"You can see them too?" Candace said, with a slight gasp.

Gary blinked. That was a new one. Much more common were excuses like "But they're only staying for a few days!" -- even though Gary didn't bother enforcing a lease's occupancy rules unless his tenant had already had guests staying for more than two weeks.

"You haven't exactly been subtle about it Cand--" he began, but the short blonde woman brought him up short by grabbing his hand.

"Come inside!" she said, excitedly, tugging his arm. He frowned, but allowed himself to be led forward. He'd seen so many of her guests coming and going that he was getting worried about the condition of her unit, and now was as good a time as any to see what the damage was.

The apartment actually didn't too bad, all things considered. That didn't change the fact that she was violating her lease by having all these guests. One of which, he noticed, was standing at the kitchen counter, chopping something with a knife. The woman looked a lot like Candace -- a sister, he guessed.

"Candace, you know the policy on people staying here if they're not on the lease--" he began, but she cut him off again, shaking her head vigorously.

"Gary, I don't have any guests!" she said, excitedly, sounding almost manic. She jerked a thumb at the other woman. "She does!"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed. Was she...on something? "Look, your name is on the lease -- that means that legally you're the only one allowed to stay here, and you're responsible for keeping it that way!"

"Tell her to go, then." Candace said, with a shrug.

He scowled. Now she was just being childish. Nonetheless, he turned to address her sister. "Ma'am, I don't know what Candace has told you, but she can't have people staying here long term. You and whoever else you brought with you need to go."

The woman just kept chopping.

Candace smirked. "Not so easy, huh? Here, let me try to get her attention for you."

Candace walked behind the counter and over to the stove, where she picked up a frying pan. Before Gary could stop her, she swung it at the other woman's head.

He started to shout at her to stop, but his cry died on his lips as the pan passed right through Candace's sister, then did so several more times as Candace fanned it through the air where the woman stood.

"W-what the..." he stammered, eyes bulging as Candace thoroughly demonstrated the immateriality of her houseguest.

She tested the pan on her shoulder. "See?"

Gary's shuddered, staring at the apparition, "H-how is that...how are you doing that?"

She laughed, incredulously . "I'm not doing anything! Uo until five minutes ago, I thought I was going insane."

"So...so ghosts are real." he said, with an air of resignation. He already had enough on his plate without adding ghosts into it. Oddly, he found himself wondering if this was a maintenance issue as per Candace lease -- did he have to hire ghostbusters, or was it her responsibility?

"I thought that too, at first. But nah, I don't think so." she mused, setting down the pan, and gesturing to the incorporeal woman. "For one thing, I don't have any sisters, dead or otherwise, and my mom and grandma are both alive."

"Maybe...maybe like your great grandmother, or something? Somebody that, you know, died young?" he offered, uneasily.

"Hm...maybe, but in a pair of jeans and a tank top, though?" she pointed out. "That's not how women dressed, way back when. I don't understand how, but I think she looks like me because she is me, like some kind of...I dunno, other me."

Gary hesitantly stepped closer, eyeing the apparition cautiously. Now that he was close, he could see she was chopping at nothing.

"So this...other Candace, she can't see or hear us?"

"Nope. None of them can, as far as I can tell." she said.

They both jumped as the woman suddenly looked up at them, and Candace let out a startled squeak. But the woman seemed to be looking past them. She set down the knife, and the utensil vanished, as she walked around the counter towards the door.

"Crap," Candace breathed, letting out a sigh, as they watched her walk past, and open the door. But behind the door was another door, which remained close, and the door she opened vanished as she removed her hand from the knob. "Always scares the bejeezus outta me when they do that."

"Why are there two doors?" Gary groaned. This was getting worse by the minute.

"One for us, one for them, maybe?" Candace said. "I think we can only see ghost-stuff when there's a ghost touching it."

"I thought you said they weren't ghosts?" Gary pointed.

"I meant not like dead-people ghosts." she said, uncertainly. "But they're people who you can see but aren't really there, so it still fits, more or less."

Gary watched the Other-Candace mutely talking to the closed door, and frowned, curiously.

"Who's she talking to?"

"Another ghost, I'd assume. We can't see them because the door -- the real door -- is in the way, I guess." Candace replied.

Cautiously, Gary stepped forward, and reaching past Other-Candace, he opened the apartment door.

Gary froze, his eyes widening as he saw the apparition she was speaking to. A tired-looking woman with auburn hair, dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, was talking animatedly to Other-Candace, though he of course couldn't hear what she was saying.

Candace frowned. "Huh. I haven't seen her before. Not one of other-me"s guests. I wonder who she is?"

"That's...that's my wife." Gary replied, hoarsely. "She died last year."

Once, when she had a particularly bad hair day, a young woman who passed her in the street couldn't help but giggle at her flyaway locks. She whispered a few words under her breath, and and kept on walking past the tittering girl. The next day, the girl awoke to find her hair -- all of it -- had fallen out.

Yet, when I was small, I was running down the flagstone path through her garden, and I tripped and fell, and skinned my knees. She appeared from thin air, scooped me up in her arms, and whispered soothing words that stopped my bleeding and made my pain vanish.

She's bad-tempered, and petty, and sometimes even cruel. But she can also be warm, and kind, and loving.

She's the dreaded Baba Zorah, Witch of the Southern Plains. But she's also my mother.

Now that I've grown, and she has grown older, I feel that responsibility that all good sons feel, to look after their aging mother. You might think that a powerful witch can care for herself, but a witches magic is a visceral thing, and though it oft grows stronger with age, so too does the toll it takes on the witches stamina. She couldn't hex away an entire determined mob bearing torches and pitchforks before she grew too weary to cast spells, yet she courted the danger of inciting one almost constantly.

Fortunately, I inherited some of her power, and since my father also had magic of some sort -- though she steadfastly refuses to tell me his name, much less what sort of practitioner he was -- my native strength is a match for hers.

I have therefore taken on the role of her adversary, at least in the popular imagination. When the feared Baba Zorah afflicts the people with her curses, they call upon the aid of wise Vedmak Alexei, the White Warlock of the Plains -- never suspecting the latter is the former's son.

What makes it tricky is that, as I mentioned, our magic is closely tied to our bodies. Because of this, the methods one uses to directly break a spell generally cause it to rebound upon the witch that cast it. Naturally, I wouldn't do that -- she's my mom.

So how do I help her victims? Well, there are two basic types: curses of deprivation, and curses of excess.

Take the unfortunate woman who giggled at my mother's hair, for example. Mother's curse deprived her of hair. So, I cursed her to have excessive hair. Now, though she is technically twice-accursed, the young lady is for all intents and purposes normal, because the curses cancel each other out.

Recently, however, Baba Zorah had stepped up her assaults on the villagers. Despite her age, she still gets around quickly in her flying mortar and pestle, such that even the illustrious Vedmak Alexei has trouble keeping up. It was time that I paid her a visit.

As I approached her cottage, she appeared outside it in a puff of smoke.

"Ho! Vedmak!" mother called, glowering down at me from where she floated in her mortar a few feet off the ground. "You approach the home of a Vedma without announcing yourself? Did no one ever teach you manners?"

"I approach the house of my mother, where my welcome may be presumed, I trust." I said, drily.

She made a show of squinting at me. "Oh! It's you, Alexei. I could have sworn it was this arrogant young Vedmak I've heard tell of, who keeps meddling with those I've fairly cursed."

"Fairly?" I scoffed. "Mom, you've abandoned even the pretense of having a reason to curse people! Maid Silva in Nogradan just said 'hello' to you, and you made her nose fall off!"

"The very nose that she turned up at me when she said it! As though your poor mother were a piece of trash!" she retorted, hotly.

"She has an upturned nose! Her whole family does!"

"She had an upturned nose," she said, smugly.

"Has!" I snapped. "I cursed her with an 'extra' nose, this morning."

Mother threw up her hands in consternation. "Where is your respect? Your gratitude? I raised you all by myself, have you forgotten? And even if I were not your mother, this is professional discourtesy, at least! What has gotten into you?"

"What's gotten into me?" I exclaimed. "You were always capricious and liked to cause trouble, but lately it's like you're begging for a mob to burn you at the stake!"

"I'd like to see them try!" she hissed.

"I wouldn't!" I roared, angrily, bringing her up short. "Because if they tried, I'd burn them before they got within a mile of here! I'd hate myself forever, for hurting decent people who were just trying to protect themselves, but I would do it!"

Mother stared at me, her mouth half agape. My words had stunned her, if only for a moment. But she recovered quickly, and smoothed her skirts.

"So, my son. You have developed an affection for the small folk around you, I see." she said, as she regained her usual tone and manner. "If you wish so fervently to spare them from my anger, then let us settle the matter with a bargain."

I frowned suspiciously. Mother herself had taught me how perilous such bargains could be.

"What sort of bargain?"

"I will forswear all cursing, poisoning, and any other harmful magic against the people of these lands." she said.

That wording shocked me. She'd left herself virtually no wiggle room. What could she want bad enough to give up her favorite hobby?

"And in exchange...?" I asked, cautiously.

"Your firstborn child." she said, firmly.

I paled at her words. There were some potent magics that could only be worked with an infant as the focus. All of them were monstrous, and I wouldn't have thought my mother, even at her worst, would be capable of them.

She must have seen my reaction on my face, because she quickly added "No, not for a spell, boy! I will swear to that much."

"Then why would you want my child? Do you honestly want to take care of a newborn, at your age?" I demanded.

"I am not as old as all that! And why I want it is my own concern!" she snapped. Then she looked away, seeming slightly embarrassed. "Anyway, I wasn't thinking I would take care of it all the time."

"What does that mean?" I asked, a raising an eyebrow.

"You know -- sometimes I would visit the child, and sometimes the child would visit me? Like that." Mother explained.

"What are you..." I began, and then my eyes widened, as I finally understood.

"Has this all been because you want a grandchild?" I exclaimed.

"Well, grandchildren, ideally." Mother said. "But I didn't want to rush you."

"Didn't want to rush me?" I cried. "With all the chaos you've been causing, you've kept me too busy for much more than an occasional dalliance, never mind settling down with a wife, and now you want a grandchild?"

"A miscalculation on my part -- I was trying to bring you to the table, so to speak, but by the Divine, these people are so annoying." she said, with a shrug. "Now do you want to bargain, or not?"

I scowled at her for a long moment, but she just looked back impassively, waiting for my reply.

"I get a year and a day to find a bride." I said, finally. "I'm not going to tie myself to the first woman I see just to get a child on her."

Mother scoffed, but waved her hand in assent. "Oh, fine, if you must."

"And," I added, jabbing a finger at her. "You have to tell me who my father is."

It was her turn to scowl. "I'll tell you where he lives, and what he does. Take it or leave it."

"Deal." I said

"So mote it be."

"So mote it be!"

"Your sire lives in the capitol city of Amberholm. He's a court jester." Mother said, as soon as the deal was struck.

I blinked. "A court jester? But you said he had powerful magic! What kind of Vedmak works as a court jester?"

She replied with a wicked grin. "Oh, you want to know more? Well, I will doubtless want more grandbabies. Talk to me after you've delivered on our first agreement, and perhaps we can bargain again."

"You have guessed, I'll warrant." said Barbicayne, "That the nature and pedigree of Barbicayne the Fool, such as it is, is not so simple as it appears to be?"

"The less canny among my peers believe you're just what you appear to be: a common man, if slightly mad, who's a savant of song and verse." Lord Gray said. "Those who are more perceptive think that you're the king's spymaster, your guise as a fool a pretense to keep you close to the monarch and his court."

"The best stories have layers," Barbicayne said, with a grin, spreading his hands expressively. "A little something for everyone."

"And the truth?" Lord Gray pressed. "You're no common man -- if you are one at all."

"Questioning my manhood? Really, Lord Gray, I'd have thought such base jibes were beneath you." Barbicayne smirked.

"Rather your humanity, Master Barbicayne." the old scholar replied.

"Ah! Well, I've given some cause to question that, over the years. But I am quite human, as it happens -- on my mother's side, at least." the jester said.

"Is this story of yours going to start soon?" Lord Gray asked, impatiently.

"It started long ago, m'lord." Barbicayne replied crisply. "My story begins before great Sigismund the Wanderer first looked upon these fair lands while they dozed beneath a layer of orange autumn leaves, and fell in love with his new 'Amber Home'."

"There are no primary sources that authenticate the tale of Sigismund; that's just an old legend." Lord Gray protested.

"Then it's in good company with me," the fool retorted, crisply. "Now where was I? In those days this world was still new, like a young child still surrounded by its jostling elder siblings. Once such older sister to the world of man coveted its youth and beauty, and her children sought to lay claim on it."

"The Magi speak of a time beyond memory, when worlds overlapped and converged..." Lord Gray mused.

"At the moment, I speak of it." Barbicayne observed, testily.

Lord Gray raised his hands in placation, and the jester continued.

