Excerpt: The Nation of Imagi

Dina barely moved as arms draped themselves over her shoulders, hands coming to rest on the upper halves of each arm. She knew who the owner of the arms was and had little interest in talking to him at that precise moment.
“Am I in the bad books?” A voice asked, quietly brushing past her ear. She could practically hear the confused look that went with it.
“Not exactly. I’m just tired at the moment. So if you’re here to complain about Feuer, I don’t want to hear it.” She responded, not looking around.
“I wanted to ask about your day, actually. There’s nothing to complain about on account of Feuer. Should there be?”
“Apparently not, but that’s all you ever seem to do anyway. My day’s been fine. May be better if I’m left alone to do this homework, so I don’t have to try to explain why I’ve missed another deadline to my English teacher.” She shot back quickly, attempting to concentrate on the screen in front of her as much as she could. The breath tickling past her ear and moving her hair didn’t help.
“Well, now that you mention it, there is something I want to ask you about Feuer. How come he’s getting married? I mean, I spoke to him about it, but…” He trailed off, moving to settle on the bed and watch her expectantly for an answer.
“Warren, really. Now is not the best time.” She told him, but the focus on the computer was already gone, and she knew it. Before he had time to protest, she held her hands up in defeat. “Feuer has to get married for the reasons I’m sure he’s shared with you. He is expected to produce an heir for the kingdom, expected to have a son to carry on ruling the lands. Clearly he can’t have a child with you,” She waved off his protest at this point, “So he has to get married. He’s not leaving you for anyone, I promise you that much.”
“But, you’re in charge of everything that goes on, why can’t you make it so that we can have a child?”
“Warren, I’m a writer, a creator and I write fantasy. That does not mean I plan to play around with the laws of nature and how things work just so that you and Feuer can have easy lives. That’s not my job, remember. My job is to make sure that you both do things that are interesting enough for me to write about. Besides, you’re set in a medieval fantasy world, it’s homophobic to the extremes. That’s the way the story goes, simple as that.” She told him, quickly realising that starting the conversation in the first place was a bad idea.
“But Dina, why do you have to put us in that sort of world?”
“Because I’m not in this for your happiness, nor Feuer’s. I’m in this for interesting writing material. Don’t like it? Go find another writer to put up with your moaning.” She snapped, turning pointedly away and staring at the computer again, knowing the chances of him being gone when she turned around were really slim to none.
“I know where I’m not wanted. Usually, that’d mean I would stay around longer, but I can hear someone coming. I’ll be back to talk another time, and if you’re mean again I’m bringing Feuer.”
She didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer, choosing instead to ignore him in the hopes that he truly was leaving.