The truth is, there were two endings.
The first was exactly as in this book, where Brunhild goes back to the forest to read a book alone.
In the second ending, I wrote more after that.
What happens after is about Brunhild, who has begun living alone, ultimately coming to live with a family once again.
And that family, of course, refers to Richard, Sigurd, and the dragon.
Brunhild realizes that God’s Command is also effective on the dead. If she orders the dead, “Revive,” then their corpse comes back. And so, Brunhild continues to live happily with her revived family…
This fantasy of hers is the ending.
In reality, the revived men and dragon are a hallucination that her ailing mind comes up with.
Brunhild returns to the forest and begins living alone. At first, she is fine with this, but living for decades in isolation, the loneliness crushes her heart. But she still doesn’t have the courage to go back into the city. She’s scared to be involved with anyone.
And so, eventually, she is broken and comes to have visions of the people she loved. Of course, God’s Command doesn’t have the power to bring people back to life.
Surrounded by her illusory family, Brunhild feels happy, thinking, “Oh, what a relief. What I always wanted is right here,” and the curtain closes. That was the other ending.
…But after quite some waffling, I didn’t choose that ending. While I did feel like it was a very interesting conclusion, I felt that it was too cruel, and I didn’t like it very much. I don’t write stories because I want the characters in them to suffer. Placing your characters in difficult situations to write interesting things is a creative technique I struggle with. I don’t want to put my characters through unnecessary distress.
Because of that, I’m glad that I went with this ending.
For some reason, I rather like this way of concluding things. It’s quiet and lonely, but I think the mood is rather pretty. And I feel like Brunhild is happy, in a sense.
However, I thought some readers might prefer the hallucination ending, so I’ve added a summary of that ending in the afterword.
Well then, I’m looking forward to seeing you all again.