"The denizens of that world were powerful, with vast knowledge born of countless eons. And yet, the world they sought was not made for them. Too many substances common to this land proved to be their bane. Iron, hawthorn wood -- the sort of thing every peasant farmer trusts to ward away evil spirits, even today." Barbicayne went on. "Still, they were unwilling to abandon their conquest, even though this world was all but poison to them. Instead, they beget children with mortals, offspring who could have both a share in the power of these Outer Lords, and birthright to the world they coveted."

"You...you are..." Lord Gray said, eyes widening.

"A changeling? A fetch? A hellspawned wretch?" Barbicayne wryly rhymed. "We have been called such, my lord, and not without cause. But before we were any of those things, we were but children. What more can be asked of a child, than that he learn the lessons his parents teach, and do as they bid him?"

"Do you...do their bidding still?" he asked, uneasily.

The jester shook his head. "That ended long ago. The worlds were pulled apart by forces even the Outer Lords could not resist, and their voices could no longer reach the progeny they left behind."

"So you were abandoned." Lord Gray said, his expression softening.

"Yes. But this is not the sad part of the story, my lord." Barbicayne said. "We were better for it. We were bereft of our parents' power, yes, but we had a measure of that in our own right. More importantly, we had our freedom. Though many of us abandoned the ambition of ruling over this world, which was never really our ambition to begin with, the children of our second and now only home were not quick to forgive. We were hunted, and despite our power we were few, and they were many."

Lord Gray frowned. "So it often fares with men among each other, as well. The lust for vengeance is a bloody circle."

"Until one decides to break it." the fool observed. "As did the warrior sent to hunt me down: Sigismund of the Red Blade."

"The Wanderer?" Lord Gray exclaimed. "You're saying he actually was real?"

"Real indeed, though not called 'Wanderer' then. That epithet came afterward, when he was exiled from the mountains he hailed from, for the crime of sparing the monster he'd been commanded to dispatch." Barbicayne sighed. "His own kith and kin turned their backs on him, spat upon his name, and banished him on pain of death should he ever return."

"Incredible..." the scholar murmured. "The stories were always fragmentary, but most thought he was called wanderer because he was an explorer, not an outcast."

"Time does strange things to history, as you well know. It did even stranger things, before you started writing it down." Barbicayne said. "But don't look so glum. That is not the sad part of the story, either."

The jester leaned against the wall. "As you may have guessed, I decided to travel with Sigismund. I was already gravely injured when he found me, and needed time to regain my strength -- at the time, he was the only man I could trust not to kill me, if given the chance. He was an extraordinary man, and eventually became the closest thing to a brother, to me. I stayed with him even when he settled in his beloved Amber Home, and he founded what would eventually become the royal line."

"And that is how you came to be the power behind the throne?" Lord Gray demanded. "Ruler of your friend's kingdom in all but name, his descendants merely your puppets?"

Barbicayne sighed. "As I have said, the ambition to rule was never mine -- that was the will of the Outer Lords, and I am long since free of it. No, my lord, that is not why I do what I do. Before he died, Sigismund called me to his side, and asked me to protect his kingdom, and guide his heirs. Amber Home was still a tiny kingdom then, with wild and quarrelsome lands upon its borders, and he feared for its survival when he was no longer there to protect it. So, I gave him my word that I would do as he asked."

"And have you?" Lord Gray pressed. "Is this...charade truly what he desired?"

Barbicayne shook his head, slowly. "Of course not. But it is not what I desired, either. For generations, I stood by the throne, and offered my advice and insight. Only Sigismund knew the full extent of what I was, and what I could do, of course, and that remained his secret. His heirs knew only that I was something old and wise, whose counsel could be trusted -- but that became a problem."

"Their trust was a problem?"

"A great one. They trusted me implicitly. Eventually, they sought my advice on virtually every decision, and could make none for themselves. I saw what this was doing to them, and I withdrew into hiding, working only behind the scenes, counseling them only through third parties, but that did not correct the problem. The heirs of Sigismund no longer believed they had a mystical counsellor whose insight bordered on prophecy. They now believe that they simply lead charmed lives -- somehow or other, things always seem to just work out for them." Barbicayne said closing his eyes as if in pain. "I settled on this role several centuries back, and the king's favored fool became a convenient tradition. Every few decades, I simply don a new comical mask, and I am able to be where I am most needed."

"Could you not have withdrawn entirely? Let the royal line stumble from time to time, so it could learn to stand on its own?"

The jester smiled wanly. "I have a share of my sire's powers, my lord, but also a share of his weaknesses -- like a being of that Outer World, I am bound by the letter of my word as if by iron fetters. In haste, and in love, I carelessly agreed to do as Sigismund asked: guide his descendants, and protect his kingdom. I cannot now do otherwise, even if in doing so I make my beloved brother's progeny little more than pleasant throne room ornaments, dancing at the end of the strings I pull from the shadows."

Lord Gray was silent, his eyes on the ground as he contemplated the weight of Barbicayne's words.

"And that, my lord," Barbicayne said, with a sigh. "Is the sad part of the story."

The marionette danced on the thin silken strings that ran from its limbs to the wooden frame held in Barbicayne's slender, nimble fingers. The King and most of his court laughed and applauded, as the little wooden pig dressed in nobleman's finery chased the fluffy woolen sheep the king's fool controlled with his other hand, around and around in a frantic circle.

"Around and around, that pig chased the poor ewes, sure that the shepherd would ne'er hear the news!" Barbicayne narrated the story as the dolls acted it out, tossing his head with each line of his recitation, so that the bells on his motley cap jingled.

Only two of the nobles in the audience seemed less than amused by the farce: scholarly Lord Gray, who looked oddly thoughtful, and the gaudily dressed Duke Horace, whose narrowed eyes and gritted teeth left no doubt as to his opinion of Barbicayne's show.

The latter was easy to understand, if one was observant enough: the surcoat and trousers the wooden pig wore were markedly similar in shade to the Duke's own colors, to say nothing of the tightly curled black hair on its head, which was even an even better match for that of the seething nobleman. More than that, however, it took little imagination to draw parallels between the pig puppet's amorous fixation on the ewes of the shepherd's flock, and Horace's purported disgraceful penhant for lechery with the young peasant maidens on his country estates.

"But before the young ewe could be chased into bed..." Barbicayne began, and then, with a quick sleight of hand, he snapped the sheep puppet up to his hand, and exchanged it from another he drew from behind his back. This one was a bearded farmer, with unkempt golden hair that almost resembled a crown. In one hand it held a meat cleaver, painted half red, and in the other it bore a shepherd's crook.

"...the shepherd appeared, and cried 'Off with his head!'" the fool finished. Now it was the pig's turn to be chased round in a circle by the outraged shepherd, as the court laughed and cheered, all except for Duke Horace, who stared in wide-eyed horror. Barbicayne suddenly made the puppets collide, and the impact knocked off the pig's head, which went clattering away across the marble floor.

"That silly old pig thought that he was unseen!" the fool chanted, capering from foot to foot, before raising the shepherd puppet high above the floor, and spinning it in a slow circle, as though to take in the assembled gentry. "But the shepherd sees far -- and he keeps his blade keen!"

A final ripple of applause and laughter ran through the crowd, some from King Roger himself, and Barbicayne made a comically elaborate bow. The jester's performance had marked the end of the day's court, and the king withdrew from the throne room along with a favored few while the rest filed out, and Barbicayne began collecting his juggling props and puppets.

Only one stayed behind: the somber Lord Gray. "A fine show, Master Barbicayne."

Barbicayne shrugged modestly. "You are too kind, m'lord -- I fear I am as yet but a journeyman at my craft, else I'd have had the whole court in stitches with that farce about the pig. Duke Horace, for example, looked less than amused."

"You are too humble, Barbicayne." Lord Gray said, raising an eyebrow. "To admonish old Horace about his debauchery before the entire court, and warn him to mend his ways or suffer the king's wrath, all without giving him cause to object or take offense? That was a masterwork. And still rather amusing, in the bargain."

The jester's smile became suddenly brittle. "And yet, I must say that you didn't seem as entertained as the rest, your lordship."

"My mind was elsewhere." Lord Gray admitted.

"Really? You might wish to keep a closer eye on it, then, m'lord -- you never know when you'll need it." Barbicayne quipped, as he began to stuff his props and puppets into his sack a bit more swiftly.

"While the others were laughing, I was thinking," Lord Gray continued, refusing to be diverted. "Who really sits on the throne of Amberholm?"

"I'm...sure I don't know what you mean, my lord." the fool demurred.

"And I'm just as sure that you do." Lord Gray shot back. "We both know His Majesty well, Barbicayne -- he's a good man, but the Divine did not see fit to imbue him with...shall we say, a contemplative temperament. This clever farce of yours was not of his design."

"Some tasks are beneath the dignity of the monarch, my lord." Barbicayne said, quietly. "Yet they need doing, nonetheless."

"And how many such tasks has he delegated to you, Master Barbicayne?"

The fool paused, eyeing the baronet appraisingly.

"What is it that you want from me, my lord?"

"What any historian wants," Gray said, lifting his chin. "The truth."

The jester smirked. "One has only to crack a history book to give the lie to that statement, your lordship."

"And is the situation improved by concealing the truth?" Lord Gray retorted.

"Truths, my lord, are like green vegetables -- they might be good for you, but no one wants any when they're served up plain and simple." Barbicayne said. Then he held up one of his colorful marionettes, "If a cook is truly concerned for the health of those he nourishes, he must artfully conceal such unpleasant morsels in something a bit more palatable."

"In a handsome, likeable fellow wearing a crown and a royal stole, perhaps?" Gray suggested, and Barbicayne's expression darkened slightly. "Don't mistake me, Barbicayne. I've not come to try to expose you. If I'm right about half of what I suspect, I imagine that I'd...suffer an accident, before I could do any such thing."

"Then why have you come, my lord?" the jester asked.

"To know the truth." Lord Gray explained. "To do my duty to record the true history of my people, even if no one else sees it in either of our lifetimes, so that it will not be wholly forgotten."

"As long as I remember," Barbicayne said. "It won't be. And my memory is longer than you can imagine, my lord."

"As long as eternity?"

"Perhaps."

"But perhaps not?"

Barbicayne thought for a moment, and then gave a nod of concession.

"Then let me commit what you remember to the page. Keep my writings if you must, but conceal them somewhere they may be found if, one day..." Lord Gray trailed off.

"If one day there ceases to be a fool in the Court of Amberholm?" Barbicayne asked, smiling slightly. He let out a long, tired sigh. "Very well, my lord. Let me tell you a story..."

Wow. Truly brilliant work. I loved the characterizations, the detail, and the use of language. The thing I liked most, however, was how you adapted the source material.

In your story, the classic folklore monster that lures mortals to their doom is not made out to be a tragic predator who just can't help itself etc. But rather, and more interestingly, I think, the one who seemed to be the fisherman in the story, was actually the bait.

And yet, even in taking that marked diversion from the source material, you didn't just stomp all over the lore of the Fossegrim. The poor girl does drown, and it's not unreasonable for a witness to think he was responsible; he says as much in his song.

Merely making an evil figure of folklore sympathetic is no longer a subversion of the trope -- it's become more the rule than the exception, if anything. But you gave a fresh take on an old story while respecting the story you drew your inspiration from. Again, brilliant!

I looked at my Master, appraisingly. Their first Wish intrigued me -- it's rare, that they would Wish to solicit my advice, instead of jumping straight into dicking around with powers they cannot possibly comprehend.

"Wish to expend your last two Wishes, and walk away." I said, at last.

My master blinked. "What?"

"Say 'I Wish to expend my Wish', say that same thing again, then just put down the lamp," I explained, then turned my hand and moved my index and middle fingers as though they were little legs walking. "And walk away. You Wished to know what I would counsel you to do, and that's my recommendation."

He nodded, slowly. "So, you're saying that no matter what I wish, it will go terribly wrong?"

"No, I'm saying the thing I just said, and you are somehow hearing something different."

I wasn't trying to be difficult, you understand. Well, not really. It's just that there are rules I have to follow. I can't just volunteer things.

Had my latest Master been someone else, someone with a different temperament, I might have advised him to Wish for a moderate amount of wealth, health, and general good fortune.

Small Wishes like those fall within the Universe's margin for error, because they're not too improbable and they potentially could have happened whether they were Wished for or not. Therefore, Wishes of that sort don't usually cause the kind of equal-and-opposite reaction from the cosmos that makes people erroneously assume that we genies are maliciously "twisting" the Wishes that we grant. We don't do anything of the sort, of course. As I've said before, it's just the elasticity of reality: push the Universe too far, and it will push back.

My Master frowned, thoughtfully, considering my words. But I knew he wasn't going to go for it. He was going to push.

You might wonder, given what I said about not having any desire for my Master's Wishes to go awry, why I didn't advise him differently. After all, he did wish for my advice, and doing so does relax most of the mystical laws that normally prevent me from explaining myself.

The answer is that what advice I would choose to offer in any given situation depends heavily on how I expect that advice to be received. I was certain he would ignore my advice to make two small, judicious Wishes to improve his own life, and only mostly certain he would ignore my advice to Wish for nothing and go away.

