Through
the Cover
by
StopBlowingHolesInMyShips (aka Krystallia)
SUMMARY: After
the death of her father and Farid, Meggie chose to go back with Resa
to the world from whence they came. And time past, and Meggie grew
into a young woman in her twenties who was bored with her life and
nevertheless haunted by the tantalizing world that came from Ink. And
Meggie thought, and her mind toyed with the idea of creating her own.
So, Meggie put her pen to the paper she had long kept hidden and
unleashed her dreams.
But when the magnificent and complicated
world begins to fall apart on its own precarious, complex structure,
a test of Meggie's writing skill and her will is created. Can the
fast-working quill save the lives of those she created before they
are slaughtered and vanish altogether?
Chapter One: Surrender to Defeat
The huge clock gave a great and
mighty ring. It was one in the morning, and the battle was over.
Tremendous joy radiated from he soldiers, as the Inkworld was saved
and good for the rest of time.
But,
sadly, not for Meggie, and not for her mother either.
They walked away from the scene of the battle and did not look back,
did not turn back once, and it was at this moment Meggie saw how she
had grown over time. When she was twelve, she would not have given
up, she would have sobbed and begged for them to come back, and when
she was thirteen she would have turned to look tearfully and carry on
with an inextinguishable hope in her heart that there was some way
out. But she was fifteen now, her sixteenth birthday rising soon upon
the horizon, and she realized that time was the thing that ridded her
of the childlike, bright hope that lit her up like a big candle in
the midst of darkness. Time, and nearly three entire years wasted in
the Inkworld trying to free it had slowly killed her and thrown her
to bitterness. The whole time, the good things, the good feelings
were being stabbed out of her, and she couldn't feel it because she
was numb to darkness.
Now that her father and
her only romantic love had died, Meggie had lost her last good
feeling: love. No, that wasn't true, Meggie knew that deep down she
still had love for her mother, and Elinor, and Darius, and even that
god-damned Fenoglio who had messed everything up so badly. Meggie
loved them, but it seemed like all feeling was being watered down,
like all feeling had succumbed to loss.
There
was a great big empty hole in her heart that Meggie felt no one would
ever fill again, and it was for M--her father. Meggie gave a shudder
of pain as she imagined what his gravestone would read: 'Mortimer
Folchart, 1960-2005. Devoted husband, father, and friend. And most
importantly, book doctor.' Meggie remembered her childhood
nickname for her father's job and gave a pinched smile that hurt like
a thousand daggers being thrown into her fragile heart. Thoughts of
Mo swirled through her head...Mo mending books. Mo helping a young
Meggie make books. Mo helping Meggie reach the highest books on the
bookshelves. Mo smiling, Mo laughing, Mo reading late at night, Mo
talking to Meggie, Mo and Meggie, Meggie and Mo...
She began to cry silently, tears slipping down her face fast and
steady. She didn't dare make a noise, for if Resa saw her crying she
would surely make them stop...and Meggie didn't want to stop. She
wanted to keep running and running until they reached Elinor's big
house, or until she died herself.