Prologue: A Sudden Event
A woman shrouded in darkness watched from her illuminated screen. Many times before had her eyes ventured towards the tale of "the Prince and the Raven." Though the characters of the tale had taken back the story and made it their own, many of the townsfolk had been hurt and become collateral damage in the process, thanks to the influence of the deceased author, Drosselmeyer. Knowing that so many had been affected and hurt because of his selfish meddling left a bittersweet taste in the woman's mouth. Her gaze fell on the young writer and his bird companion displayed in her magic mirror, her eyes softening at the little duck that gradually nodded off and lazily bobbed in the water while her friend smiled wistfully and wrote in his notebook.
Such innocence and purity was nearly ruined because of a manipulative, decrepit old man, whose only aspiration was to achieve tragedy to the point where even death hadn't hindered him, no matter how twisted reality had become in the process. One little bird was the savior of a whole town, yet this was how she was repaid. After all of the trials and adversity she had faced, she was doomed to remain a duck for all time and to be remembered by no one in town other than an useless knight, who had also achieved a bittersweet ending.
No... I will not see it end like this. Not again! The woman frowned. With a wave of her hand, the images on her viewing device began to move in reverse. All the heartache and pain, all the joy and sadness, everything was spinning backwards, as if history was being unraveled and undone from a tug of a loose thread.
Turn back the tale, spin the gears of time, back to when all was forgotten... She rotated her hand, her adamant gaze ever watchful for the key moment. Stop! Her hand twitched abruptly as her eyes became alight with anxious excitement. The tale was paused on a wide overview of the clock-tower, the tallest building in Gold Crown Town. Pulling her black cloak over her, she stepped through the projected image before she found herself inside of the self-same clock tower. A glowing portal made up of many strange runes and coded numbers lit her back as she stood in the attic of the building.
This is where the device was held... She glanced around the tower before her eyes found the clockwork device spinning and turning, a recently added attachment to the clock's standard gears. Still here, after all this time... Her hand gently grazed the intricate contraption before firmly grasping the metal device that held the ink pen made up of a white swan's feather.
Her purpose here was to give the characters another chance at their happy ending, with no outside influence. She was not the one who would control such destiny, but rather hand them the opportunity to reshape their own stories, for she was no story spinner, but she could at least remove his influence. That was the only thing she could do. The pen quivered in her hand like a mouse trying to escape from a cat's paw, unable to write further as her grip tightened to the point of almost crushing the device.
This shall put an end to it! She declared before abruptly ripping the mechanical arm away, tearing various hinges, pulleys, and bolts apart like they were cobwebs on the ceiling before the gears of the contraption came to a gradual halt. Her eyes narrowed, her smile curling into a smug, victorious grin.
Let him try and finish his story with this in tatters... She sneered at the broken bits of the late author's abhorred invention before casting it away onto the floor with the rest of the garbage.
She briefly looked back over the town and soundlessly bade the good townspeople good luck and best wishes before disappearing into her portal to sit back and observe. Unbeknownst to her, the hands on the Gold Crown Town clock also came to halt the moment she had broken the device, the hands forever stuck between ten and two, and all clockwork noise fell to silence.