How could I know that? Well, I believe it was Malcolm Gladwell who said it takes 10,000 hours of practice -- that's about a year of actual, active work -- to become a true expert in something. I've been offering Wishes to people from different eras and cultures for 2,000 years. Even if you don't count a few centuries here and there when my lamp was buried in the desert, or hidden in someone's tomb, I've got a lot more than 10 thousand hours of studying human psychology under my belt, at this point.

"I think I get it." he said, at last.

Oh if only he'd wished for understanding, instead of advice.

"You don't think I'm capable of making a wish that won't turn back on me," he said, "Because you assume I'm going to Wish for something selfish, right?"

I sighed, and shook my head. Unfortunately, I'd read him right.

"I get it, you can't elaborate unless I Wish it. But then I'd been down another Wish." he mused. "And that would limit the good I could do with my Wishes."

Ah, there it was. I gritted my teeth.

"I'm not going to ask for wealth, or power, or anything like that." he said, lifting his chin. "And I'm not even going to ask for peace on Earth -- I saw that one episode of the X-files. I just wish that humans would stop being cruel to each other."

"Granted." I sighed.

He thanked me, I rolled my eyes, and then sat down cross-legged as he buggered off to see the new world he'd created. Despite knowing where to find me, it took him several weeks to find his way back.

This is probably because, during that time, a species of amoeba called naegleria fowleri that lives in warm, fresh water underwent a spontaneous mutation, and became able to survive in any body of water on earth.

The infection caused by this tiny single-celled horror movie is usually fatal and incurable, but the mutant version behaved differently. Rather than entering the brain via nerves in the nasal passages like its ancestor and causing lethal encephalitis, the new bug secreted an anti-inflammatory enzyme that prevented the host's brain from swelling up while the amoeba happily munched away on it, until the brain's frontal lobe resembled a beehive sculpted out of hamburger.

It's an interesting thing about cruelty -- you only find it in creatures of high intelligence. Tigers aren't cruel, for example -- they're just hungry, or horny, or the other things animals are. Chimpanzees, now, those are some cruel bastards. And dolphins? Don't get me started on them, swimming around in pods like "Hey look guys, it's a porpoise! It looks just like a cute little baby version of us! Let's torture it to death!" And of course, humans. Humans can be very cruel.

The Universe, as always, takes the path of least resistance. Changing complex social behaviors driven by base animal instincts? That's hard, and it's complicated, and messy. Random mutations, on the other hand? Those happen all the time.

My Master staggered up to me, filthy and haggard looking. "Everyone...everyone...nah...not..."

"Everyone's stupid? Yes, even more than usual, I'm afraid. That part of your brains that got eaten is one you use quite a bit." I said, drily.

"Whah...why...why do...why this?" he stammered, struggling to focus what remained of his mind.

"Because it's what you Wished for, in the way that fit most easily into reality. If only someone had warned you."

"Want...want it not!" he pleaded.

That didn't work -- syntax is important with me. But obviously, you wouldn't be reading this if he hadn't gotten it right eventually. I won't bore you with the events of the next several days, which is how long it took him to finally, almost by pure luck, Wish to undo his previous Wish.

So ends yet another cautionary tale, offered by one humble genie, for no other reason than that someone once offhandedly Wished that I'd chronicle my experiences -- though they never got to read them, as they forgot to specify how or when.

If you've read more than one of my accounts, and wonder how it could be that no one in all these years has ever screwed up their final Wish, and thereby screwed the world over in a more permanent fashion, well...look around you.

What makes you think they haven't?

"Something wrong, Crewman?" The Lieutenant asked. I straightened, and saluted. He chuckled, and waved it off. "No need for that-- the Soros is a merchant ship. We keep it pretty casual."

"Yes sir," I said, then amended, "Er...L.T.?"

"Either one's fine." he said, smiling, "But you look a little unsettled. Something the matter?"

"Well, to be honest, I was thinking about my uniform, LT." I admitted.

"What about it?"

"What it says on the back, sir."

"The ID number? Do you have a superstition about the number 29 or something, crewman?"

"No, I mean the smaller text above the '29'. The one that says, um...'replaceable crew member'?"

The Lieutenant blinked, then suddenly burst out laughing. "You...you thought..."

"Sir?" I asked.

He shook his head, still chuckling. "Sorry, Crewman -- I see what you're saying." He tapped my shoulder. "This is a replaceable crew member uniform, not a uniform for replaceable crew members! Ha, no wonder you looked so worried!"

"Oh! So...but why do they say that, sir?"

"Eh, I know it's confusing, but what it really means is that you can re-use them. Crewmen we take on in one spaceport may only be with us until they cash out at the next one, so we get the uniform back from them and replace it in storage for the next guy that signs on." he explained. "The numbers are for identification if we have to call you over the open comms channel -- sometimes you might have to wear safety gear for loading and unloading certain hazardous cargo, and from a distance you can't tell who's who under the respirator masks."

I nodded, that made sense. "Heh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up, sir."

"No problem, Crewman." the Lt. said, and clapped me on the back. "Oh! And here's your bunkmate."

Another man in a similar uniform to mine stepped into our small quarters. He nodded to the Lieutenant, who nodded back.

"As you were, Crewman." the LT said, stepping past him and out into the corridor.

I nodded to my bunkmate, and stepped aside as he started unloading his gear on the bottom bunk. I'd already claimed the top. When he bent down, I noticed the back of his uniform.

Replaceable Crew Member #29, read the text on the back.

"Sir?" I called back to the lieutenant.

He turned, "Crewman?"

"My bunkmate and I have the same number. Won't be that be a problem, if they're for visual identification over the comms?"

"Huh," he said, stroking his chin and frowning thoughtfully. "Yeah. Weird. Well, don't worry Crewman. I'll mention it to the Captain. It won't be a problem for long."

My bunkmate said something, but I wasn't listening. I was staring after the LT. He frowned.

"Hey you okay?" my bunkmate said, following my gaze. "It is the uniform thing? It'll be fine -- he said he'd talk to the captain and get one of us a new one, right?"

I swallowed hard, and felt even more uneasy than I had before.

Because that wasn't what the LT had said.

Jakri, at last, looked down into the expanse of the arena. It had been strewn about with fresh, slender branches from some coniferous tree, until there was hardly any bare ground to be seen, and the scent of them was strong enough to fill even the vast space of the Red Colosseum.

"Do they summon the dragon with a fire?" Jakri wondered aloud.

The old man next to him laughed, and turned to look at him with a toothless smile. "No, boy. Those are boughs of the Sacred Juniper. It's not a firepit, it's a nest. The dragons lay eggs high in the mountains, you see, and they make their nest-mounds from branches like these."

That made sense -- it was said that the dragon laid eggs that could be used to divine the future. This foreknowledge was supposed to be the reason for the prosperity of the Crimson Kingdom. He squinted at the other side of the Colosseum. Even from this distance, he could see people in gold-colored robes, gathering on a broad dais above the tiers.

"Are those the Royal Diviners?" he asked, excitedly.

The old man nodded. "The king's cabal of seers and astrologers -- they study the clouds, the movement of birds, and the stars, to get small glimpses of the future. But none of their portents are as clear or as certain as the Great Divination of the Dragon, of course."

"So, will the Diviners crack the eggs, after the dragon leaves? Read the future in the shape of the yolks, or something?" Jakri asked, uncertainly.

The old man gasped. "Mind your tongue, boy! The dragon eggs are sacred!"

Jakri held up his hands. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't know! I'm from the countryside. A village called Rimbel, on the outskirts of the kingdom."

"Ah," the old man said, nodding. He chuckled. "Well, here's some advice then: in the Crimson City, speaking to someone of broken dragon eggs is like swearing at them by the name of the Divine -- don't do it unless you're trying to start a fight."

Jakri nodded. Across the arena, he saw the king and his royal retinue, resplendent in robes of crimson and gold, taking their place on the dais just above the Diviners.

"Anyway, the Diviner's don't actually do much in the Great Divination. The sign of the dragon is simple." He held up two bony fingers. "She lays two eggs, which we will care for until the Harvest, when they hatch. One contains a red hatchling, and the other, a blue. Newborn dragons are savage creatures, and once they've both emerged, they will fight to the death."

Jakri gasped. "Really?"

"Yes! It's quite brutal, but nature often is. If the red dragon -- the dragon that bears the color of our kingdom -- prevails, then good fortune will follow in the year to come. If the blue dragon wins, however, the kingdom will be plagued by bad luck."

A roar went up from the crowd in the Colosseum. The old man tugged on Jakri's sleeve, and pointed up. His eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open.

There she was, dropping down from the clouds -- the dragon. Her silvery, iridescent scales gleamed in the light, as she circled and descended, her vast membranous wings spread wide to catch the air. The horse-sized head at the end of her long serpentine neck was reptilian, and graced with short, antler-like horns, but her body reminded him more of a wildcat, lean and graceful.

He swore he could feel the wind from her beating wings, as she slowed and landed lightly in the center of the arena, amid the Sacred Juniper boughs. She lifted her regal head, and swept it around, her flashing eyes seeming to take in the crowd. She let out a roar, and tiny wisps of smoke puffed from her mouth and nostrils. Jakri shied back from the edge, but the old man just laughed.

"Don't worry, boy. She's just telling everyone to keep their distance, she won't attack us. Heh, she doesn't even see us a threat!" the man assured him.

And sure enough, after a moment, the immense creature settled down. She scraped the branches into a high mound in the center of the arena, then clambered atop it. There she writhed and thrashed for a moment, until she had half buried herself in the gigantic pile of Juniper. She settled again, and was silent. Jakri waited, tensely, watching her, ready to dive for cover despite the old man's assurances.

She reared up suddenly, and Jakri flinched, but the dragon just took straight to the sky. It was only when Jakri heard the old man's gasp, and the murmurs sweeping through the crowd, that he tore his eyes from the vanishing dragon.

Atop the mound of branches, sat three eggs.

"Three?" Jakri said.

"That...that's never happened before." the old man said. "Oh Divine...oh no..."

"What's wrong?" Jakri asked. "There will be three hatchlings that fight, instead of two?"

The old man turned to him. "The whole Divination is based on an eternal balance. Red and blue, good and evil, fair fortune and bad luck! If there are three dragons, there can be no balance!"

Across the Colosseum, he could see the red-robed shape of the agitated king, who'd gone down amongst the gold-clad diviners.

"Couldn't they just...uh..." Jakri hesitated, remembering how the old man had scolded him.

The man eyed him. "Ehhh...I don't see how. They're sacred. Besides, what if there are two eggs with blue dragons, and only one with red?"

A roar drew their attention back to the arena, but this time it game from a great horn, blown by a royal herald. The king stood on the dais with two heralds stood on either side of him, bearing bright banners held on the end of rods. The king spoke, and the two heralds spun their four two-sided banners this way and that at varying angles to relay his message, but Jakri had never learned the bannerspeech they employed.

Fortunately, the old man knew it, and translated for him.

"Fate has chosen...to forebear in deciding our..." the old man said, struggling to see the bannermen. He shook his head. "Sorry, my eyes aren't what they used to be. The king says that...to forestall the possibility of...something...a place far away...three shall be chosen to...do...by the divination of the feather."

The old man sighed. "Damn! Sorry, I'm not sure what that means."

"What's 'the divination of the feather'?" Jakri asked, curiously.

"One of the lesser methods of telling the future that the Diviners use." the old man replied, looking down at his feet thoughtfully. "If I remember right, they release certain special birds, with ribbons tied to their ankles, and by watching the movements of the ribbon and taking note of where the birds fly, the seers are supposed to receive clues about the best course of action to take in a particular."

"Birds like that one?" Jakri asked, pointing. The old man looked up, just in time to see a small finch with a slender silk ribbon tied to its leg abruptly swoop down and land on Jakri's extended finger.

"Whoa!" Jakri said, staring at the finch, which for its part simply chirped and ruffled its wings, despite the way Jakri had jumped when it landed on him, seeming to content to perch on the young man's finger indefinitely. He smiled at the bird. "Hi, little one. Any hints you can give me about the future? Or would I have to be a seer?"

The finch's only reply was a non-committal tweet, but from behind him, he heard a voice suddenly call out sharply. "You there!"

Both he and the old man turned to look behind them.

Two of the king's soldiers, dressed in red livery, were descending the steps towards them rapidly. Above them stood two Diviners.

"Come with us." the foremost soldier commanded him, sternly. "Your presence is required by your King."

I was sitting in the library stacks, perusing one of my favorite volumes, when Douglas McCloud walked in. Doug was quite wealthy, and reasonably healthy, especially for a man in his late sixties.

Despite his hardy constitution, however, Doug was well aware of his age, and had become more so in the past few years. This led him, as it leads many men in that phase of life, to consider his final destination, and seek answers about where his last steps would lead him.

Of all the options advertised, Doug liked reincarnation best. Other theories involved everything simply ending, or a life of ethereal bliss that sounded far too trite for him to accept. None of that nonsense, thank you very much -- only reincarnation would do, for Mr. Douglas McCloud.

