Proto’s eyes widened. She doesn’t know?! He had to explain this?!

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the digs.” Mercune waved vaguely toward the gas lamps and purple-and-green wallpaper. “But the way you were here when I arrived, you were clearly waiting for me. Sooo, what gives?”

  No one had warned him that he’d have to explain it. He’d thought this was a done deal. Game Over! Achievement Unlocked: Happy Ending!

  What in the world could he say to explain this? “In short, the Queen of Heaven thanked me for sacrificing my body to save the future by ordaining that I’d find true love, so when her long-haired and hard-drinking son in a green and purple robe asked me who my true love was, and I identified you, the Powers That Be evidently saw to it that you’d come here. Assuming that all sounds alright with you?”

  Maybe his discomfiture showed in his eyes, because Mercune laughed. “Just kidding! You can cancel that heart attack. I already know.”

  Proto’s heart took a moment to get the message. “That’s good. Um, what do you know?”

  “Well, ever since I became a full seer instead of a doer—like you wanted me to, right?—I’ve been working on improving my foresight and, I guess you could call it, my backsight,” she explained, then frowned slightly. “That’s ‘sight,’ not ‘side,’ Mister, so you can remove that smirk from your face. We’re talking prophecies, not squats and lunges!”

  Proto eyed the curve of her gossamer green tunic. “Are you sure it’s not both?”

  “Ahem!” Flushing slightly and grinning, Mercune smoothed her tunic. “Anyway, Hornet—may I call you Hornet? No need to answer, I’m going to do it either way. Earlier today, Hornball, excuse me, Hornet, I backsaw your little chat with Somnus and Flua-Sahng. I heard the explanation of Saturn Returns and Lost Spirits and Breath Tokens and true lo—well.” She batted her lashes and looked away modestly.

  “The last thing I ever expected was that you’d remember that random redhead whose dream you once visited,” she recounted. “So when you said my name—boy, did that ever make my day! And my life.”

  She raised a finger. “Of course, about that. I know ‘once visited’ isn’t quite right, is it?”

  “I should mention, as a full-fledged seer, I not only can see the actual past. I’ve also learnt to see possible versions of the past, which could’ve happened but didn’t. You can learn a lot about a person that way!” Mercune widened her eyes at Proto, and he shifted unsurely.

  “And would you believe my shock when I looked back and found a bunch of ‘practice runs’ where you were visiting my dreams, tracksuiting all about and generally Proto-ing the place up!” she recalled. “No wonder you seemed so familiar! Like an old friend. Friend and . . . ”

  She waited, blinking twice at him, eyes wide.

  Proto felt tempted to burst the grape of joy, but knew it wasn’t quite ripened yet.

  He took her hand, lips curving up. “Friend and fellow savior of the future?”

  “Oh. Well, yes.” She tittered. “Yes, if I do say so myself!”

  “There can only be two!” he affirmed, full of bravado.

  She primly regarded him. “On that note, Sir, I have a question.”

  He tilted his head. “What’s that?”

  “Are you sure it’s only two?” She tapped the bronze medal hanging over his chest. “Or am I the third-place prize?”

  Proto blinked down at the forgotten medal from Flua-Sahng, then laughed.

  “The consolation girl, am I?” She planted her hands on her hips. “I’m glad you’re so amused at my distress!”

  “This is real bronze, you know,” he coolly observed, showing it off. Firelight glimmered on its reddish surface. “Gift from the Queen of Heaven.”

  “Hmph, Queen of Heaven’s gifting you all kinds of pretty reddish things today!” observed Mercune, running a hand through her hair.

  Facing her chiding green gaze, he laughed helplessly. “You’re really like her, you know?”

  “Yup. Two birds in a basket,” agreed Mercune. “Or two birds in a basket case, more like.”

  “Speaking of basket cases, what do you think of Somnus’ place?” asked Proto.

  “Hm. Honest opinion?” She surveyed the ornate wooden inlays, the gas lamps, and the tawny armagnacs and whiskies. “Looks like the sort of place Gramps would like. But I do like the look of that pink drink on the bottom shelf.” She pointed at the bar. “Somnus doesn’t give out MIPs, does he?”

