Sum of Particular Letters

The flipping of pages entered Astra's ears. Or, more accurately, her mind.

["What's taking you so long?! Just find an appropriate scene!"] An irritable voice snarled. It was a sharp vibration that never failed to shake the inner walls of Astra's brain.

There was a shushing noise, and the familiar animated voice of someone cried out in a heated thrill. ["I found it! In this chapter…"]

A snap of one's fingers finally came after several more page flips. From here onwards, a rather fascinating experience would occur to Astra that the gods simply called, The Shift. It was the process of transmission, wherein the host's vessel would be connected to the worldview of a certain text.

Soon, Astra would become the sum of particular letters—a character.

Her body (weightless and intangible, roaming in between the spaces of written symbols) would then manifest itself into something like star matter. And just like that, she would find herself hurled across the nebulas from the tips of a god's fingers and collapse among the paragraphs of a new book, smeared across the pages where only the gods would be able to see.

It would only be a brief moment, but Astra liked catching glimpses of the distant universe as she fell. How befitting her—their name was. Astra Planeta. Wandering Stars.

Not long after, her vision would be dyed white.

Then, a landscape of a vast garden came into sight.

✦ ✦ ✦

As all her countless other Shifts, the relocation of her soul and body transferring were never not painless. It was a sensation that resembled the turbulent push and pull of waves devouring one's body. But of course, it had always been like this. She felt that she had missed the opportunity to find fault in such things.

She drew in her breath sharply, the force of impact from grounding herself to a physical form sending ripples throughout her entire body. Her hands and knees had fallen onto the ground, onto what seemed to be the floor of a gazebo. After finally catching her bearings, she willed herself to survey her surroundings and channel in her role.

In this story, Astra's name was Fleur Beaumont. Seventeen years of age, with wavy blonde hair that reached just below her jaw, and… the same golden eyes. Some things just had to be a fixed variable, she guessed.

["What else are you sitting there for, dear? You'll be late to the female lead's first ball entrance!"] A voice urged her on from the back of her head.

Fleur Beaumont, in her pink-coloured silk of a dress, gathered what little strength she had in her frail body and lifted her excessively long skirts, scurrying away from the rather extravagant pavilion she landed herself in. From her transmitted memories, this garden—this palace—belonged to the imperial family of the nation. A marked map of all the secret places of the residence hovered over her brain like some kind of cheat code. The corridors and hallways weren't at all foreign, as if she had been here before on numerous occasions.

And perhaps Astra had.

"There you are!"

Reaching the terrace steps that led to the main palace, a brown-haired figure suddenly approached her, white gloved arms reaching out to grab at her shoulders. "His Highness is making his way to the ballroom soon! We need to hurry."

Thankfully, one of Fleur's beloved associates decided to appear. A brief glance at this person and Astra felt a chunk of information being injected through her cerebrum. This would be Camille Fontaine, daughter of a count, and most important of all, a fellow extra.

Not that it would matter to indulge every single one of Fleur's family and friends; Astra felt that it simply made sense to get around in the background as much as possible. Using everyone at her disposal to navigate through the story had always been her course of action. She was only an observer, after all.

Linking their arms together, Camille muttered about unnecessary things and fussed over her appearance on their way to the main event of tonight.

The grandeur of the royal ballroom soon greeted their presence. Men and women draped in luxurious attires mingling about, the orchestra and dancers fixated on their performances—and a lone woman leaning against a pillar, sipping from a glass unbothered. Her hair was a magenta shade that cascaded down to her waist, braided with floral clips. The surrounding area seemed to carry a heavy atmosphere from where she stood. There would be no one brave enough approaching her tonight, it seemed. It was a typical villainess-attends-a-party scenario.

All signs of this narrative's genre were rather obvious, even right from the start. Titles weren't as evident, and Astra found them an unreliable source on some occasions. Sometimes, it never even showed itself to her. That's how Astra knew to live through every scene, every page, every dialogue without diverging from the plot.

And most plots of the romance genre...

"Entering, His Highness, The Crown Prince, Augustus D'aureville!"

A commotion of whispers resounded throughout the hall.

In what could be considered her own lifetime's worth of knowledge—and it was a lifetime, jumping from book to book—Astra had familiarised herself with numerous cliches and story elements.

#47/??? of romance cliches: Love interests were introduced by their probability of being the lead.

["Oh my,"] a voice gushed in her head. ["There goes the final candidate!"]

This particular cliche would hold true in both its reverse methods: the first encounter being endgame, the last encounter being endgame. And the latter currently applied to this story.

Crown Prince Augustus D'aureville, donned in red grandiose robes, was a graceful man and currently the most untouchable bachelor of the Sauveterre Empire, what with his age nearing his thirties and yet still having no alleged partners. Lustrous black hair, sapphire blue eyes, elegantly shaped nose, and Astra's most tiring feature of all—a stoic countenance that alluded to the cold and distant traits of a typical male lead.

The romance genre was starting to itch at her skin. What exactly was appealing about a standoffish man?

["Don't forget our bet, Fate. Our Rosalita will surely strike up a conversation after his speech."] Astra sighed at the clear provocation, anticipating an onslaught of insults following after.

["She's not that obsessed with him!"] A petulant voice retorted.

["Is so!"]

["Is not."]

["She literally highlighted all of his scenes before she was dragged into this world."]

["That doesn't prove anything, stupid Love!"]

["Don't call me stupid! And whose idea was it to reincarnate Rosalita in the first place?!"]

Tuning out the squabble of voices in her brain, Astra moved to seat herself on a chaise lounge in a more secluded area of the ballroom. Surrounding this strangely empty corner of the hall were the balconies unlocked for those who sought out respite from the celebration, lush curtains concealing their presence through the glass doors.

What was a ballroom scene without the intimate encounters on a balcony? Astra had already spotted magenta hair slinking across one of them, chasing what seemed to be like the ends of an ornate mantle belonging to… oh, what was this, The Duke?

Well, this seemed to be quite an interesting development.