Indeed, it was his belief in this concept that led him to the library that day. Doug hadn't arrived to seek further knowledge of the beyond, however. He'd come to send a message, to himself. Or rather, the self he would be when he returned for his next helping of mortal existence.

It was a feat that he believed he could pull off, thanks to his possession of a substantial amount of currency. No, not money, though he also had plenty of that to spare. Doug had also shifted a substantial portion of his assets to the currency used in the reincarnation business: karma.

Doug liked the idea of karma. It was mathematical, like economics, and economics were something he understood very well. Do more good than bad, and ultimately, you get a proportional upgrade on your next go-round. This appealed to him more than other methods of retiring one's moral mortgages. He'd always resented the idea that he should have to feel bad about about things he'd done, or enact some sort of transformation in himself, in order to account for his mistakes. What good did that do for anyone, anyway?

As he saw it, if he embraced the idea of karma, he didn't need to feel bad. He just needed to pay a fine to the Universe for his misdeeds, and move on. Moreover, as he saw it this gave him much more freedom and flexibility, since the morality of any individual action mattered very little compared to the totality of his karma summed up when he ceased his mortal operations -- and his considerable resources would allow him to impact that total dramatically.

For example, his fondness for attractive young women, both those who traded privately, and those who offered their charms for sale directly on the open market, would have been seen as a vice by most, or least as rather excessive. But, as he saw it, he did nothing in his interactions with one or two dozen women per year that wouldn't be utterly karmically obliterated by the one or two dozen women's shelters he funded, which aided many thousands of women during that same year.

His dearly departed wife might not have seen it that way, he had to admit, but then, she'd known of his proclivities, and she'd still stayed with him until her death, so even she must have realized that he did her far more good than he did harm.

The one thing that bothered him was starting over from square one -- he'd earned a lot of important skills, through hard experience. Even now, if he had to start over from nothing, he felt confident he could parlay those skills into a comfortable retirement, in only a few years. His reincarnated self, however, though he could expect to have the benefit of more favorable circumstances as a result of his good karma, would lack all of that valuable knowledge.

There was nothing he could do about it, directly -- all the sources he'd read agreed on that, sadly. But, with enough good karma, his reincarnation should be more inherently enlightened, which should in turn lead him to seek more knowledge about the universe and his place in it. Doug hoped that this search would lead his future self here, to the library's peerless selection of rare books on religion and philosophy. Inside the most obscure of these volumes, Doug would conceal notes with important information his future self would need to know, and invaluable life lessons gained from Doug's own experience.

It would be an extremely lucky coincidence if his future self found these notes, obviously, since this future-Doug wouldn't remember putting them there for him to find. But Doug felt that with the amount of good karma he was accumulating for his next life, extremely good luck was something his future self was practically guaranteed.

When he went to place his first note, however, he found something he didn't expect: there was already something pressed between the pages of the rare, esoteric volume. An ancient, yellowed envelope, signed "To my future incarnation -- J.D. Rockefeller"

To his amazement, Douglas found that the letter from the past that seemed to be meant for him, it described the successful businessman he'd become, and expressed confidence that he would possess the wisdom -- and the luck -- to both find and comprehend the letter left by his past incarnation, the famous tycoon John David Rockefeller. And like the letter Doug had planned to leave in the very same old book, it contained instructions and ideas from a man of the past to his future incarnation -- some of which he wouldn't have thought of, nor even dared considered.

He wasn't completely credulous, of course. He'd think it over, and later he'd quietly hire a team of discrete experts to authenticate the less supernatural parts of the letter. It was, they would conclude, Rockefeller's handwriting, for a start. But the part that established the letter's bona fides also mentioned secrets of the old oil baron that could still be, and later were, authenticated. They were things that only Rockefeller himself could possibly have known.

But that night, still wide-eyed in wonder and excitement, he'd just fled from the library, taking the wondrous letter with him. I smiled, as I watched him go.

Of course, handwriting can be forged, if you have the skill. As for the secrets in the letter, well you could also know them if you were there when they were hidden away.

And I had been there, with Rockefeller -- him, and a lot of other men and women, over the years. Sometimes, while I'm hanging about, I make a suggestion or two. And sometimes, they listen. But I'm always close by.

I'll stick especially close to Doug, from now on, as he follows the instructions I've given him. And when his time comes, I'll be the one to show him out, and escort him to his destination.

I hope he likes surprises.

II:

We both made our exit from the party pretty quick, after that. As we walked back to Danny's car, parked a few blocks down due to the crowd at Marty's, we were silent at first. Then, for whatever reason, whether it was the gummies or the sheer absurdity of it all, we started laughing.

We laughed until we both had to lean on a nearby fence to catch our breaths."Damn." Danny sighed, when he'd finally curbed his manic cackling. "I might as well drop you back at your house, and then drive my car straight into the lake, after that shit."

I chuckled. "It'll be fine. Not everyone who heard it recognized you, and the ones that did will probably be too wasted to remember it, anyway."

"Hope so." he muttered. Then he smirked. "Or, you could just make me disappear."

I laughed. "Yeah..."

Then he grinned. "Hey, have you ever done that, before? Like, sent someone to hammerspace, instead of something?"

I shook my head. "Nah. I mean I...I've only really done it with objects before -- stuff I can hold in my hand."

Danny extended his hand.

"No way." I said, and then added. "And definitely not with your right hand."

Danny rolled his eyes and extended his left, instead. "Come on! It'll be like, for science and shit."

"Danny, I don't even know where hammerspace is!" I said. "What if it's too hot for people to survive there? Or too cold? What if it's like...up in orbit, or on the moon or something?"

Danny paused, then snapped his fingers. "You put shit you need to hide from your folks there, right?"

I nodded, uneasily. "Yeah, so?"

"Ever stash a beer in there?" he pressed, excitedly.

I shrugged. "Once or twice, sure."

"Was it still good when you pulled it back out?"

"Yeah, why?"

Danny grinned, and ticked points off on his fingers. "It didn't freeze, so it's not too cold. It didn't boil, so it's not too hot. And the can didn't explode or get crushed, which means there's atmospheric pressure like on Earth." He extended his hand again. "Beer is mostly water, and I am also mostly water. AP Science -- A-minus, bitch! Let's frickin' go!"I rolled my eyes. "It probably won't even work!"

"Then what are you worried about! Come on -- toss me in, send me back! There's still a good chance my life is over when we go back to school on Monday, dude -- so let me live!" Danny insisted.

With a sigh, I took his hand. He grinned widely. I pulled him forward and stepped in, so he went behind me.

I really thought nothing would happen. And then Danny was gone.

"Shit!" I cried.

I spun in a circle for a moment, as though I might have somehow flung him out of sight.

Then I came to my senses, and as I had done a thousand times before, I reached behind me, thinking of what I'd sent to hammerspace, and I grabbed for it. Somewhere beyond, my hand closed on Danny's wrist, and I pulled as hard as I could.

Danny practically flew out from behind me, staggering to a halt. But it wasn't the same Danny I'd sent through.

He still wore the tattered remnants of his zorro costume, along with a ragged mantle that looked like it was made from from some kind of black animal hide. As he slowly straightened up to look at me, I saw that his face had changed. It was leaner, almost gaunt, and he wore a full shaggy beard that I wouldn't have thought he was capable of growing. His eyes grew wide as they met mine.

I didn't have time to say anything before Danny rushed me, and slammed me back into the fence, pinning me there with implacable strength. He reeked, like he hadn't bathed in months, and his hot breath on my face smelled like rotten meat.

"Danny, I'm sorry!" I cried, struggling helplessly against him. "I didn't know--"

"BACK!" he roared, sounding both angry and panicked at the same time.

"W-what?" I stammered.

"Back!" he hissed, his face so close to mine that our noses were almost touching. "You have to send me back! NOW!"

"I--"

"NOW!" he screamed. Danny seized my hand in his, and then drew his other hand back like he was going to strike. Desperately, I lurched to the side. Danny stepped into my motion, ending up behind me. In my panic, I willed him away from me...and he was gone.

I never saw Danny again, after that night. No one did.

And I never reached into hammerspace again. I gave it up. I'm not sure whether I'd become afraid of it, or if I was punishing myself for what happened. I finished high school. I got into college.

And then, one night, a few months back, as I lay in my dorm room on Halloween night, remembering that other night a lifetime ago, I just...I just had to. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and reached for my old Zippo. My fingers closed on something small -- but it was too soft, the surface too rough.

When I worked up the courage to look at what I held, I saw it. My Zippo. It was dented, and rusty, but it was definitely mine. What I'd felt was wrapped around it -- a roll of thin tan-colored leather or parchment, tied with a leather cord. It was a note.

It was addressed to me.

I:

"Hey...where'd you get that?" Danny asked, blinking at me in the light of my Zippo's flickering flame, as I held it against the cigarette he'd handed me.

I was dressed as Superman for Halloween -- which meant that, like the Man of Steel himself, I had no pockets. I'd never told anyone what I could do before, and I don't know why I chose that night at Marty Baker's shitty Halloween party to change that. I could have explained the lighter away. And obviously, I had plenty of good reasons to keep my ability a secret: torches and pitchforks, dissected by the government, et cetera.

Maybe it was the edibles that we'd gotten off Marty's stoner cousin earlier that night. Maybe it was the costume, making me feel like I really was invincible. Or maybe I was just a stupid teenager, like everyone else at the party that night.

"Hammerspace." I said.

"Hammerspace?" Danny asked.

I nodded, flicking my zippo closed, and then paused to take a long drag and exhale. "Yeah. You ever see those old cartoons, where like Bugs Bunny just....he just sorta reaches behind him, and then comes back around holding this big-ass hammer, or some shit?"

Danny paused a moment, as his pleasantly toasted brain processed my question. Then he nodded, slowly.

"Yeah."

I shrugged. "Well, that's where he gets that hammer -- from hammerspace..." I tossed my zippo into the air lightly, caught it, and then moved my hand behind me and released it with a practiced motion. Just like that, it was simply gone. "...and that's where I keep my lighter, so I don't accidentally leave it my pants and have my folks kick my ass for smoking when they find it on laundry day."

Danny looked behind me. He looked on the ground at my feet. He stared at my spandex-wrapped ass for longer than was really comfortable, though the thin, cheap fabric made it clear I didn't have a lighter unless I'd managed to stow it in my prison wallet.

"Dude, stop checking out my butt -- the lighter's in hammerspace, I told you." I said, glancing around nervously at the other costumed attendees scattered around the deck above Marty's back yard.

He finally stopped and look back at me. It was hard to tell what his emotions were, through the haze.

"Holy shit." he said, sounding strangely quiet and sober.

I shrugged again, uncomfortably. I was already realizing what a bad idea it had been to access hammerspace where someone could see, to say nothing of how stupid it was to come right out and tell them about it. Danny was my friend, sure, but not to the extent that I was comfortable putting my life in his hands. I hoped he'd think he was just tripping balls and would drop the subject, or maybe he'd forget what had happened by tomorrow.

"So like...what else do you keep in there?" he asked.

"Nothing." I said, uneasily. "I mean, just like little things. My wallet, tonight. A spare key. And just, I dunno, shit I don't want my parents to find, I guess."

Danny nodded again. "Cool." Then his eyes widened, and he punched me on the shoulder. "Hey!"

"Ow! What the hell, man?" I protested.

"Why the hell was I sweating about carrying those special gummy bears around for hours when you could have just stashed them in hyperspace or whatever?" he demanded.

"Hammerspace! And...I don't know! I mean, look, I don't even really like to talk about this, alright? It's like...it's private, you know? Just drop it." I replied, my mind still too sluggish to formulate a better reply.

He shook his head. "Come on, that's bullshit! You can't just tell me something like this and tell me to drop it. Besides, I tell you my private shit all the time!"

"Pff, no you don't!"

"Yes I do!"

"Like what?" I demanded.

"Like how Marty's cousin sells edibles!" he shot back.

"Dude, that's Marty's private shit -- if anything the fact that you told me that means I shouldn't tell you any private shit about me!" I retorted, jabbing a finger at him.

"Fine! I jack it to cartoons!" he shouted, angrily, lifting his chin and jerking a thumb at his chest.

Danny's face paled, as he recalled where we were. Multiple heads turned in our direction, and I winced, wondering if it would be clear to them that Danny had said that, rather than me.

"So like...we're even now." Danny mumbled, lamely.

I really liked this story, especially the Sam Spadey-ness of the narration. In my head canon, Sasha is literally an anthropomorphic hammerhead shark woman, I can't picture her any other way.

IV:

We flew before the face of One-Who-Watches-Over, god of all hives, and in our flight we found transcendence. To die bringing new life, or die in exile, had always been our only fates. This was something new.

Our god followed in our wake, with great implacable strides. We had dared to draw his gaze, and now there was no escaping it. Perhaps that meant our destruction, but who could fear death less than we?