  “Would you believe that, in all my aeons, you’re the very first to ask me that!” declared a voice from across the room.

  It was the Lord of Dreams, striding in beneath the painting of an elder watching a young man working on the beach, as a late teenage girl reclined nearby and spoke with him. “The answer is, I have no MIPs to give. But you can have a Breath Token, if you’d like.” He flipped one to Mercune, and she caught it.

  “You hand out prize tokens with your own face on them?” Mercune studied it. “And I joke with Flua-Sahng about her modesty!”

  “What can I say, it runs in the family!” shrugged Somnus. “Father’s the same way, it was inevitable.”

  Proto, meanwhile, was eying Somnus with his brow raised.

  The Lord of Dreams’ lips quirked up. “Yes, yes, I know, Provisional Visitor—excuse me, Visitor. Don’t worry, I won’t tarry. Fish and visitors smell after three days; Provisional Visitors, after three weeks of wearing the same tracksuit; and the Lord of Dreams, after three seconds, apparently. I just thought I’d welcome our new guest! It being my house that’s hosting her.”

  Mercune clasped her hands behind her back and nodded sweetly and bright-eyed. “You have a lovely house, Lord of Dreams. It’s so classic. And I admire your collection.” She gestured at the rows of bottles. “I hope someone will introduce me to the best ones.”

  “Oh, this is going to work out well, isn’t it!” cried Somnus, turning to Proto. “Bravo! On a scale of F to A, she’s an S! S meaning, Somnus approves. She can stay.”

  “I’ve always wondered what the S stood for,” noted Proto.

  “Would’ve thought it’d be obvious the moment I introduced myself,” yawned Somnus. “Well, now you know. Anyhow, I’m off. Apologies to barge in on your coquetry. But I wasn’t about to let Mother completely hijack this Possibility.”

  Proto blinked and looked at him, then Mercune, then him.

  “What, you’re worried I called this a Possibility out loud? In front of her?” asked Somnus. “Hmph! She could probably teach me a thing or two about Possibilities!”

  Mercune giggled and faced Proto. “I like him. He knows what’s what.”

  “High praise! It’s what we all aspire to,” said Somnus. “Isn’t it, Proto?”

  “Wentsworth said it, so it must be true,” replied Proto.

  Somnus nodded sagely. “Wise man, that Wentsworth. He knows what’s what.”

  “What’s what, Chicken Butt,” said Mercune.

  “ . . . Well. I hope you’re proud of that,” said Somnus finally, as she tittered. “On that note, I’m out. I’d tell you to have fun, Proto. But I think you’ll be having it whether you like it or not.”

  “Yes. Like it or not, you’ll be having it,” Mercune agreed.

  “Lots of it, I hope,” said Proto. “And soon.”

  “Yes,” nodded Mercune lackadaisically, then blinked and narrowed her eyes at him. “Proto.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m still here, folks!” called Somnus from the doorway. “But maybe I shouldn’t be.”

  “We’ve already waited a few years, what’s the harm in waiting another few,” said Proto.

  The Lord of Dreams smiled from under the painting of the old man. He started to leave, then paused. “Oh, by the way. If you smell goodies baking, be sure to triple lock the door. Just some words from the wise—or, at least, someone wiser than I and Lady Luck were a few aeons ago. Tata, safe travels, live long and prosper.” And out he went.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Mercune beamed at his back. “He’s fun. I now think Flua-Sahng is entirely too hard on him!”

  “We have a lot of fun friends, don’t we?” said Proto.

  She nodded agreeably. “Lots of friends in common, strangely enough. But they’ve never met us together. It’d be nice to visit them.”

  A moment later, her eyes lit up, and she spun to Proto. “It’d be nice to visit them. Right? Do you think Somnus would let me?”

  “Um, I’m not sure,” he said. “There’s that rule about seers, and thwarting Fate, and—”

  “Oh, forget Fate!” waved Mercune. “I want to visit Himari! I want to be like her when I grow up.”

