Proto chomped into a quadruple smash burger. He savored the grease as he swallowed, picturing it dispersing through his arteries and sticking there. And he worried about how much time he had left.

  Most twenty-seven year olds are blessed not to worry much about this question. As for Proto, though, he knew his time was short. And his arteries had nothing to do with it.

  At the end of his dream-vision of Somnus’ Palace, he’d been 29.5. He’d been there several months. Before that, according to Somnus and Lilac, he’d been roving the mists at the borders of the dream realm for a long time.

  It seemed clear he had no more than two years left in the waking world. The problem was, it might be much less than that. His accident could come next year or next week.

  So, Proto was spending his lunch break trying to figure out when the accident would be. This likely would’ve been impossible, if not for two things: First, on his Evaluation Day back at the Palace, Somnus had revealed to him some memories of the accident. Second, when Dahlia had shadowcasted Yemos, she’d alluded to him finding Proto after his accident.

  One conclusion was immediately obvious. Given that he’d been running on Cherry Blossom Lane near Yemos’ house, and Yemos had found him after the accident, this meant Yemos had been home at the time. This strongly suggested it’d been a weekend or at least outside of working hours. And, judging by the sun’s glare in his eyes as he ran west, it’d been the afternoon or evening.

  Next, he remembered a minor detail—shortly before the accident, Sleeping Lessons by the Shins had started playing on his earbuds. He’d mused to himself that Black would’ve approved. She’d always liked that song. This was interesting but didn’t seem terribly useful.

  More helpful was his memory of a yard sale sign on a telephone pole along his running route. He couldn’t recall what date it’d said. But at least he knew now, if he ever saw that yard sale sign, his time was likely short.

  Proto’s next key recollection was his tracksuit and the brisk winds he’d felt blowing through it. The weather had felt like Spring or Fall.

  But his big breakthrough came a moment later, when he recalled a couple groups of costumed teens walking down the street. Oh . . . it was Halloween! Or maybe the day before or afterward. The kids might’ve been heading to Halloween parties, not trick or treating.

  Everything fit. The cool air felt like late October. Halloween would be on a Saturday this year, so naturally Yemos would be home. That also would explain why Proto was running in the afternoon rather than at work.

  This meant he had quite a while before his accident. Spring had just begun, so he had more than half a year left. Maybe more than a year and a half—it might be the following Halloween.

  Proto felt warm relief seeping through him, together with the warm grease seeping through his arteries. Plenty of time. He chomped his burger in satisfaction.

  Then, finishing his lunch, he returned to boring e-mails, meetings, and A/B testing. Work was miserable, but at least he’d be leaving early today.

  He had a whisky tasting date to go to!

  Believe it or not, this was Proto’s first date in over a year, technically speaking. Dates in dream-visions don’t count, he supposed.

  He’d meant to buy some nice new clothes a couple days ago. Instead, he’d ended up reading about morning suits on Wikipedia and researching modern-day events where you could wear them.

  As a result, Proto was wearing the same blazer he’d worn the other day and hoping his neatly combed hair made up for the rumples. “You look like an eighth-grader on graduation day,” his coworker had remarked.

  Proto felt confident and ready. Slick, even.

  “Proto, why does your blazer still have those X-shaped threads tying it shut? It doesn’t look new,” another coworker had asked. “Also, why are you wearing Fall colors in the Spring? With tan shoes? Or were you planning to switch to shoes without dirt stains?”

  Confident and ready!

  He wiped off those dirt stains with some toilet paper in the bathroom, set off for the distillery at 3:30 sharp, and got there just in time.

  She’s probably inside already. Walking just inside the doorway, he scanned the room. He saw a mix of couples and trios, but no Red.

  The place looked promising though—old brick walls, rough wood tables and benches. A few hundred whisky bottles were shelved behind the bar. But unlike the lounge of Somnus’ Palace or Black’s Rock, the bottles all looked nearly identical, save for slight variations in hue, age statement, and other technical details.

  Pondering whether to buy a drink before the event started, he absently turned around—and blinked.

  “Hey.” Red looked up at him, curling her waist-length black hair around one finger. It hung loose over a lacy red dress. She was wearing matching 1920s-style gloves. She blinked up twice at him.

  Proto suddenly found himself drowning in cerulean eyes.

  “Um, sorry I’m late!” she went on, evidently mistaking his speechlessness for reproof. “I forgot how slow I am in heels.” She looked around the tasting room. “Also, I feel slightly overdressed.”

  He tried to force himself into the moment. But that was hard, since now he was focused on how she was dressed. And how the young-tomboy build he’d assumed she had, with that baggy Starbucks shirt, was very much not the build this dress revealed. And how her red lace followed those curves he’d never known she had, out and in and out—

  Proto shook away the woo woos. “It could be worse. You could be wearing Fall colors in the Spring!” He waved at himself demonstratively.