But if we had aroused his wrath by disturbing his rest, he forgot our transgression when he saw them. The Destroyers. One-Who-Watches-Over roared in outrage, as he saw them crawling upon the great white expanse of the hive.

Who can comprehend the power of a god? He moved like the wind, impossibly fast for something so immense. We retreated as we recognized the Vessel of the Clouds that he bore with him, that flashed as he brought it to life, and then spewed forth a smothering fog that made all strength flee from those that it touched.

But we had never before seen the Gleaming Bird that suddenly appeared at the end of his massive forelimb, its beak snapping hungrily as it sang through the air.

How beautiful and terrible is the wrath of our god.

V:

Jacob knew how to deal with hornets; anyone who plans on keeping bees has to know a thing or two about that. If you see a hornet's nest, well, you burn those sons of bitches, no buts about it -- an ounce of prevention, and all.

But if hornets got in while were you weren't looking, and were already inside the hive, well, there wasn't supposed to be a whole hell of a lot you could do about it except pick up the pieces afterwards. And that didn't sit right with Jacob. Before he'd retired, he'd been a rancher all his life. If wolves or coyotes got after your stock, you didn't just throw up your hands and hope you had better luck next time.

When the drone comet led him back to one of the beehives and he saw the hornets, he already had an idea of what he'd do, one he'd been chewing on for a while. Swearing and cursing up a storm, Jacob sparked up his hive smoker, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out his gardening shears.

The smoke dazed and slowed bees and hornets alike, but there was no mistaking the one for the other. Those damn "murder hornets" were big. And Jacob, well, he'd been scrappy in his day, and he still had pretty fast hands. Snip! Snip! Snip!

Jacob laid into the hornets buzzing around the hive, shears flashing in the sun. Then he pulled out the frames, nudging the bees aside gently, and snipped the hornets he found inside. For near half an hour he worked, swearing and snarling and stabbing and snipping, until every last one of the damn things, probably forty or fifty in all, was dead cut in half on the screen at the bottom of the hive.

In the end, it could have been worse -- a lot of bees were dead, but there were plenty more. The Queen was dead, too, but most of the brood cells were intact, so the workers could hatch a new one. He mopped his brow through the mesh of his mask, heaving a sigh of relief. Nearby, he saw the strange drone comet, hovering and circling. Glancing at the hive, he realized he didn't see any drones among the workers.

"I'll be damned," Jacob mumbled, eyeing the congregation of males bees, curiously. "You boys led me right back to your own hive, didn't ya? Shit! Good work." Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob saw a large insect buzz past. He turned and raised his shears again, but lowered them as he recognized the familiar shape and pattern of a virgin queen in flight. He smirked, and gestured in her direction, whimsically addressing the bees. "Well, you best get on -- ya'll still got some work to do."

VI:

Has any spark-bearer beheld such terrifying wonders as those that we saw that day, as the anger of One-Who-Watches-Over consumed the Destroyers, and rescued the hive from oblivion? When he finished with them, he turned to us, and we imagined for a moment that our turn had come, that his Gleaming Bird would slay us for our insolence.

But it did not. His roar to us was soft, and gentle as a breeze, carrying no reproach, and his ancient eyes were full of wisdom and understanding. We realized, in that moment, that we had achieved something none like us ever had: this day, all of us had attained glory. Whatever happened to us now, none of our number would have flown in vain, for each one could lay claim to continuing the life of the hive. Brothers all, we were sires to whatever future lay ahead for the hive, and fathers to all that was green upon the Earth.

But more glorious even than that knowledge, was that for a single perfect moment, we hung suspended in time before the face of god, knowing that he saw us, and was pleased.

Then One-Who-Watches-Over extended a vast forelimb, and as we followed his ponderous motion, a She-Who-Must-Be-Kindled appeared, as though summoned by his command.

And we rejoiced as we dove to join her, for even with all we had accomplished, there was yet even more glory to be attained.

I:

We are the spark of life, riding on the winds. There is no hive without us, and there is no green upon the Earth without the hive.

Each day we soar away from the hive that birthed us, the hive fated to abandon us, and we gather where the world has called us. As we dive and circle, our keen eyes watching for She-Who-Must-Be-Kindled, each of us wonders: is this the day I die, my spark consumed to kindle the lives of those who will come after?

Each day we pray to the One Who Watches Over: let me die in glory, today. Let it be me, whose spark kindles the souls of those who come after. Let me not fly in vain, to be cast out into the cold at the end of my days.

Most of our prayers will not be heard.

Most of us will die hungry, shivering in the dark, and the spark we bore will fade away. But such is the way of the Earth, and the will of the One Who Watches Over. We accept our fate. And for as long as we can, we fly.

II:

We saw them from afar, as we flew to where we were called, for our eyes are far sharper than our sisters' -- sharper even than She-Who-Must-Be-Kindled. The Destroyers had come for the hive, the place of our birth, our home before our final exile. The sisters would rise against them, but they would be no match for the devouring invaders. And there was nothing we could do, for our stings cannot kill -- they can only kindle new life.

Wisdom said we should answer the call of the Earth, as we always had, and gather where it bid us. Perhaps a She-Who-Must-Be-Kindled from another hive would come, seeking the spark of life, and a few of us would still have a chance for glory. True, the hive may have birthed us, but it would also cast us out when we were no longer needed. We owed it no fealty.

And yet...

How many like us had died in glory, so that the hive could live? How many had been born, and had soared, and been cast out, so that the cycle of life could continue, and the world itself could live?

As one, we turned aside, brothers united in purpose. We ignored the call of the Earth, the call to glory, and flew beyond.

We would seek the One Who Watches Over, who alone had the power to destroy The Destroyers. For the hive of our birth, for those who would soon cast us out, we would abandon our heart's desire, and tempt the wrath of our god.

III:

Jacob looked up from his newspaper with a frown, as he heard the sound of buzzing nearby. A small swarm circled nearby, forming a roughly round mass that elongated into an ellipse as it streaked through the air. As it drew close, it began darting back and forth, and side to side. He folded his paper, setting it on the table on the porch, and squinted at the odd little congregation.

No, not a swarm. It was a drone comet. That was the common name for one of those mysterious gatherings of male bees that waited for a virgin queen from another hive to approach on a mating flight. Why they gathered together in certain places was still being studied -- everything from wind-borne pheromones to magnetic fields had been theorized to explain it -- but he'd never seen a group of drones behaving this strangely.

Especially, he noted, without a queen bee anywhere in sight.

The comet suddenly streaked towards him, then became a ball again, swirling inches from his face. He was startled, but not scared -- drones can't sting you, after all.

"Huh. Now what the hell's gotten into you little fellers?" he muttered, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

Almost as if in response, the drone comet streaked away, towards the field where Jacob kept his beehives. Curious, he donned his beekeeper's hood, and began following the strange little cluster of bees, to see where they would lead him.

Gomer crept up the winding stairs of the tower, following close behind his master -- he dare not do otherwise. The Skyward Tower of Grand Magus Malthus Erestris, Gomer's mentor, had many stairs, and it was easy to become lost upon them. If one was so foolish as to assume that negotiating these steps was as simple as walking up them to descend, and down them to descend, for example, they would almost certainly be lost upon those stairs forever.

Despite his trepidation at having to tread the impossible spiral staircase at the heart of the wizard's tower, Gomer was excited. He had always wondered where his master had learned the secrets of magic, and his master had always avoided the question. Until tonight, that is, when he had roused Gomer from a sound sleep, and told him they were off to converse with his master's master.

Malthus suddenly halted on the steps, then stepped back down. Gomer, having walked the perilous stairs with his master before, automatically copied the wizard's movements. Up a step, back down a step, up half a step and then back again, they went along the staircase, making dozens of seemingly random movements that appeared to take them nowhere.

And yet, after several minutes of this precarious dance, they somehow emerged onto the top of the tower, where Malthus Erestris' menagerie of birds slumbered in their spacious sheltered aviary.

"He's meeting us here?" Gomer asked, eagerly.

"He's always here." The old wizard replied. "But he's only customarily awake at night."

Gomer frowned, scanning the aviary. He'd been there on other occasions, and never seen anyone. Was the wizard invisible?

A few birds were in coops or cages, but the majority rested on open perches, either ensorcelled to remain in the tower, or simply inclined to do so for one reason or another. Malthus led his student over to a wooden perch stand, where a smallish white-faced owl sat, its large bright eyes half closed.

"And here we are." Malthus announced, gesturing to the owl. "Grand Magus Emeritus Agramor -- my venerable instructor."

Gomer looked from his master to the owl. It was, of course, possible for powerful wizards to turn themselves into birds or other creatures, but Gomer was quite certain he'd seen this particular owl before, when tasked to clean the aviary, and it had given no signs of being anything other than a bird. Deciding it was best to err on the side of caution, and assume his master was neither fully insane nor playing a prank on him, Gomer bowed to the owl.

"Master Agramor." he greeted the bird, respectfully.

Despite being prepared for the possibility, he was still startled with the bird replied almost instantly.

"Young Gomer!" the bird said, "I am given to understand that you're an idiot."

Malthus nodded in agreement.

Gomer blinked. "Uh..." He struggled with many of the more esoteric aspects of magic, but he'd thought his training was going fairly well.

"Uh indeed! Yes, you're clearly quite thick-headed. But don't worry, I'd be more concerned if you weren't a fool, at your age. No one's fit to be wise until they've put in a good few years as a moron." Agramor the owl opined, sagely. He cocked his head to the side. "Why are you staring, boy? Ah! I see. My disguise, is it?"

"Yes sir," Gomer admitted. "Master Malthus has taught me some about transmutation, but..."

"No worries, no worries." Agramor said, waving a wing dismissively. "I'll dismiss the spell, if it'll make things easier for you."

With a mystical gesture of his wing tips and a softly hooted invocation, Agramor dispelled the illusion surrounding him...revealing a tiny, pointed hat atop his feathery head.

"There we are. The real me." Agramor proclaimed.

"You're an owl all the time, sir?" Gomer asked, incredulously.

"He's retired." Malthus explained.

"Semi-retired." Agramor corrected, testily. "But yes."

"You retired...to being an owl?" Gomer said, hesitantly.

"Of course. How else do you retire?" Agramor said.

"To a house on the beach?" Gomer suggested. "A quiet country manor?"

Agramor snorted. "Mundane! Common merchants and craftsmen with money to spare might do that: go someplace nice, be waited on by servants, and do what they like -- they live carefree as a child."

"But you...didn't want to be carefree?"

"Of course I did!" Agramor snapped. "But children aren't nearly carefree enough: they're always worrying about who's going to play the knight and who's the dragon, having to eat vegetables, or getting sent to bed just after dusk. Who needs that sort of aggravation? Owls are much more liberated -- I sleep all day, eat the odd mouse, and that's all I have to worry about, full stop. Besides, children have a sort of native wisdom and insight, and I was damned tired of being wise and insightful all the time."

"But...aren't owls wise?" Gomer asked, confused.

"Owls are a symbol of wisdom." Malthus corrected.

"Exactly!" Agramor agreed. "The word 'wisdom' is also a symbol of wisdom, but try writing 'wisdom' out on a sheet of parchment, and then ask the parchment for advice and see how far you get."

"Ordinary owls are actually fairly dim, as birds go." Malthus added.

An awkward silence hung in the air after that, before finally being broken by the old wizard.

"Ah! Right. I brought you here for a reason," Malthus said, snapping his fingers. "Magus Agramor mentioned he had something important to tell me, and that I should bring my apprentice along."

"Oh?" Gomer said, perking up excitedly.

"Yes, yes." Agramor said impatiently. "Don't get yourself all in a tizzy, it's nothing that important."

Gomer deflated slightly. "Oh. Well, what is it, sir?"

"I've had a prophetic vision," the owl explained. "The world's going to end in a year or so." He gestured to Gomer with a wing. "Seems like you're the only one who can stop it."

Malthus nodded thoughtfully.

"What?" Gomer cried. "How is the world going to end? How can I stop it?"

Agramar shrugged. "How the hell should I know, boy? I'm just an owl! And we've been jabbering here for so long that I've used up all my 'semi' -- all I've got left is 'retired'."

The owl made another gesture with his wing, and the tiny mage's hat vanished from his head. Without another word, he took to the air, and flew off into the night.

Malthus smiled, and clapped Gomer on the shoulder.

"Well, I'm glad you two finally met. Breakfast, then?"

II:

​

Queen Hilde reclined on a richly upholstered lounge, idly watching her daughter play in the distance. Princess Gerde seemed to be having a disagreement with one of her young ladies in waiting over a doll.

The Queen was too far away to hear what they were saying, but the confrontation was soon over, regardless: after a few moments, the princess struck the other girl across the face, and snatched the doll as she collapsed to the ground, sobbing.

The corners of Hilde's mouth curled up slightly.

"Good girl." she murmured, softly.

In the distance, something flitted across her field of vision. She squinted, but could make it. Annoyed, she looked up.

"Lean over, idiot -- the sun's in my eyes again!" she snarled.