  “You won’t have to grow much.” He recalled the little GSI. “In fact, I’m pretty sure she would have to do the growing.”

  “Oh, Himari,” she reminisced happily. “She’s so fun, so quick. Her quickness inspires me! But I’m afraid I’ll never be as quick at advanced math. Even if I have a ‘talent for physics.’” She wheezed the last out in a warbling voice.

  “You make Fyrir sound like the village elder in a fantasy movie,” said Proto.

  Mercune shrugged. “Maybe in another life, that’s what he’d be!”

  “Would be? Will be? Might be? Could be?” suggested Proto.

  “Stop acting like the Queen of Heaven!” she chastised. “It makes me feel like I’m dating my mother. Or myself.”

  “Dating?” repeated Proto.

  Mercune blushed. “Would you prefer ‘going steady’?! ‘Seeing each other’?! Sheesh! I hope I’m not being too forward, Mister ‘Mercune Is My True Love’!”

  After the last words, she inhaled and covered her lips slightly with two fingers. “Although, I guess I don’t know exactly what you might’ve said, in that regard. Since it cut off right before . . . ” Red-faced, she trailed off.

  “Mercune is my true love,” said Proto.

  Her green gaze blinked wide and looked up at him innocently.

  Clasping her waist and back, as she hesitantly did the same, he leaned and kissed her.

  As he did so, he seemed to feel the touch of her tenfold: her fingertips around his hand; the soft give of her back against his hand; the tickle of her hair upon his cheeks; and, against his lips, soft lips.

  But it also felt like that first young and sparkling premonition of what love might be. The love you dreamt of, when you first saw The One You Thought Would Be The One, and you imagined, Maybe this was meant to be and it will happen. It didn’t happen, of course.

  Except this time, in this one-in-a-thousand version of history, it did.

  Proto felt what the young feel, before a thousand disappointments teach them that love is something less: that love’s a sweet but bumbling thing of compromise and imperfection; that love can’t be “fallen in,” but must be chased like a flighty beast, tended like a plant prone to wilting, savored like a Spring soon to pass; that love’s just a bundle of desires, contrary and irrational, driving us toward procreation in their messy way.

  This, in contrast, wasn’t a bundle of desires. This was Love. It warmed his blood and made it tingle through his veins. It lit his prospect with the glory of red sunrise. It left him breathy and breathless, even as it inspired him with more than he could hold.

  Sometimes, her eyelids parted, baring green pools he could giddily fall in. Yet he felt her lips and fingertips too, pressing upon him from below, and he felt that what he’d fallen for also would uplift him. This was something self-sustaining, an equation that held its own solution, an Earth and Sun rolled into one. This was Love.

  After some time untold, they parted from each other—somewhat. Their hands still clasped, almost pulling them back together.

  “Well! You’ve gone and done it now Proto!” Mercune was pink and breathing like she’d just been running. “There’s no backing out anymore. I’m not going to let you!”

  “We’ve crossed the point of no return, huh?” said Proto.

  “That’s right! Now, you’re my Dream Guy.” She beamed.

  “That’s—very literal, actually,” noted Proto.

  “Literal and metaphorical and allegorical and blah blah, all that English-teachery stuff!” she replied. “Point is, it’s love, so it’s everything!”

  “Loves conquers all?” he suggested.

  “Well, it conquered me,” she shrugged, then blushed as he laughed. “What!”

  “You’re not alone there,” he said.

  “I should hope not!” she retorted. “Or I might be having some serious doubts about what I’m doing here in a dream castle calling you Dream Guy!”

  “It’s actually a palace,” corrected Proto.

  “Well, that just changes everything!” she cried, rolling her eyes. “Wonderful! I always hoped my first time would be in a palace.”

  “First . . . ?” Proto blinked. “Pressure’s on! Well, I’ll do my best.”

  “You’ll do your . . . ?” she answered slowly. “Proto, that was my first kiss! My first lip-kiss, I mean.” As he blinked again and laughed, she spoke on. “Sheesh! I’m like a girl riding her first roller coaster here, and you’re the guy laughing at me as I scream on the little hill at the start!”

