Afterword

"Your habit of writing stories and then abandoning them halfway says a lot about your personality," Zaknafein said. He sat on The Author's desk, having first moved a lot of the junk onto the bed, to the Author's irritation.

"There's nothing wrong with my personality, thank you," the Author said, looking up sharply from the computer screen.

Zaknafein raised an eyebrow. "If you say so."

"While you, on the other hand, think you have a perfectly normal, non-psychotic personality?"

"I never made any such claims," Zaknafein said mildly. "And why do you have to turn on your… 'air-conditioning' so high? My chain-mail is getting cold."

"Please relay my deepest apologies to your armor," the Author said sarcastically. "Right. My mom just received a new batch of wine, so if you want to sample, you have to ask questions."

"Fine." Zaknafein sighed. "Why the postscript?"

"Well, I didn't write a prologue, so I thought that writing an epilogue wouldn't be very symmetrical," the Author said thoughtfully, "And this allowed me to change styles and write in a disjointed manner…"

"…As if that's not your normal style…"

"It's not! Anyway, the postscript was fun."

"And long-winded."

"Well…"

"Not to mention unnecessary, since you're having this 'Afterword' business."

The Author glared at him. "How would you like to be sent back to your dimension without the wine-tasting? Or maybe as a purple kitten?"

"All right, all right," Zaknafein raised his callused palms in mock-surrender. "About your plot… no matter what you say, I still think you have a fascination with writing about Lloth."

"Yeah," The Author admitted, "Despite her faults, at least her society is female-dominant."

"You lost me around 'Despite'."

"The dictionary's just there, Zaknafein," the Author gestured sweetly. "And anyway, apparently she's been killed."

"What?" Zaknafein blinked.

"Greyhawk series, apparently. Heard it in the mailing list, but didn't go and try to confirm." The Author explained, "Too lazy to go and read the books."

"Oh." Zaknafein seemed a little stunned. "Really?"

"Now you sound like a kid who can't believe he'd just gotten a key to a candy shop."

"Candy shop?" Zaknafein said absently, apparently still trying to wrap his mind around the concept that Lloth was dead, "What do I want with candies?"

"Nevermind," the Author said, turning her attention back to the screen. "This doesn't mean she'd be dead on all the dimensions and worlds."

"Why not?"

"Because I write some of them, and she's a good, if rather used, plot device."

Zaknafein rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Find others."

"She already is a plot device in a certain story I'm writing," the Author paused. "I admit that before I heard the thing about Greyhawk I was sort of tempted to kill her off, but then now I don't want to. It's…"

"Perverse?" Zaknafein supplied. "Warped?"

"I'm going to throw something at you, if you don't stop with the insults!"

"The nearest, free object next to you that I can see is one fuzzy white teddy bear," Zaknafein drawled.

The Author glowered at him, and Zaknafein decided not to see if the reality-bending ability the Author seemed to have in her room extended to materializing lethal weapons. "Right. Another question. Why are you still fascinated with the Jarlaxle-Winter pairing?"

"Well, I'm still not happy with the direction that the Salvatore stories on Jarlaxle are going, so this is, in a way, my protest." The Author looked at her bookshelves. "I wonder what on earth possessed me to buy so many of his books. Could have used the money to buy more Terry Pratchett, or maybe collect some of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series. I must have been out of my mind."

"Like you have one," Zaknafein couldn't resist muttering.

If looks could kill, the Author wouldn't even need a lethal weapon with this one. "Maybe if I stuff the teddy bear down your throat you'd asphyxiate."

Zaknafein smirked at her, but went on with the next question. "You have a really strange approach to the concept of love. Sometimes you seem to state it exists, sometimes you say it can't, sometimes you say that it's…"

"Well, since the universe is one of flux…" the Author scrambled for an answer, and Zaknafein could tell.

His smirk widened. "You mean you just can't grasp one idea for very long."

The Author reached for the teddy bear.