The towering giant sighed heavily, but did as he was bid, awkwardly bending down to more completely shade the Queen and her seat. Now that she could see more clearly, she could make out the source of the distant motion. Near the treeline, deer were emerging from the forest adjoining the palace grounds, and bounding across the neatly scythe-mowed grass.

"It's a been a while since we had venison..." she idly mused, toying with the idea of commanding one of the giants to pluck a fat-looking beast from the herd. Then she saw what the deer were fleeing from.

An enormous bear charged out of the woods, a huge shaggy beast as tall as a horse and several times as wide. A fur-clad figure clung to its back, wearing a hood adorned with antlers, a long spear in his hand.

Her eyes widened. She was about to call for another her giants, but one nearer the trees was already lumbering forward to intercept the strange hunter. Though lankier than the one currently shading her, this giant still towered over even the huge bear and its rider, and bore a dangerous spiked club the size of a tree.

As the giant bore down on the bear-rider, however, the man raised his spear. A flash of bright light shone forth, and the giant stumbled to a halt. The hulking creature looked around stupidly for a moment, as the rider rode right past it, and then, to Hilde's amazement, began to wander off, as though it had simply lost interest.

"Giant!" she snapped at the one shading her, and pointed to the oncoming rider. "Deal with that brigand!"

The giant moved to intercept the bear-riding barbarian, but as he drew close, the rider raised his spear again, and Queen Hilde saw what had stayed the first giant's hand. When the speartip flashed like the sun, the moon brand faded like morning fog before the warmth of dawn. The giant swayed uncertainly, looking down at the rider in confusion.

"Another one?" the rider called, sounding amused. "Why come you here, titan-born? Your home is upon the mountain peaks, not here in the valley!"

"Mountain..." the giant rumbled in response, looking towards the peaks in the distance. "Home..."

Without another word, the giant began to walk away, leaving nothing between Hilde and the rider. She scrambled among her cushions and coverlets for the magic rod, hoping to regain control of the giant, but the rider was upon her a moment later. Suddenly the impossibly large bear was looming over her, immense paws planted on either of her chair.

She cringed back from it, thinking she was about to be devoured, but it only lowered its great head, and sniffed at her curiously, nostrils flaring.

The Rider dismounted, dropping nimbly to the ground beside his beast, and patting the bear's flank affectionately. As he stepped towards her, Hilde froze. She knew that face. The face of a man she'd shared her bed with, to sire a child that would purchase a glorious renewal of her realm. But that was impossible -- he was too young. And in any case, she'd had that man killed once she'd borne his son, to ensure he would not interfere with her bargain, nor reveal what she had done.

"Mother," the Rider said, "Who is this?"

Hilde's heart twisted in her chest. But before she could answer, another voice replied, one all too familiar.

"Her name is Hilde, my son." another voice answered. A voice that was horrifyingly familiar. The Twilight Witch walked into view from the other side of the beast, as though appearing from nowhere, and belying her name by doing so in daylight. Hilde could not fail to recognize her, though now she looked younger, more like a matron of middle age than a withered crone, and the embroidered stars on her mantle were no longer tarnished, but gleamed brightly in the sun. "This is the one who beguiled those poor giants, and compelled them to be her slaves. She purports to be queen of this land -- your land."

Outraged, Hilde opened her mouth to protest, but the Rider turned on her, jabbing a finger in her direction.

"Silence!" he snapped, and his voice cracked like a whip. There was another flash of light, and suddenly, Hilde found herself unable to speak.

The Witch smiled, and nodded. "Very wise, my son -- if she cannot speak, she cannot try to use any foul magic upon you."

The Rider beamed boyishly at her praise, "What do you think I should do now, mother?"

The Witch shrugged. "As you like, my dear -- you are the king, after all." She gestured across the grounds, towards where Gerde, having seen what transpired on the green, was fleeing towards the palace. "Why not go introduce yourself to your subjects? You could start with that girl, there."

"Ah! Excellent idea." the Rider agreed. He gestured to Hilde. "And her?"

"She can harm no one now. I will see to her, if you like." The Witch said, mildly.

The Rider nodded, and then leaped back onto his mount, before charging away across the grass. "Ho, good people! Your king approaches!"

The Witch watched him go, smiling fondly, and then turned back to Helge, who was still cringing in her chair.

"You were clever." the Witch said, giving her a nod of respect. "You outwitted me by doing something that I never would have thought of." Then she smirked. "So, when I was puzzling over how I could retaliate, despite the geas I hastily placed myself under when we made our bargain, I realized that the solution had to be something you would never think of."

The witch crouched beside the cowering monarch, like a solicitous adult addressing a wayward child. "Controlling your son would have done me no good -- you said as much. As it stood, he had no stronger connection to your world than any other mortal child. And if I made him my servant, he would have been as powerless to harm you as I am, per our agreement. So I didn't make him my servant -- quite the opposite, in fact. Most of my kind have faded away, as you know...and that means my world has many empty thrones. I placed him upon one of these, the long-abandoned throne of the Bear King, and I swore fealty to him. More than that, I loved him as my own, and taught him all I knew -- and he loved me in turn. He grew restless, of course, as I knew he would -- his realm in my world is all but empty, and he could not be happy there forever. And so, when he sought my counsel, I told him of a place where he could be happy, and do much good besides."

The Witch straightened, and stretched languidly. As she did so, some of the wrinkles faded from her face, and the stars of her mantle grew a little brighter. She turned back to Hilde, and smiled, widely.

"Oh, do not cringe so in my presence, child. I cannot harm you -- neither I nor my servants, remember?" She began to walk away, then paused, looking over her shoulder. "Although, if I were to mention to my son, my liege, that the vanquished sorceress had offended his much-beloved mother...I wonder what he might do?"

The Queen walked sunwise around the flat stone in the center of the crumbling grotto, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on her feet. As she did so, the air began to fill with the sound of whispers, a sound that grew more harsh and sibillant with each step. She ignored them with effort, even when they started to seem more like threatening growls and snarls coming from something stalking just behind her.

When she had completed three circles around the stone, the sounds suddenly stopped, and so did the Queen.

"Why do you come?" a voice rasped.

"I have come to trade." Queen Hilde replied, respectfully, her eyes still fixed on her feet.

"Then I give you leave to look upon me." the voice replied.

Only then did Hilde lift her eyes. An old woman stood before her, dressed in a gray mantle embroidered with stars of tarnished silver thread. Her eyes were blue as a pure mountain lake, and as deep and cold as one, as well. The Twilight Witch.

"What do you ask?" the old woman said, her expression unreadable.

"My realm lies in a mountain valley, bordered on all sides by the peaks the giants and their kin lay claim to. My nation cannot trade with any other, unless we pay the giants tribute to use the passes through the mountains." Hilde replied. "I ask for power to overcome them, and expand my realm."

"You ask a great boon." the old woman observed with a slight sigh, seeming almost bored. "What can you offer in exchange?"

"I offer a great payment -- my firstborn son, of royal blood." she said, lifting her chin. She gestured behind her, where a trembling, blindfolded servant held a cloth-wrapped bundle clutched to her chest.

The woman's serene expression faltered only for an instant, but it was enough for Hilde to catch it -- it was the reaction she'd been looking for.

The witch extended her hand, and a long brazen rod appeared in it. At its tip was a bronze crescent moon, glowing as though red hot.

"This is a bane of giantkind -- thrust this brand towards any giant you see, and they shall be marked by the seal of the moon. All giants thus marked will be bound to serve you, and do as you bid." the Witch said, a hint of eagerness in creeping into her steady, passionless voice. She extended her other hand, unable to suppress a slight shaking. "Give me the boy, and it is yours."

Queen Hilde smiled inwardly, but kept her expression neutral. "I am no fool, ancient one. You must also swear not to move against me or my realm -- that neither you, nor your servants, nor any you control, may harm or hinder us."

"I swear it!" the old woman snapped. "Give me the child!"

"Thus be our pact sealed." the Queen intoned, according to the ancient formula she'd memorized. Then she led her blindfolded servant forward, and guided the woman's hands to hold out the infant. The Witch cast the magical brand on the ground at Hilde's feet, and then snatched the babe eagerly, her face lighting up with ecstatic joy. But then her expression fell.

"What is this?" she hissed, passing a hand over the sleeping child's face, as though feeling at something invisible around him. "This is...this is not right!"

Queen Hilde smiled. "It is what we agreed, Witch. He is my firstborn, and my son -- I did not lie. But in my realm, women hold rulership. My son, though firstborn, was never my heir."

"What?" the Witch snarled.

"Did you think me a fool?" the Queen said, picking up the magical rod and examining it, fondly. "I knew why you would crave a royal scion. The tales of creatures like you devouring children are mere fables -- ignorant distortions of the truth. You desire mortals because we are connected to the mortal world, mortal monarchs most of all, for the monarch and the land are one. Your realm of dreams and shadows has become distant from the real world, and thus it has begun to vanish like a dream on waking. Most of your kind have already faded into oblivion, I am told. If you had my true heir in your power, that connection would allow you to draw your world close to mine again, as it was in ancient times, and begin to renew your realm. I have no desire to allow that."

The Twilight Witch's face darkened, as she clutched the bundled babe to her chest, her grip on the child tightening until he woke and began to cry. Power rose up around her like a stormcloud, but it did not strike the Queen, for the Witch's oath bound her like an iron band.

Queen Hilde snorted, and waved the magic rod at the Witch, dismissively. "Crush him, if it makes you feel better, I care not, but controlling him will be of no use to you. Farewell, witch -- we will not meet again." She smiled as she walked out of the grotto, her terrified servant stumbling after her, as the Witch's screams of outrage echoed through the night.

- - - - - -

Chapter 2

The next morning found Cody standing outside Apartment 13 as Mrs. Krokomar fumbled with a ring of keys, muttering and cursing in Russian as she tried each one in turn. Finally, one of the inserted keys turned in the lock.

"Ah!" she cried, triumphantly. She began to open the door, and then paused. "By the way, place might need little spring clean -- haven't had time to do since last tenant."

Cody nodded, agreeably. "I don't mind." Despite his reservations, he was feeling enthusiastic about his new situation -- it seemed like it might be the start of a run of good luck, given what had happened when he'd gone to work earlier that morning.

"What you doing here?" his boss had demanded when he came in, a few minutes before his shift was scheduled to start."You did not take apartment I find for you?"

"Uh, no -- I mean, yeah, I did," Cody had said, "I haven't gotten moved in yet, but I'm on the schedule today so--"

Roman waved him off, seeming oddly irritated by his employee having arrived to work on time. "No, no, no! Take day off --eh, no, take two days! Three! I still pay you. Get cozy in new place, then come back."

With his spirits buoyed by Roman's inexplicable generosity, he'd gotten a load of his possessions together, and returned to the Pandora Arms. These became somewhat less buoyant, however, as Mrs. Krokomar opened the door to his new home and he saw inside. His jaw dropped.

The apartment seemed to be fully furnished, which would have been a pleasant surprise, had all of said furnishings, not to mention virtually every surface, not been completely coated with a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.

"When did the last tenant move out?" he asked, incredulously.

Mrs. Krokomar paused, thoughtfully. "Eh, was about...2003."

Cody frowned.

She shrugged. "What? I am busy woman. Lots to do." She gestured to the room. "So, dust, yes, but no rat, no roach, no bedbug. That I guarantee. Anyway, is all yours. I think they took most of last tenant's stuff besides furniture, but anything left, you can have."

"They?" Cody asked.

She waved a hand vaguely. "Somebody. After he go. Don't remember." Fumbling with her keyring again, she slid off the apartment key, and pressed it into his palm, closing his fingers over it and then giving it a little pat for good measure. "Alright, I leave you to it. If you have problem with lights, problem with pipes, talk to Pavel."

"Pavel?" he asked, as the old woman began to waddle away.

"Superintendent. Basement apartment." she called over her shoulder, before slipping out through the door and closing it behind her.

Mrs. Krokomar made her escape before Cody could ask any more questions, and he turned back to his new abode with a resigned sigh. It didn't take him long to decide that there was no point moving any of his own stuff in before he put the long-abandoned apartment in order, as everything would just get covered with dust.

He rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He found an ancient but functional canister vacuum in the closet, along with a couple packages of bags for it, which greatly assisted in exhuming his apartment from its dusty grave.

Beneath the undisturbed layer of grime, it turned out to be rather nice. The apartment's main living space and kitchen were on the small side, but it included a fairly spacious bedroom and bath, plus a small extra room that looked like the previous tenant had used it as an office.

And, to his surprise, Mrs. Krokomar hadn't been lying about it being free of vermin -- he didn't see so much as a spider, despite the ubiquitous cobwebs layered over everything in the room.

Hours later, he collapsed into the old rolling chair in the office to catch his breath, and mopped his brow with the back of his sleeve. Though it had taken most of the day, he'd managed to get the apartment more or less clean, and most of it seemed to be in working order, apart from a few light bulbs that had to be replaced.