  “What? What the F is a Fall color?” asked Red, nose wrinkling.

  And, with that, Proto felt better. “I don’t know either. You look awesome, Blue. Let’s go drink some whisky.”

  Red beamed at him. “Thanks, Slick!”

  In they went. A bushy-bearded presenter in flannel now stood at the front, and in the last thirty seconds, most of the attendees had seated themselves. All the tables for two were taken.

  Of the larger tables, only two had room for them. One had five guys acting like they’d been best friends for years, were drunk, or—most likely—some combination of the two. The other had a silent hodgepodge of solo attendees.

  Proto pointed at the hodgepodge table, and Red quickly nodded in agreement.

  Sitting there, they soon found themselves with six drinks each in front of them, darkening from lemony on the left to tawny on the right. A small plate with some meat was served to each attendee a moment later.

  “So,” the presenter in flannel was explaining, “I’d like to say no animals were harmed in making this presentation. But what you have in front of you is pheasant flambé. Which I find absolutely delightful with our eight-year.”

  Tasting the two together, Proto agreed. Even Lilac would’ve approved.

  “Those subtle notes!” the presenter admired, swishing his glass around a bit and inhaling. “Like breathing in a Spring breeze from a barley field. So light, you feel like you could just—take flight! Like that pheasant.”

  “One moment, flapping through the heavens,” mused Proto wistfully. “The next, in Blue’s mouth, washed down by whisky.”

  “Your guilting just makes me hungrier!” said Red, swallowing a mouthful.

  “Whisky older than the pheasant itself!” lamented Proto.

  “Yes, and I need more!” she cried—then blinked, as half the room glanced at her.

  “Then you’ve come to the right place!” replied the presenter, gesturing grandly toward her. Another plate was being delivered as he spoke.

  Red reddened, but her gaze glimmered with eagerness.

  “I’ve always found the dove a noble creature,” observed the presenter. “And I’m not the first. The dove has signaled peace and salvation since Noah and Aphrodite!”

  “I find it pairs nicely with our ten-year old,” he observed. “A little gamier than you’d expect, all white and pure and innocent. But nothing our ten-year old can’t wash down! Good barrel work on that one. Subtle but hearty for ten years.”

  “Incidentally, that’s about how long doves live in the wild,” he noted. “Not these ones, of course! Gets too gamey after a couple years.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Red giggled quietly. “Is he trying to be appalling?”

  “I think there’s a method to his madness,” observed Proto.

  “Guilty eating! It’s a real thing!” agreed his date through a mouthful.

  Between sipping and savoring, Proto couldn’t help but notice that another woman at the table kept glancing at them.

  At first, he felt mildly flattered. Whoever it was, she was jawdroppingly gorgeous, from her glowingly blonde hair to her dainty features and sky-pale eyes. Good thing it was so easy to focus on Red, else it’d be hard not to return those glances.

  After a while, though, he realized the woman wasn’t looking at him—she was looking at Red.

  Proto wasn’t sure what to make of this, except that he couldn’t really blame anyone for staring at Red right now. Indeed, he found his eyes following her long, long hair down her red dress, flowing blackly around her back, then back in front, down, down toward—

  “Proto, is something wrong?” came Red’s voice.

  Proto blinked at the look of concern on her face. He’d been goggling at her, he realized.

  Meeting her gaze, he struggled for words, but instead flailed helplessly in those cerulean pools. Like crater lakes in a volcano. Pure. Untouched by passing time . . .

  Red tilted her head at him.

  But he was saved by the blonde. “Excuse me. Is your name Red?” she asked.

  Red frowned and faced the woman, squinting at her.

  Then, Red’s eyes widened. “You! I remember you. You were in Kondo-sensei’s class!”

  “Reddo-chan, ne?” said the blonde woman.

  “Sou sou! Anooo . . . Ausuriin-chan?” asked Red.

  “Un!” nodded the other excitedly.

  “Yes!” Red clenched a fist triumphantly.

  Meanwhile, the others at the hodgepodge table stared uncomprehendingly. They looked like they felt more hodgepodge than ever.

  “Um. You two studied Japanese together?” Proto guessed.

  “Eeee, atari mae, ne?” affirmed the blonde politely.

  “Chotto boke boke shiteru yo ne?” sighed Red to her.

  “Ja, koi wa moumoku ne?” shrugged the other woman.

  “Baka baka!” frowned Red.

  The blonde woman giggled, then Red joined her.

  “Okay. I’m sorry. We’re done being rude,” Red apologized. “Proto, this is Ausrine. She’s good at tennis and likes cats.”

  “Nice memory!” observed the other woman.

  “Eh, that’s Japanese 1,” replied Red. “You ask each other so many random-fact-about-you questions, it’s like an awkward first date!”