  Proto’s lips quirked up. “Speaking of going on rides together—”

  “I suggest you stop there, Mister!” admonished Mercune. “Unless this is about ‘going on a ride’ in the cute kissy 1950s way, and not the nasty 2000s way!”

  Proto leaned back and laughed harder.

  “Sheesh!” repeated Mercune. “I’m just a gal who likes cats, Frozen, and long walks in the misty dream-wastes! And quick wit. And gifts.”

  Proto brushed his hair off his forehead and rested a hand on his hip. “Well, you’re in luck. I’m a Dream Guy who likes quick gifts, frozen cats, and wasted walks in long dreams—wait.”

  “Wow, I am in luck!” she laughed, wrinkling her nose at him. Then, she adopted a Proto-esque baritone. “But is it Luck? Fate? Or Flua-Sahng?”

  Oh, she has a hand in most things! answered a familiar woman’s voice in their heads, startling them both. Okay, okay, I’m leaving. Just happened to be passing by. . . . Say, are you two kids hungry? I could bake some goodies . . . ? Just kidding! Bye.

  “Hmph. Mother of All can go mother it up somewhere else!” grumped Mercune. “We’ll have to triple lock it, then triple lock it again!”

  “Triple lock what?” Proto gestured toward the lounge and scanned it playfully.

  “Proto.” Mercune squeezed his hand and smiled. “When someone visits you, isn’t it polite to give her a tour?”

  “True. I guess you gave me a tour of the dream-wastes when I visited you, huh?” recalled Proto.

  She nodded. “Many times, in fact! And I think you liked it.”

  “I guess I owe you one,” he said.

  “You owe me many!”

  “Should I give you many?”

  “You should! But first, let’s go on that tour.” Mercune batted her lashes and looked away coyly.

  Proto’s cheeks flushed happily. “What would you like to see?”

  “Let’s start with, say, whatever’s on the way from here to your room. And then we can talk about next steps once we get there. Very quickly,” suggested Mercune.

  “Quick as a fox on a motorcycle?” he asked.

  “Quick as a Dream Girl with her Dream Guy!” she affirmed.

  “Quick as the women’s bathroom line at a cosplay convention?” he asked.

  “Quick as a visitor running from an angry seer!” She raised her fist menacingly.

  Proto laughed and held his own fist toward her.

  She looked at it, blinked up at his eyes, then eagerly punched his fist.

  “My fistbump! You remembered!” Her green gaze sparkled. “The first boy who gave me one!”

  “Nice. I’m at, what, two of three now?” he said.

  “Two of—? Proto!” she high-lowed.

  He laughed, strolling out the door into the corridor of misty blue. “While we walk, I suggest we play a game.”

  “A game?” She inclined a brow, following him. “You really want to start a game? Right now?”

  “It’s called Truth or Dare. Have you heard of it?” he said.

  “Have I—Proto. I’ll have you know, I’m a master of that game!” she declared. “As you’ve seen firsthand.”

  “A master?” Proto leaned back with awe. “You’ll of course be going first then. Truth or dare?”

  “Truth!” she replied. “Hope you’re ready to hear how things truly are, Hornet!”

  “Always ready, never Proto,” he sighed. “Alright! Truth! When you were putting flowers in my hair, and speaking in that foreign language, what were you saying?”

  Her brow furrowed. “ . . . oh, come on.”

  “Ha! Already, she chickens out,” vaunted Proto. “The master! Here to tell things truly! Here to bare the truth of all things! Except flowers.”

  Her frown transformed to a light, sad smile. “You really gonna waste your Truth on that? Well, alright.” She pulled a bunch of red wildflowers from her pocket.

  Beaming at him, lifting a flower and placing it in his hair, she spoke a happy phrase in a foreign language. Then, tossing another flower wayward, she spoke a sad phrase. Then, after a thoughtful pause, she placed a flower behind his ear and spoke the happy phrase, nodding at him.

  “Oh, come on,” complained Proto. “I asked you to tell me—”

  “You asked me what I was saying,” she pointed out triumphantly. “I just told you exactly what I was saying.”

