Interlude: The Canon Reckoning

How many times was Lillia going to start a chapter by falling? The less foruth wall shattering version of this question ran through her head as she plummeted through the infinite dark into a space between spaces. The little blank space between the end of a chapter and the ‘next chapter’ button on Royal Road.
A place of non-canon actions. A place of interludes. A place of author’s notes.
A place that we know nobody reads. It’s okay. The author probably forgives you if you’ve made it this far into the story. Assuredly someone has hit the follow button and—
“Hello!?” Lillia asked the nothing from nowhere. To avoid the paradox, let’s give her a floor and call it a space.
As the floor popped in below her, Lillia yelped. After spending so much time in the land between, she was more used to stanidng on nothing than the narrator had expected.
“What’s going on? Did I win? Who—”
“Hey, Lillia,” the voice said. The voice wasn’t one she’d heard before, but somehow it was still familiar. A little shrill for a man’s voice, but what can you do? “Sorry, just had to grab you there. Bad time?”
“Probably?” Lillia said. “Has there been a good time?”
“Well, we could have delayed this until after the whole debacle with Nennia, which probably would have helped the narrative flow.”
“The what now?”
“Don’t worry about it too much,” the voice said. “That’s my job. Usually it’s my job to keep you out of here as well, but well—here we are?”
“Where is here?”
“Fourth wall. Narrative management section. Second book, around chapter 16.”
“…What?”
“Look, Lillia. Just give me a moment to explain things and—”
“I’m really tired of hearing that.”
“I know, but just allow me a moment and I will be able to help you with—Here I’ll take the blood off you.”
Lillia was clean.
“What the heck?”
Lillia felt warm and cozy.
She sat down on the floor and pulled her knees in close to her chest. “Have you always been able to do this?”
“Technically yes.”
“I’VE BEEN—”
“Narrative wise? No.”
“I don’t know what that means still,” Lillia said. “But you made my fingers warm for the first time in over a month without them needing to be on fire, so I’ll listen.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Though it’s supposed to be, ’Thank you, your hi—”
“Lillia, this is not the space to be pulling rank.”
There was something about the words that made her trust them, even if only because it could be written directly into the narration, which was kinda fucked up if you thought about it too long.
“…Go ahead.”
“Okay! So great news, Lillia. There are a bunch of people who really like you.”
“There are! That whole ‘I don’t remember people’ thing was getting bleak. Are they coming to he—”
“Well no, they aren’t coming to help. They’re—”
“Then what good are they?”
“The readers? Consider them emotional support,” the voice began. “But look, a lot of people like you. Part of that is that other people started wondering how to market you and—”
“Market me?”
“Look, it’s a long tale here. Point being there is this place called Achilles Literary Agency, they have the story in the hands of some other people and that process required some…changes.”
“Changes?”
“Nothing too major!”
“Changes to what?”
“Changes to what’s happened so far in the story. There is a reason that your conversation with Eisel in the Realms Between changed in June.”
“What? No it didn’t.”
“Well, no it didn’t to you, but you’re canon Lillia.”
“What now?”
“Canon Lillia. The current version of you. If something changed earlier in the narrative you wouldn’t know it because it would just be true.”
“You sound like Cathria when she tried telling me about time travel.”
“Cathria does come dangerously close to the fourth wall sometimes. Yes,” the voice said, admitting that they’d sometimes gotten too cute about it. “But the point is, if you’ll give me a moment—”
“Okay.”
“Thank you. The point is that—”
“Thank you your….”
“Highness. Jesus—”
“Who’s that?”
“I thought this would be a cute narrative device to explain a change in canon but I’m thinking Havoc was right about you.”
“Depending on the time that’s either very mean or very kind.”
“Okay. Lillia. Focus. Please. You’re cozy.”
“I am.”
“Okay. So there is interest in the book, which is great, but some people up top think that your story was getting a little long in the tooth. You know, spending too much time down here in the—”
“They think I’m spending too much time down here?”
“Well, spending too long to explain the same amount of time,” the voice corrected. “Look, the point is that we had to cut about 10% of your narrative out of the story, which means that some things that happened…didn’t happen.”
“What?”
“Well, for the most part happened differently. Fight with Cathria is way shorter now. Removed a whole phase. And the stairs!”
“But I remember that fight.”
“Yes! You will, it’s still there. You’ll just remember it differently to all the people on royal road and reddit.”
“So is it just the fight with Cathria?”
“Oh no. Lots removed around the original Hunting Grounds, kinda forgot this was a comedy for a moment there—”
“THIS IS A COMEDY?!”
“That and a couple of items have changed or just been removed entirely.”
“You stole my stuff!?”
“Well, not anything relevant! Remember the piece of cloth you got from the fight with Cathria that could be used for adaptive regalia?”
“No?”
“Neither did I for like the entire first novel! So it’s gone. I had it written, and it just never came up!”
“But it could be useful—”
“Look, Lillia. Having the Rickshaw coin be narratively relevant was already pushing it with how little it’s mentioned. I had to actually ADD words to set that up better, which, of course, meant more removed and so on so forth.”
“So you took all my stuff?”
“No. I took some of your stuff, and it’s all stuff that you weren’t using anyway. Clutter. Just space in the inventory.”
“I know all my items!”
“What does the Bastion Breaker do?”
“Uhhhhh,” Lillia bit her lip as she thought.
“Yeah exactly. Non-canon, don’t worry about it.”
“So,” Lillia began. “Canon mean true?”
“Essentially it’s the current truth. Yes.”
“So if it’s not true, why tell me? Why not just stop talking about it and—”
“Well, I could have done that too, but there are some changes that do matter—”
“I knew it! You scoundrel—”
“Nothing major! Small conversations that never happened, that sort of thing.” That didn’t quite ring as true so they repeated it. “Look, I promise it’s nothing story-breaking. Most people probably don’t even remember the parts that have been removed.”
“Most people? It’s just me down here.”
“No, like the readers. Remember all the people supporting you. You want to what? Don’t worry, it’s fine.”
Lillia wasn’t sure it was.
“Point being, I probably didn’t have to do this. People probably would have never noticed if I just went forward with the—”
“You keep saying “I.” Are you in charge?”
“In a sense, yes. Look, point being, we’re now going to move forward as if you were part of the edited novel canon, because otherwise this is driving me insane and really slowing down my writing and—”
“Are you the dungeon?”
“No.”
“Who is the dungeon?”
“Spoilers.”
“Okay, just to make sure I understand,” Lillia began. “There are some things and conversations missing, but you don’t think I was acting on them anyway, so they shouldn’t matter?”
“Bingo.”
“Am I going to remember them?”
“No. They will no longer be canon.”
“But—Is this conversation canon? It feels kinda…meta.”
“Where’d you learn the word meta?”
“Exactly,” Lillia said. “See. Meta? We’re too—”
“Look, this conversation isn’t canon, but the effects of the conversation affect the canon.”
“That doesn’t make much sense.”
“Yeah, and this was supposed to be a cute little announcement, but look where this conversation got us,” the voice said.
“Well I don’t think that is my fa—Couldn’t this have been an author’s note?”
“Oh god we are too far gone.”
“Which God?”
“Don’t act like there is a canon name for the gods of this world. Be glad I named the nearby vassal kingdoms.”
“Well, my point stands. Couldn’t this have been an author’s note?”
“Nobody reads author’s notes.”
“Well—”
“Have fun with Nennia.”
Lillia stood up and dusted herself off before searching around for the source of the voice, namely to give it a quizzical look. “I won’t?”
Everything vanished.