  A second later, Red blinked and reddened, glancing at Proto.

  But he barely noticed. He was struggling to gather his thoughts and avoid gaping. “Here’s a random-fact-about-you question. Ausrine, do you know someone named Yemos?”

  Now it was her turn to look shocked. “Wow. I didn’t realize . . . ” Looking away, she blinked twice, then looked back at Proto. “I mean, small world, isn’t it!”

  “Now I’m lost,” observed Red.

  “How’s it feel?” Proto asked her lightly.

  “Shitsurei na yo!” frowned Red.

  Proto’s lips quirked up. “Yemos is an old friend of mine. We grew up on the same road.” Glancing at Ausrine, he pondered that look on her face a moment ago. “And, um, he’s also a friend of yours, right?”

  The woman hesitated slightly. “Yes! Close friend. Wow, what are the odds?”

  Indeed. Talk about chance encounters. It seemed Lady Luck was working overtime.

  That, or there was more going on here than Proto understood. Which also would be nothing new.

  “So, what brings you here, Ausrine? Are you another future whisky fan, like me?” asked Red.

  “Um, ha, it’s Yemos, actually,” replied the woman. “He likes bourbon. And I’ve been trying and failing to like it. I’m hoping they can teach me to enjoy it here.”

  “Well, this is whisky with a ‘y,’ not whiskey with an ‘ey,’ so no bourbon,” remarked Proto, recalling his old lessons from Lilac. “But this stuff’s better anyway. More refined. Not just a barrage of virgin cask flavor. Subtle malt spirit notes.”

  Red stared at Proto. “I have no idea what all that means, but it sounds unnecessarily nerdy even to me.”

  “On the contrary,” retorted the presenter, who happened to be walking by. “This guy knows his whisky! With a ‘y.’”

  “Y side!” Proto made a “Y” hand-gesture to the presenter.

  “Y side!” agreed the presenter, returning it. “We’re civilized folk in a savage land.” He strolled off.

  Red sighed. “Chotto otaku ne?”

  “Minna konna mon da yo,” waved Ausrine. “Ai no tame nara ne?”

  “Baka baka!” cried Red.

  An apparently Japanese woman at a nearby table, with red-dyed hair and of middle age, was eying Proto and chortling now.

  Oh well. The world might be laughing at Proto for reasons he didn’t understand, but that was nothing new.

  “And here,” the presenter declared, as new plates were served to the attendees, “fresh from its mother’s nest, is quail—specifically, hoi sin butterfly quail. Sounds sinfully lovely, doesn’t it? ‘Butterfly’ means its backbone was cut out.”

  “He’s trying to make this sound sinful!” muttered Red. “Look, that girl just gasped. And he smiled!”

  Much as Proto would’ve liked to relax and savor his whisky and sin, he had a job to do. Somehow or other, against all odds, Ausrine was here. He wasn’t about to let that go to waste. He felt sure she had some important information to share.

  The challenge would be steering the conversation toward useful topics. He still was leery about saying something unnatural based on his future knowledge, and inadvertently diverting history onto some disastrous new path.

  For better or for worse, he found his opportunity a moment later.

  “Mm. This is sinfully good,” observed Ausrine. “Have you ever had quail before?”

  “I think my aunt cooked it when she was babysitting me a long time ago,” replied Proto.

  That was completely made-up. But he had to change the subject to babysitters somehow or other.

  “Really?” Red tilted her head and wrinkled her nose at Proto. “That’s quite an aunt. Is she a chef? She should come work at my café on the mountain!”

  “My aunt made me powdered macaroni,” recalled Ausrine sadly. “Also, you have a café on a mountain?!”

  “Not yet!” sighed Red. “But my day will come.”

  “You two ever cook gourmet meals while babysitting?” asked Proto, trying to stay on subject. A little forced, but not too bad.

  “If putting All-Purpose Seasoning on freezer meals makes them gourmet,” replied Red, “then yes, absolutely!”

  “If letting a seven-year old mix spices on your meat makes it gourmet,” added Ausrine, “then same here. Pretty much every time I babysat.”

  “What?” laughed Red.

  “Mercune loved spices! She’d throw a fit if I didn’t let her do it,” recalled Ausrine.

  Aha! Here we go . . .

  “What’d her parents think of that?” asked Red.

  “No parents. Mercune lived with her grandpa or something. But yeah, she called me the ‘Spice Girl,’ and her grandpa thought it was funny.” recalled Ausrine. “Then he started calling me ‘Spice Girl’ too!”

  Yes, that sounds exactly like Fyrir.

  “At least she did a good job with the spices,” continued Ausrine. “Surprisingly.”

  “At seven years old? Was she some sort of genius, this—what’d you call her, Mercune?” asked Proto. Come on . . .

