Now

  “I don’t get it,” I told Regina.

  Her auburn hair was definitely full of more luster and bounce than on the other side of the portal. It seemed less brown and more reddish orange. Her eyes weren’t that clear mountain pool blue either. I’m pretty sure they had little flecks of purple in there as well.

  The sky looked like it had some patches of slickness to them, fuzzing to an iridescent rainbow in certain pces. And as the trees grew closer and clearer, I could see that I was correct: some of them didn’t have leaves at all, but perfectly spherical… what? Bulbs? Bulbs seems like a decent name for them.

  And the trees all seemed to have faces.

  “Oh?” Regina asked, then broke into a wide smile again when she turned back. She wasn’t wearing her gsses any longer. Her freckles were more pronounced. And… they were changing color as well. “Oh, right, of course. You know, when I first set foot here, I had the same thought. I couldn’t make sense of anything I was seeing, I wanted to spend hours and hours looking at every individual thing. I had a million questions.” Another ugh bubbled up out of her. “At least a million!”

  She hadn’t seemed this talkative on the other side. I didn’t mind, really. It was a lot better than what I was used to, in my old life.

  “And don’t you worry, good buddy, we’ve got you covered. You’re going to have all million of those questions answered, even while you end up with five million more questions. We haven’t even done any of the system intro shit yet. Whoopsie doodle!”

  “What?” I asked, ughing.

  “We’re supposed to be good ambassadors here, rookie,” she said. “That starts with nguage, you know? Be the good you want to see in the world. Which is how I say fiddlesticks instead of, you know, fuckity fucky fuck, and I say fudgesicles and awww sheep dip and fluff like that. So now I go fluff that! And sheep on a shingle! And cheese ’n rice!”

  “Jeez o’ pizza!” I blurted.

  We shared a ugh.

  “There you go. I guess that’s your first lesson here. Good ambassadors, be the good you want to see in the world.” She reached over and took my hand. I stared at it, surprised by the contact but at the same time not so surprised. I grew warm at her touch, and realized I could see just a hint of her bra under the pink tank top she had on.

  I told myself not to blow it, not to get hard. Don’t do it, Christopher, I told myself, grinning like an idiot. There wasn’t anybody else around. We were in a completely different world. We could… if she wanted to…

  Okay I was growing hard already. Doesn’t take long when you’re under thirty and only not a virgin by a technicality.

  Regina was a beautiful human, who was growing more beautiful by the second. She had the kind of personality I wanted to bathe in. I could watch her smile and listen to her giggle forever, at this moment. And if she wanted to give Christopher a little extra lesson before we got to the city, I wasn’t going to stop her. I wasn’t in any position to hit on her, though. The way I was right here and now, she was so far out of my league I was surprised I could even form a coherent sentence.

  “Come on, we’re almost to the best part.”

  “We are?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I can’t believe I’ve been away from him for a whole month. This was the hardest.” She started pulling on my arm, and although my legs protested at moving this fast, we broke into a jog through the tall grass.

  Oh. It made perfect sense that she had someone, and it was further proof that I shouldn’t have even considered what it would be like to be with her.

  “Tweedle Dee!” she called out, sing-song. “Tweedle Dee, where are you?”

  Did I say perfect sense? It suddenly made a lot less sense.

  We rushed through the grass faster and faster, with her skipping and jumping up in the air to get a slightly better view, calling out.

  And then someone answered. No, something.

  “Tweedle DEEEEEE!” she squealed in delight.

  A tawny fox-like creature leapt out of the grass and tackled Regina backwards. I was sent sprawling as well, and only caught flowers amongst its blurry form.

  I got up onto my elbows, saving my misshapen legs a bit of ache, and just watched them. She was glowing, while the creature licking her face and yipping with glee was… the most adorable thing I’d ever seen in my life.

  It was like a fox, but flowers sprouted out of its brown ears, and where its tail should’ve been was instead a garnd made entirely of flowers. Or rather, where its tails should’ve been, plural. It had at least five I could see, flicking and wagging.

  Eventually Regina got to her feet cradling Tweedle Dee and gushing to him in baby speak about how much she missed him, and how she felt terrible every moment they were apart, and she would apply to have no R&R going forward. They nuzzled noses before Regina put Tweedle Dee down onto the grass and stretched out her hand.

  “Come on, we’ve got to get you to the city, get you set up with your own companion.”

  “Wait…” I gnced past her to the creature, who was looking up at me with bright, intelligent eyes and padding along next to her. It seemed to know what I was thinking, and its tongue lolled out happily. It made a yipping bark, as if to tell me, “That’s right, you’re now the luckiest monkey flubber on the pnet.”

  I ignored the protesting legs and headed forward, toward my own Tweedle Dee.

  This is Christopher falling in love with life again.