"She," Autor wrote, and tapped his quill against his lips. Most students had moved on to pens when the Story ended, but he still preferred the seven-to-ten ratio of blue-to-black ink in his well, still preferred the swan's feather which had been in the sea.
She. The word - the lonely, elegant word - stared him in the face, mocking his inability to elaborate, as she'd so often done.
"Tell me you love me," she'd said, and he had.
She, the prima ballerina whose courage helped to save Goldkrone, whose delicate lines and steps are ingrained in her, body and soul.
She, the unearthly beautiful raven child whose pitch-black hair and crimson eyes caught him around the middle every time.
She, the girl who'd smiled just sixteen times in the last year, who'd fled from him four times, and who'd avoided his gaze more times than he cared to count.
She, the very much human, but very much broken, Rue.