  Proto nodded grimly. “So. That’s the way we’re playing, huh.”

  “Watch it peeps, she plays for keeps!” declared the redhead blithely. “Guess you should’ve phrased that more clearly. Welp, you get what you wish, not what you want!”

  “You play Truth or Dare like the genie in Aladdin,” he observed.

  “Aladdin? Ha!” she waved. “Your Gen Y references have no power over Gen Z me. I don’t relate! I stare uncomprehendingly at your humor! I don’t recognize it as humor! It’s too old and wrinkled!”

  “ . . . man,” frowned Proto.

  She laughed. “Now, if we’re done asking questions about Mercune playing He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not in her native tongue, maybe we can continue our game?”

  Proto blinked and looked at her.

  “Yes, there you go. Some extra truth, free of charge!” She blushed and smiled, looking straight ahead. “A gift from me to you.”

  “I guess it was your turn to give a gift, wasn’t it?” he said.

  “Yep! It’s not a lot, I guess,” she shrugged. “But then, your gift to me was to give me my own bloody rock, so I guess we’re even, huh!”

  “Oh, it’s a lot,” smiled Proto. “Thanks, Flower Girl.”

  Mercune looked up at him, lips quirking up involuntarily. “Well, good.” She cleared her husky throat. “This is why we ignore what you ask for, you know. ‘Give him what he wants, not what he says he wants!’ You’re happier, we’re happier.”

  “You sound like Flua-Sahng,” observed Proto.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” she sighed. “Daughter of Life doesn’t fall far from the Mother of All.”

  Proto frowned. “Anyway, speaking of things that don’t make sense—”

  “Come on, it wasn’t that bad!” she protested.

  “—what was that about a native tongue?” he asked.

  “Oh, from before Fyrir adopted me. That’s what I spoke with my parents,” she explained. “I’m from a certain island full of people with nicely colored hair and eyes.” She casually batted her lashes and ran a hand through her hair.

  “Ah.” He twirled a bit of her hair around a finger. “Well, just my luck.”

  She suppressed a smile. “Oh, I think Lady Luck and the Fates would definitely give Flua-Sahng the credit on this one.”

  “Now”—she faced him squarely—“if you’re done delaying the inevitable, and cheating Fate, and dodging bullets, and buying time, and kicking the can down the road, and prolonging the agony, and staying the execution, it’s your turn. Truth or dare?!”

  “Oh, huh.” Proto pointed at the sliding white door where they’d stopped. “Too late. We’ve reached our room. Game over, I guess.”

  “Not a chance, Dream Guy!” She tapped a finger to his tracksuit. “Call me a chicken, huh? Well, time for a taste of your own chicken. The chicken comes home to roost! Chicken for the goose is chicken for the gander. Every chicken has her day! That’s right—it’s the redhead’s turn. Turnabout is fair play! The hunter turns into the hunted. My, how the turns have tabled!”

  “In short,” she cried, “truth or dare?!”

  Proto couldn’t keep his laughter in. “Dare,” he managed.

  “Good! Live by the Truth, die by the Dare!” She nodded righteously. “Well, Hornet, get ready to trade your buzz-buzz for cluck-cluck. It’s about that tracksuit.”

  “Isn’t it always!” he lamented, eying the blue Saturn emblem ruefully.

  “You’re going to have to do something about it.” She eyed him grimly.

  Proto looked down at it, then up at her. “I’m afraid I need some clarification.”

  “Well.” She adopted a patient expression. “You start by sliding it over your head—”

  “I’m afraid I need a demonstration,” he broke in.

  “Oh? Not so quick, are we?” She regarded him with pity. “That’s fine. I’m very quick.” She lifted the corner of her gossamer green tunic—then continued lifting.

  Playfully, meeting his eyes, she opened her mouth as she did so.

  Proto quickly opened the door to the bedroom.

  Smiling and walking inside, Mercune murmured, “But only for you. Forever, only for you.”

  And, from the misty halls of Somnus’ Palace, two dreamers went into their Mist-made home, bearing with them the many dreams they’d dreamt, blessed with the chance to make them real as life.

  Who were you rooting for?