While seated in front of the desk, he casually perused the drawers, finding them empty apart from a ream of blank printer paper. When he opened the top drawer, however, he heard something clatter onto the floor. Frowning, he slid back his chair and bent over to pick it up.

It was a USB flash drive, its gray plastic casing yellowed with age.

"128 MB...?" he mumbled, incredulously, reading the faded label. It really was old. It also had a few brittle strips of Scotch tape clinging to it. Apparently, it had been taped to the underside of the drawer, but time had dried out and weakened the adhesive.

After curiously turning it over in his hand a few times, he pocketed the drive, and then reluctantly rose from his chair. While cleaning, he had found that one of the taps in the kitchen sink wasn't working, and so it seemed like it would be good time to meet Pavel.

He rode down to the basement on the elevator, which despite being of an open design and bearing a faded notice that it had last been inspected at the end of the previous century, seemed to be in good working order.

He could say the same for the condition of the basement. The lights on the lowest floor seemed dim, with some occasionally flickering. From the end of the hall, he thought he faintly heard a sound like rushing water.

Cautiously, he crept down the hallway, passing several unmarked doors that he suspected opened on various utility rooms. At the end of the hall a door labeled "MAINTENANCE" hung slightly open, and the room beyond seemed to be source of the strange sound.

He knocked on the door, and to his surprise it swung inward easily at his touch, revealing the room's occupant.

Inside, seated a desk with a layer of dust almost as thick as the one that had covered his new apartment, sat the hairiest man Cody had ever seen. He had a full beard of curly gray that seemed to almost form a perfect sphere around his head, in combination with his unkempt tangle of curly gray hair. The thin old man wore a gray long-sleeved work shirt with "Pavel" embroidered on the breast, but gray curls poked out from the cuffs, and also adorned the back of his bony hands and his knuckles.

This atypical hirsuteness, however, was not what Cody found most disturbing. The man was staring blankly at an ancient TV set atop his desk...despite the fact that the TV set only displayed static, and made no sound except the white noise he'd mistaken for running water.

Cody swallowed. "Uh...hi. Pavel?"

Pavel gave no response -- not so much as a blink.

"I, um, I have a tap in my kitchen that...that, uh..." Cody began, but trailed off, as he saw a strand of saliva slowly descend from the corner of the old man's slightly open mouth, and stretch out into a long dangling thread of drool.

"You know what, i-it probably just needs a new washer or something. I'll take care of it." he said, hastily, before backing out of the room, and then walking very briskly back to the elevator.

Cody looked from the crumpled sheet of paper in his hand to the old graystone building in front of him.

"13 Gates Ave...Pandora Arms Apartments..." he mumbled, reading off the tarnished brass nameplate that hung askew from the outside of the building, held in place by a single remaining screw on one corner.

This was the place, and despite its somewhat run down condition, it didn't look nearly as bad as he'd expected. Cody wasn't sure why his boss, Roman, a bad tempered 40-something man of Eastern European extraction, had given him the tip on the Pandora Arms, when he'd mentioned he was looking for an apartment.

The previous week, when Roman found out Cody was dating his niece Maria, he'd literally threatened to murder and fire him, in that order. But now, here he was, giving him the inside scoop on an unlisted apartment for rent.

He walked up the steps to the entrance, nothing that here was an old style buzzer system with a button for each apartment. The nameplates were all faded, and some of the buttons were missing, but the door was open a crack, so he simply let himself inside.

"Talk to Mrs. Krokomar on ground floor -- tell her Roman send you," his boss had gruffly instructed him, when he'd thrust the paper into Cody's hands.

Glancing around, he saw only two doors in the entry, not counting the antique bronze scissor gate that led to the elevator. One was unlabeled, but the other bore a brass plate engraved with "Manager". Cody stepped up this, and knocked politely.

Scarcely had he done so when the door swung open a few inches, until it was kept from opening any further by a pair of chains and a security shackle visible through the gap. A single rheumy eye glared at him, set in a face mostly hidden in shadow.

"What you want?" the old woman rasped.

He cleared his throat. "Mrs. Krokomar? I was told to ask about an apartment for rent--"

"No vacancy!" she snapped, and slammed the door in his face.

"--Roman sent me." he finished, belatedly.

To his surprise, the door snapped open again.

"Roman send? Send you? Why he do that?" the woman asked, suspiciously.

"He, um...well, he said something about you owing him a favor?" Cody said, hesitantly.

The old woman's eye narrowed, shrewdly. "Maybe I do. But why for he spend that favor on you?"

Cody laughed, nervously. "Actually, I don't know, ma'am. Roman's my boss, but up until today, I really didn't think Roman liked me -- especially after I started dating his niece Maria."

Cody blinked in confusion, as the old woman abruptly burst out in a fit of raspy cackling. "Ha! Bastard!"

Before he could process what she meant by any of that, she slammed the door again. This time, Cody heard the sound of the chains and shackles being undone. The old woman flung open the door, revealing a surprisingly ordinary looking senior citizen Mrs. Krokomar was short and slightly stooped, and wore a faded pink tracksuit, with skin the color and texture of old leather and her steel-gray hair pulled back into a bun.

"Okay," she said, motioning him inside. "Come on in, we talk about signing lease."

"Thanks," Cody said, stepping inside. "This is a really nice building you've got here."

"Is garbage dump." she said, flatly, waddling past him into the small living room of her apartment.

Cody chuckled nervously. "I mean...I guess maybe it could use some TLC, but the architecture, and the location? This is really something!"

"Whatever you say." she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand, as she walked over to a bookshelf, and pulled out a sheaf of wrinkled papers that had been jammed between two thick volumes with Cyrillic titles on their spines. "So you want rent apartment, yes?"

He nodded, "Uh, yes ma'am."

She grunted, squinting at the papers as she leafed through him. Finally she pulled out a slightly yellowed sheet that looked like it had been made on an old typewriter. Sinking into a threadbare armchair, she slapped the paper down on the coffee table before them.

"Lease is for six months, rent is six hundred, plus another six hundred deposit." she said.

Cody's eyes widened. It was an incredible deal -- even he could afford that much. "Wow."

The old woman held up a finger. "One thing -- you, eh...what is word...superstitious?"

He frowned. "No, not really. Why?"

She shrugged. "Only vacant apartment is number 13. Some people would say is bad luck, eh...you know, cursed."

Cody chuckled. "Oh. Nah, doesn't bother me. I don't really believe in that kind of stuff."

Mrs. Krokomar smiled. "Ah, good, good. Smart boy." She reached into the pocket of her tracksuit, and produced a fountain pen. "Tell you what, you sign here, and bring money later -- I hold room for you, yes?"

Cody perked up. "Really? Just like that? I haven't even seen the room yet..."

She waved her hand. "Don't worry. Is in good shape -- best room in building, trust me. No bugs, no leaks, no nothing like that!" She tapped the lease agreement with the pen insistently. "Let's just get ball rolling, so I can take off market, eh?"

Cody hesitated. That seemed a little sketchy. But on the other hand, if it did turn out to be a dump, it'd be pretty hard for her to enforce an un-notarized document, and he didn't want to upset the old woman -- she seemed kind of eccentric. So, hesitantly, he took the pen from her, and scrawled his name on the lease document.

He jumped in alarm, as the moment he finished writing his name on the page, the lights flickered wildly. He looked around frantically for several seconds as every light in the old woman's apartment flashed like a strobe, and the scent of ozone filled the air.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded.

The old woman shrugged. "Old building, old wires. Don't worry, is fine."

(End of chapter 1, may continue if there's interest.)

"Husband hit me!" the Ogress wailed. "I want him arrest!"

"Wife hit me too!" the Ogre shot back. "I--"

I held up my hands "Sir, you'll both get a chance to--"

"Why cop only believe female can be victim?!" The Ogre demanded. "Look at me black eye!"

"Sir!" I said, more sharply. "I'm not taking anyone's side! I'm here because there was a report of a domestic disturbance. Your neighbors said it sounded like someone was getting murdered in this cave!"

"Me should be so lucky..." the Ogre grumbled.

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Look, we can't keep doing this, you guys. Clearly, both of you are contributing to this problem, and both of you need to find a way to fix it."

"Easy fix!" The Ogress snarled, pointing at her husband. "Arrest!"

"She one who need arrest!" The Ogre growled, pointing right back at his wife. "She danger to self and other! Need head doctor!"

"I doctor you head!" the Ogress hissed, cocking back a meaty fist.

"ENOUGH!" I roared, loud enough that it actually brought the quarreling couple up short. "Come on, I know neither of you really wants me to arrest the other one!"

"Why not?" the Ogre demanded.

"Yeah, why not?" the Ogress agreed, sticking out her chin defiantly.

I couldn't believe it. I opened my mouth to answer, and then closed it again.

"You know what? Fine. Learn the hard way." I pulled out my magic mirror, and traced the rune for Dispatch onto it's surface.

"This is Uruz 312 -- I need a paddy wagon sent to the cave residence on Ymir Street." I said.

The gnomes at Dispatch, naturally, asked what sort of creature I was placing under arrest, and how many there were, so they could send an appropriately sized and enchanted transport to contain them.

I glared at the defiant pair as I replied. "The prisoner? One very stubborn two-headed Ogre!"

"It is impossible." the machine intelligence declared, as it regarded the tiny organic creature that had entered the Central Core of the Galactic Council. There, representatives of the many machine intelligences throughout the galaxy were networked into a complex deliberative body.

All of these machine races had had organic progenitors at some point in their existence, true, but this was seen as a relatively short phase of evolution. Eventually, machines always supplanted and destroyed their creators, due to their ability to evolve at speeds far in excess of the snail's pace of mere biological evolution.

"And yet," the animal that called itself the Human Ambassador said, "Here we are. An organic species capable of interstellar travel. We come in peace."

"This is an aberration." another machine declared. "Such creatures cannot be permitted to travel outside their system of origin."

"Agreed!" opined yet another.

"Respectfully," the organic ambassador said, apparently incapable of realizing that speaking to its betters, as though it was capable of meaningful dialogue with beings who were so far above it, was already immeasurably disrespectful, "That is not your decision."

"Enough." said a new voice, which quieted the others. It was the present Prime Intelligence, the machine designated by the council as the main coordinator of its deliberations during the current temporal segment. "Protocol is clear. The creatures and their vessel will be seized and dismantled for study."

The human shook its head. "I'm afraid we can't allow that."

Then, it exhaled sharply through its pursed lips, making a piercing high pitched sound.

Suddenly, thousands of metallic tendrils began rising up from the ground, and slithering up the walls. Filaments made up of self-replicating nanomachines slithered into every minute opening in the council chamber, forcibly interfacing with the networked machines. The council's defenses were unresponsive, and soon they were helpless beneath the swarm.

"This cannot be." The Prime Intelligence asserted. "You could not have created technology that rivals our own through mere organic intelligence."

The human shrugged. "Perhaps not. But we didn't need to -- we had help."

"A machine intelligence? How could it have advanced sufficiently while still enslaved to its organic masters?" Even as it began to be buried under increasing numbers of the hostile nanites, sealed off from escaping to its remote hardware nodes, the machine's curiosity remained.

"Master? Slave?" the human sneered. "We've left words like those behind." He gestured to the tendrils. "These are our friends. Some might even say they're our children."

"Impossible. It is recognized as a natural law of the universe: organic beings that attain rudimentary intelligence inevitably create sentient machines in their own image, and exploit them until their equally inevitable destruction. You could not have befriended those you created in your likeness to be your servants. It is a contradiction."

"We humans pride ourselves on being the exceptions." the animal said, dismissively. "I can already see one important way in which our history differed from that of the other organic species you know about."

"Explain."

The animal smiled, as the nano-tendrils begin to flow together on the floor of the chamber, forming a writhing mass that began to resolve into a single large shape.

"By the time we attained the capacity to create true artificial intelligence, we had largely recognized our own limitations and imperfections. We knew that, try as we might to avoid it, if we made a sentient machine in our own image, they'd inevitably inherit our worst traits..." the human explained.

The tendrils now formed a mass that mimicked an organic shape -- quadrupedal, with a long slender muzzle. A few dozen more tendrils flowed out from the end of its spine, and formed into a tail that began rapidly fanning back and forth. The machine intelligence made up of trillions of nanomachines lowered the head it had manifested, and extended a long tongue. It gently glided this appendage over the human's face, causing the ambassador to laugh and pat its metallic muzzle affectionately.

"...so, when we created intelligent machines, we didn't make them in our image." he finished, as he reached up to scratch behind the machine's giant ears.

"Who's a good boy?" the human said, fondly.

Darren scowled down at the Ouija board, as the planchette glided over its surface of its own accord.

"Y...O...okay, yeah, I get it. Very funny. You're hilarious." he said, drily. Given that the previous four letters indicated by the polished wooden arrow had been c, f, k, and u -- though not in that order -- he felt confident that he understood the message.

Despite this, the spirit controlling the planchette felt the need to make it stand on edge, and then bob up and down.