  “Well, her ‘Gramps’ is the genius. Some famous scientist,” said Ausrine. “But yeah, Mercune was quick too. And deep, I guess.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Proto. So close . . .

  “Well.” Ausrine thought a moment. “Like one time, she was sitting there looking off into space. And I asked her, ‘What are you doing, Miss Mercune?’ And she’s like, ‘Thinking about what to be when I grow up.’ And I’m like, ‘Well! Maybe an astronaut? Maybe a marine biologist?’ And she looks at me and says, ‘Should I be a seer or a doer? I have to choose.’”

  Yes! Proto wasn’t sure what this meant, but it sure sounded important.

  “What?” frowned Red.

  “Right?” laughed Ausrine. “I mean, what does that even . . . ? Anyway, she was very concerned about this. So, know-nothing teenager me, I told her, ‘Um, actions speak louder than words.’ And she took that so seriously, nodded all solemnly at me. I feel like I set her on her life path! I guess she’s a doer!”

  “And then she asked for the spices and seasoned my chicken.” The blonde woman chuckled. “And she sang this little song she always sang about petals and leaves. That’s Mercune! Was and is, she’s the same girl now.”

  “Oh, you still see her?” asked Proto.

  “I wish!” sighed Ausrine. “No, but I ran into her last year. She’s so funny now. Sharp but lovable—like a little cat claw! She loved cats. Used to draw them in notebooks when I put her to bed. Shockingly good for her age.”

  “Speaking of cats,” said the presenter as he strolled by, “our next dish is unusual in these parts but tasty.”

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” grumbled Red.

  “And you can eat this bird bones and all, just like a cat would!” noted the presenter. “In fact, I’d suggest you do. The marrow notes go nicely with our twenty-year. Richness needs more richness. Call it ‘trickle-down gastronomics.’ Instead of wealth, it’s whisky and marrow trickling down. And boy, is it decadent.”

  “Nicely seasoned!” observed Proto, chewing and swallowing. “Mercune would approve.”

  “That’s just the taste of cruelty, Proto!” chided Red, albeit through a big mouthful.

  “Ah, seasoned with suffering. Spiced with vice!” exclaimed Proto, holding up a forkful.

  “Mister Proto!” chastised Red—then quickly covered her mouth, which had bird protruding from it.

  Ausrine leaned toward Red. “Hen dakedo, kimi no hen, ne?”

  “Baka baka!” scolded Red, waving away Ausrine, who giggled.

  “Kyou baka, ashita bakappuru, ne?” called the red-haired Japanese woman, pointing at Proto and Red.

  Ausrine laughed delightedly and applauded.

  “Wow. Burn,” frowned Proto. “I think?”

  “Well, if you enjoyed him being painfully burnt and not even understanding it,” remarked the presenter, “you’ll love this next dish. Scorched chick. Cheep cheep! What’s not cheap is our twenty-five year old—”

  “Sheesh!” cried Red.

  The evening passed, they downed more aged whisky and young fowl, and the tasting wrapped up.

  “Till next time,” the presenter was saying, “pour heavy, walk light, drink old, and eat young.”

  Cheers and applause broke out. Proto sighed in contentment. That was good.

  Red and Ausrine looked drastically different, but they were posed like twins—hands resting on their bellies, satisfied smiles on their faces.

  “I haven’t had this much fun since that cosplay convention,” he mused absently.

  He realized an instant later that that cosplay convention was, in fact, a dream that hadn’t even been dreamt yet. But fortunately, no one asked him for the details.

  “Right? I haven’t been to one in ages!” sighed Red.

  “Oh, you like them too?” Ausrine’s eyes glimmered eagerly.

  “Nihongo benkyoushita! Dou omou?” replied Red.

  “Sutekiii!” cried Ausrine. “Actually, I have a favor to ask you. It involves driving me to a cosplay convention. But I can get you a free ticket in exchange. Normal ticket, not a VIP pass, unfortunately. VIPs get to go in early.”

  “Oh, Ausrine-chan, I would drive you without the ticket!” waved Red. “But I’ll take the ticket too.”

  “Yes! That’s twice as perfect,” declared Ausrine.

  “I’m gonna be Bunny Kallen!” cried Red.

  “Three times as perfect!” Ausrine clapped excitedly.

  “Tubular, even!” Red tittered, glancing at Proto. “We’ll bring it back!”

  And so it was arranged. By this time, it was dark outside, so he headed straight home after leaving. He passed Black’s Rock, but getting a drink at this point would’ve been overkill even for him.

  He entered his small house and headed to his room, expecting to hear the wistful strains of Longing for the Past. It had become a routine recently. But instead, Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World was playing on loop.

  He paused and stared. Huh. He must’ve left his music on this morning.