it is, Gregor better not wear a wedding dress," the Reader grumbled.

"You're still upset about that?" The Writer sighed and set aside her laptop. "Look, I know this is really sort of weird. But what fun would it be, really, if we just followed the same old story? I bet you only want to see who was who in this whole thing. I think it'd be a lot more fun to switch things up."

The Writer, not knowing the Reader's preference of pairings, decided not to assure the Reader that Gregor wasn't going to marry to some male character, no matter how demented she made her stories otherwise.

Instead, the Writer tried a different approach. "Besides, you can't honestly tell me that Luxa will sit around waiting to be rescued for the entirety of the story."

"Yeah, but—"

"Honestly."

"But Gregor's the guy, he has to—"

The Writer gave the Reader a look that said "are you kidding me?"

The Reader sighed. "So who's Humperdink, then?"

The Writer shrugged and closed her laptop. "Well, I don't know. It doesn't really look like you're interested in this whole thing. Maybe I'll just keep it to myself. Or Alsarnia can give me a hand, and we can laugh together at who I picked to play Inigo Montoya. You just stay here and have fun with Gregor saving the day." The Writer then made to get up from her chair.

The Reader held a hand out to stop the Writer, and said the first thing that came to mind: "If I review, will you give me the next chapter?"

The Writer turned and half-grinned. "That's normally how it works around here. Tell you what. I'm going to get a cup of hot chocolate. I'll give you the next chapter when I return—that is, if you still want to see Gregor play a girl's part. And if you want to review while I'm gone…hey, I won't stop you."

The Reader watched as the Writer left the room, laptop in hand, without a second glance back. A box labeled "Reviews" with a little slit at the top appeared where the Writer had been sitting, with a pencil and a pad of sticky notes next to it. The Reader looked around, paused in thought, and then sighed, getting up to fill out a sheet of paper.