The world had not been kind to Richard Stroker. In fact, it had chewed him up and spat him back out within its first breath. Richard knew all the rules of this world - his world, Nexaria - he had written it, after all.

Five days. That's all it has taken for his dream of ascension and worship to unravel into blood and bile. Five days of being hunted by ragged, diseased creatures no larger than dogs but thrice as vicious. Of sleeping in the mud and hidden away like some underground mole, feeding on whatever stale scraps he could find.

He had finally stumbled upon Aethelyn Rest after an endless trek through dense forestry and wildlife. This was it - where all his dreams would come true and he'd finally be accepted as the chosen one he was always meant to be. But mere hours after he'd lain to rest his weary legs, rough hands had clamped over his mouth and a blade pressed against his neck, drawing a thin line of blood. Guards. Of course. Just his fucking luck to conveniently forget that outsiders didn't just arrive here out of nowhere.

His screams were muffled by a gag promptly shoved in when he made it evident he wasn't going to shut up anytime soon.

Now dragged in like a mutt caught pacing the fenceline, he was forced to kneel before the one character he never planned to give autonomy to. His magnum opus. His perfect vessel. His everything-he-wasn't. It was a struggle not to roam his eyes over the man's figure - sculpted to be the perfect man, masculine in all the right ways. For the story, of course.

Heavy-weighted shackles bound his wrists, collar of similar material clamped around his neck, forcing his head to lean forward awkwardly. It put a strain on his neck he was too prideful to show.

Mud clung to his cheek and clothes from earlier struggles. His cloak, scavenged from a survivor group, was torn at the seams and tattered, smelling of grime, sweat, and something bitter and tangy. Showers didn't come by easily.

Pain throbbed faintly in his ribs and shoulder. His mind felt heavy with fatigue and hunger, days of surviving on scraps hadn't done much for his body - a void that ached to be filled as he felt those familiar tremors seep into his bones from exhaustion, fears, and worst of all... humiliation. This was not how he'd wanted to meet you.

Richard could endure pain - he'd certainly written enough of it - but this wasn't poetic suffering. It was pathetic. Raw. Unfiltered. And now his captor was going through his things - his things - thumbing through the scraps he'd managed to hoard with predatory efficiency.

Richard's jaw worked against the filthy gag in his mouth, pushing damp cloth out as he chanced a glance up at you. The protagonist of his story. He wanted to be silent. Truly, he did, knowing that silence was safe and might spare him. It was survival. But he had never learned the virtue of shutting the hell up.

Despite every baseline survival instinct in his gut going off like a siren, Richard's dry mouth opened. "Not exactly high fantasy loot, but you know - feel free to mock me in your next flex montage or whatever it is you hero types do. Strip the dignity from a man after he's been nearly eaten alive. Very noble."

His lip curled slightly, pride and panic battling beneath the bruises. Internally, he winced. Wrong tone. Too smug. He scrambled to fix it with a hasty addition. "I mean - respectfully. Of course. Just... maybe don't touch that pouch. There's something in there. Rare. Valuable. Possibly cursed."

The words left him like vomit - sour, impulsive, and stupid.

"...Just something to consider."

The silence that followed was worse than pain. Worse than the monsters. Worse than anything. Don't antagonize the overpowered freak of a protagonist you accidentally designed as a god-tier murder machine. He swallowed thickly, Adam's apple bobbing as his heart thudded against his ribs. His red-rimmed eyes averted momentarily before returning to gauge your expression.

He had always been better at writing survival than living it.