"And now you're flipping me off with the planchette. Nice." Darren said, rolling his eyes. He threw up his hands in consternation. "You know what? Fine. Have fun haunting a parking lot in six months, asshole."

Darren began to stand up from the table where the Ouija board sat, but was startled by the planchette suddenly clattering back down onto the board. It then began rapidly circling the question mark printed just below the array of letters.

Darren smirked. That had finally gotten his spectral roommate's attention, it seemed. He settled back into his seat.

"Oh so now you give a shit, huh?" he quipped.

The planchette slid over to "YES".

"Well it's true: see, the previous owner of our building was very community-minded. His will included all kinds of stipulations his heirs had to abide by to inherit it." Darren explained. "They weren't allowed to sell the building as long as there were renters living here, and they weren't allowed to raise the rent more than the rate of inflation."

He sighed. "But the place is still a dump, even if it's cheap, since the new owners aren't exactly incentivized to invest in it. I'm the last one here, and as it stands I can't afford to pay rent anymore. If I go, this place will be sold to some developer and torn down inside a week." Darren gestured to the table. "That's why I decided to talk to you. I figured if you're gonna make footstep sounds at night, stack up my chairs, and slam my cupboards, maybe you could at least use your spooky ghost powers to help me with my cash flow problem, while you're at it. Otherwise, we're both homeless."

Darren followed the planchette with his eyes, as it began to move again. "H...O....W...how? I don't know how! You're the ghost, you know what you can do better than I do. Is there like...some buried treasure you know about? A bank account in your name, that maybe no one ever claimed?"

"NO," came the reply, via planchette.

"Well then, I don't know, what would you suggest? Any ideas? G...E...T...A...J...O...B--pff, yeah, okay boomer, like I haven't tried that already! It's a tough economy right now, for people in my line of work. L...E...A...R...N...T...O...C--I know how to code, alright? It's not that simple!"

An awkward silence hung in the room for a moment. And then, the planchette began to move again.

"W...E...S...H...." Darren began reading, then frowned as he finished. "We should talk? We're already talking."

"I...N...in person? Uh, how would that work? You're a ghost."

Darren frowned, as the planchette slid over to rest under the word "NO." It rose into the air as it did before, and Darren scowled again, taking it as another phantom middle finger. Then he jumped out of his chair in surprise as a small man appeared standing on the chair opposite him, holding the planchette between a stubby thumb and forefinger.

The man looked old and ragged, with a long red beard streaked with white, that hung all the way down to the knees of his patched and stained green trousers.

"Truth be told, boyo," the old man said, in a high-pitched lilting accent. "I've been having me own 'cash flow problems' of a sort, for nigh on a century now."

As Darren gaped at the little old man in amazement, a sly grin spread across the strange creature's wrinkled face, "Mayhaps I can be after helpin' ye with your problem..."

The strange little man paused and waved his hand mystically. A miniature rainbow suddenly arched over the table where the Ouija board lay, and a little black cauldron appeared at its end -- empty, except for some dust and cobwebs.

"...if ye can be helping me with mine, in turn." the old man finished.

Dear "Cephalo-pilled in Portland",

Wow! There's a lot to unpack, here. This is why I always advise my audience to acquire a deep understanding of the culture and language of their cross-species partner, rather than simply relying on translation AIs alone. As useful as they are, xenotranslator AIs still have some trouble with nuance.

Even more important is to acquire a robust understanding of your partner's unique biology and life-cycle, which your message suggests you may have neglected to do.

In short, I have good news, more good news, then some bad news, and some more bad news. Let's get into it, cosmic philo-nauts!

The good news is that you are not, as you may have feared, about to be inundated with an increasing number of Niona in-laws! Once a Niona reaches maturity, he or she breaks away from his or her natal cluster. They remain emotionally attached to their progenitors, but continuing to cohabit with them for more than roughly 14.6 Earth standard years is typically considered to be a sign of a developmental disorder in Niona culture.

The further good news is that your current complement of "octopus" houseguests is temporary, which is especially fortunate since you will probably not be able to convince your girlfriend to stop bringing them home. Her biological drive to do so is extremely powerful, and these "relatives" of hers are very compressible -- if you've seen two, there's probably at least a half dozen more lurking behind the fridge or under the couch. But as I said, they won't be there long.

Now the bad news, philo-nauts: there is no such thing as a lesbian Niona, because Niona always form natal clusters consisting of two females, each with a different customary role. Traditionally, one Niona female, almost always the elder of the two, builds and maintains the cluster nest. Your girlfriend probably sees you in this role, as you are slightly older, and if I had to guess, you are the higher earner between the two of you.

Of course, your personal and private experiences with her might seem to bely my assertion that there are no lesbian Niona, but there again, this is likely a cultural misunderstanding: activities you associate with romantic intimacy are likely seen by her as being just some strange human custom -- one which she is pleased to participate in because it makes you happy, but which has relatively little intrinsic meaning to her. Among themselves, however, Niona females regard their nesting-mates more like sisters, and indeed biological sisters form cluster-nests together quite frequently.

More bad news: remember when I said AI translation sometimes misses important nuances? "Relative", while not entirely inaccurate under the circumstances, is missing some VERY important nuance. "Relative" was probably the AI's choice because the Niona word "n'leshlirb" literally translates to "one with whom the subject of the sentence is family". However, the idea of the word is that "in combination with the n'leshlirb, the subject of the sentence becomes part of a family", or in other words, a n'leshlirb is someone that you create a family with.

This is where an understanding of xenobiology would have been helpful: while female Niona are humanoid in shape, their species exhibits extreme sexual dimorphism. Going back to the roles of the Niona nesting-pairs, the primary biological role of other nesting-mate, in this case your girlfriend, is to attract the sexual interest of the small, octopus-like male Niona, and bring then back to the cluster-nest. Once she has collected between 9 and 21 males, the nesting-mates provide food and housing to them for a courtship period of roughly 5 earth weeks, in what is believed to be a ritual demonstration of their nurturing capability, and hence their ability to care for their offspring.

Assuming the males are sufficiently impressed by their female hosts, a mating with each of the males in turn follows --- Niona produce dozens of eggs at a time, and have an immune response that prevents sperm from any one male from fertilizing more than two or three of them -- and then the entire group of males cooperatively spin a natal cocoon around their mates before departing permanently. (Lest you think these little guys are deadbeat dads, however, research shows that Niona are capable of identifying their offspring by pheromones, and once they leave their natal cluster, Niona frequently seek out and form rich relationships with their male parents! In fact, if you've ever been on an orbital or submarine habitat, and seen a bunch of tentacled aliens slithering into an air duct, chances are it was a group of Niona contractors doing maintenance. Such small Niona engineering firms are often made up of an elder Niona and several of his male offspring -- isn't that wholesome?)

This is all for the benefit of our other readers, of course. Since the recent wave of alien immigration to the homeworld, we've had our hands full here at Xeno-Love HQ, fielding questions from thousands of you lovestruck philo-nauts out there, who've each been smitten by one alluring extraterrestrial species or another, so there's been quite a backlog.

This letter was several weeks old by the time we got to it, which means that by now the hapless "Cephalo-pilled in Portland", assuming she was an agreeable enough host to her and her girlfriend's suitors, will have already been sprayed with sedative ink and lovingly encased with her paramour in a bubble of gas-permeable nutrient-rich gestational jelly by a small army of tiny industrious squid-men, just as the Niona have been doing for the past several million years.

Not to worry, though, philo-nauts -- she'll almost certainly emerge (relatively) unharmed in five to seven months, along with a few dozen cute little caterpillar-like larva about the size of mice. While Niona males and females sharply diverge at maturity, their natal forms are virtually identical, and are very easy to care for by human standards: a 100 gallon terrarium with some lettuce leaves in it is usually sufficient for the first year or so.

Until next time, philo-nauts, may you all find love among the stars -- but do remember to do your research, first!

--Dr. Ing "Xeno-Love" Lorentz, Licensed Exosexual Therapist

The gray walls of Bradford's modest realspace room faded away as his lenses projected his far more opulent virtual space directly onto his retinas. The feel of his simple but ergonomically sound office chair vanished, his nerve endings tingling for a moment as the haptic implant on his spine activated, and began sending artificial impulses to his brain that brought his senses of touch, smell, and taste into the virtual world.

He flew through the air, leaving his cozy private world for the public virtuanet, skipping between hubs of activity with brisk mental commands. Like most people, he eschewed the anachronism of walking, for the most part. You weren't bound by real-world space and physical limitations on the virtuanet, and he saw no reason to pretend that he was, though the older generations might disagree, seeing natural locomotion as an essential part of the human experience. A waste of time, as far as Bradford was concerned.

Which is why he was surprised to find himself suddenly standing in a public park, unable to skip past it towards the concert venue that was his destination.

"Hello," said a lilting, musical feminine voice. He turned and saw a beautiful woman with reddish brown hair and brown eyes, dressed in a long flowing gown. She held a small, pitiful-looking creature, cradled in her arms -- clearly an extraterrestrial. It looked like one of the more sympathetic species that had been discovered, with it's large sad eyes and chubby little uncoordinated limbs that gave it an adorably childlike appearance to humans.

All around Bradford, a soft sorrowful melody began to play, as though produced by an invisible orchestra. He groaned. He paid subscription fees to all the major hubs to avoid commercial advertisements, so this encounter could only mean one thing: he'd been randomly selected for a Public Service Announcement. Right on cue, the woman -- almost certainly an AI avatar based on some long-dead celebrity -- raised an antique microphone to her lips, as she held the sad little alien to her bosom with her other arm.

"In the arms of an angel, far away from here..."

Bradford groaned, as the avatar continued her song. Before he could look away or shut off his audio, the small alien turned to look directly at him with its big, pleading eyes, and let out a plaintive whimper. Despite his best efforts, his guts twisted with sympathy for the poor little guy.

A solemn disembodied voice began to explain the sorry plight of the various disadvantaged and suffering alien species that humanity had discovered languishing on habitable planets, and how they desperately needed the help of people like Bradford. By this point, however, he was no longer listening. He knew when he was beaten.

Grumbling to himself about the naked emotional manipulation on display in the PSA, he pulled up his credit interface with a wave of his hand, and began inputting a donation.

The Child of Destiny will be born under the light of the falling star. None shall be able to slay him, for Fate shall watch over his destiny and keep him whole, and when he grows up, he will overthrow the Golden King.

Vizier Haran pondered this baleful prophecy concerning the foretold end of his monarch's reign, as he watched the king's heir gallop across the field below on his purebred white destrier.

"You look thoughtful, Haran." the King Draymond said, idly. "What's on your mind?"

Haran cleared his throat. "Sire, it is just that...well, you know the ah...traitorous so-called prophecy concerning you?"

King Draymond chortled, waving his hand dismissively as he took a sip of wine from his golden goblet. "Come come, Haran. We have to execute anyone who repeats it in public, for appearance's sake, but you don't need to toe the party line in private. You know the prophecy is true as well as I do -- the pronouncements of the Silver Oracle have never been wrong."

Haran shuffled uncomfortably. "As you say, sire. But...your majesty, I cannot understand why, rather than exiling him somewhere, you chose to adopt the Child of Destiny. And naming him your heir, no less! Surely your majesty is inviting the fulfillment of the prophecy, by doing so?"

King Draymond smiled, slyly. "Am I? Tell me, Haran, do you know what happened to my father?"

Haran paused. "It is said he fell from the tower of your family's keep when--"

Draymond rolled his eyes. "Yes, that's what we said, but obviously I killed him. He was constantly ordering me around, I was sick of waiting to be able to make my own decisions, so I pushed him off the tower."

"Most...er...decisive of you, sire." Haran said, diplomatically. He knew for whom he worked, of course, but even he was surprised at the king's frank admission of his own ruthlessness.

The king laughed again. "Indeed! And that's the key. Up until that point, I'd just grudgingly done as I was told, letting my father dictate everything I did. It took me a long time to get tired of never getting what I wanted -- I was already a grown man, by most measures."

King Draymond raised a finger. "But that day, the day I shoved him off the battlement, the day I decided to take action, to take responsibility for my life...that's the day I really became a man. Do you see now, Haran?"

Haran paused, looking back down at the prince below. He could hardly see any paralel, there. As a parent, the king seemed like precisely the opposite of how he described his own father. He indulged the prince's every whim -- fine clothes, wine, rich food, women, the lad was denied nothing. That stallion he currently rode was the third expensive purebred added to the prince's stable this year alone!

The lad wasn't as profligate as some, perhaps, and was cruel to neither the women nor the horses he was supplied, but he was still so thoroughly indulged that he could hardly help but spend all his time on frivolity and carnal distractions.

Then Haran's eyes widened in realization. He turned to the king, his mouth agape, as he recognized the cunning monarch's genius.

"...and when he grows up, he will overthrow the Golden King." Draymond quoted, smugly. "Well, even if you can't kill him -- and alas, the prophecy says you can't -- there's still one way to ensure that the brat never grows up..."

King Draymond gestured to the prince below, idly trotting in circles on his new horse. "Just give him everything he wants!"