“Aaand what are you going to do about it?” asked Mercune.

  “Perhaps . . . something like this!” Flua-Sahng snapped her fingers, and the girl evanesced into dispersing mists.

  She tittered, then turned to Proto. “I’m sorry. Even Queens of Heaven must amuse themselves sometimes.”

  “Question.” He suppressed his disturbance at the lively girl becoming nothing. “Why does Mercune sometimes seem to know more about me and what’s going on here than she did originally, the first time I met her?” This had been nagging at Proto for some time.

  “Besides the fact that she’s the greatest seer in a thousand years?” Flua-Sahng asked lightly. “There is an answer to your question. But I’m afraid I can’t share it. Never know what might happen if I did. Maybe you’ll figure it out yourself. You’re good at that!”

  “Thanks,” he grumbled.

  “I know, it seems like I just cheer from the sidelines,” sighed Flua-Sahng. “But I promise, I’m keeping busy too. Someday, you’ll understand. Or is it ‘understood’? Those tenses again.” She tsked.

  By now, Proto knew there was no point probing further when she was being mysterious. “So, how did the dream go?” he asked instead.

  “What, can’t you judge that for yourself? I’d say it went well, in that you learned something important,” she answered. “Or were you asking how the future turns out along this Fate Road? Not good. Things go off the rails within a century, though it still takes the ork horde to wipe everything out.”

  “Ah.” Proto sighed. “Feels like I haven’t made much progress lately.”

  “Mm, I don’t know about that. Think of it like climbing a mountain, trying to climb as high as you can,” she suggested. “Eventually, if you want to climb higher, you have to go find a new mountain. And to do that, first you have climb down and do some wandering, searching for something so lofty you can’t see the top of it. That’s where you are now.”

  “Aimlessly wandering in low places with my head in the clouds?” he asked.

  “Precisely.” She beamed.

  He nodded grimly. “Good. Glad you could confirm that.”

  “Keep your chin up,” she urged, patting his shoulder. “We’re about to have a visitor, you know.”

  Proto blinked. “I . . . did not know.”

  “Well, now you do!” She smoothed her radiant raiment. Being made of star-shaped leaves, this was a delicate operation. “But first, let’s change this scenery up. Can’t be entertaining guests in barren, star-strewn badlands, can we?”

  “Never stopped you till now,” he muttered.

  “Hush!” she chastised, waving a red-glowing hand. The world went misty, melting into swirling wisps of whitish grey.

  When the welter dwindled, he found that they were standing in a palace. Red tapestries adorned the lofty walls of white, as well as two huge stained-glass windows to the starry sky. One window showed the outline of a man holding the injured body of a woman, bleeding a stream of stars. The other showed a giant crimson teardrop, with a host of figures arrayed in a ritualistic formation within it.

  Two rows of full-size elms and ashes ran along the chamber’s two sides—well, elms and ashes, but with star-shaped leaves.

  Proto gaped.

  “Do have a seat,” the Queen of Heaven urged, turning toward him. “Hm? What’s that look for? It’s not like this is the first . . . ahh. It is the first time, from your perspective, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “I may be the closest thing to omniscient you’ll find, but that just makes this past, present and future business even harder!”

  “No doubt,” Proto managed, still gawking at the stained-glass images.

  “Yes, well, I hope you like it,” Flua-Sahng remarked modestly, plucking a star-shaped leaf and affixing it to a gap on her raiment. “I’ve tried a few looks over the aeons, but I keep coming back to this one.”

  “Quite a change from ‘barren, star-strewn badlands,’” he observed.

  “Yes, it’s all about putting the right guests in the right state of mind,” explained Flua-Sahng. “Seers? Barren wasteland with far off starry glory. My children? Splendor.”

  “Your . . . children?” repeated Proto. “Another Element is visiting?”

  “Mm-hmm!” she nodded. “Not that I mean to deprive you. We could meet here sometimes, if you’d like.”

  “You’d trust a mere mortal to appreciate such splendor?” he teased.

  “It’s easy to trust someone when you see every possible decision he might make!” She beamed.

  Proto chuckled uneasily. “Anyway, uh, why am I here today?”

  “As I said, because I’m entertaining!” she retorted lightly.

  “And modest too?” he asked.

  “Hm. I give that a 4 of 10. Below your usual standards.” She wrinkled her nose apologetically. “For that, I’m going to put you on a brief timeout.” She waved a radiant red hand, and he felt a tingle through his body.

  “What?” he tried to say. But no word came out, and he found that he’d been muted. He blinked and raised a hand toward her.

  But at the same moment, there was a knock on the chamber’s grand double doors, and she already was turning toward the doorway.

  “Come in!” she urged pleasantly, and the doors swung open. “It’s always open for you. I bore you into this world, you know.”

  “Ah, but that’s what you say to everyone, Mother,” boomed a man’s affable baritone.

  Strolling through the doorway, chaperoned by the swirling mists, his dusky hair and long robe billowing at his back, was Somnus.

  “The Lord of Dreams, at your service.” He bowed.

  “Ugh, spare me!” admonished the Queen of Heaven, glancing skyward. “My own flesh and blood, simultaneously flattering and abasing himself before me!”

  “What, should I leave that to your seers?” asked Somnus, turning to regard Proto. “Speaking of which, this one’s outfit is awfully nice, if a bit a sinister. Is that a new uniform?”

  At first, Proto had no idea what Somnus was talking about. He reached to itch his furrowed brow.

  What he felt there, though, was not his familiar forehead, but slimy, rubbery flesh.

  Proto blinked, then looked down. He saw a long black robe, covered in esoteric silver patterns, and—alas—a bunch of wobbly tentacles, hanging below his face.

  It took him a moment to wrap his mind around the fullness of what this meant.

  I’ve been a squid this whole time?!

  Flua-Sahng’s lips quirked up at him. But he was busy now recalling another recent moment:

  Mercune shook her head and looked up at him. She blinked, then giggled. “There’s a face to wake up to.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Welp, that made more sense now. And, just like that, one of the happier memories of Proto’s lifetime became much sadder.

  Flua-Sahng suppressed a laugh and shrugged sympathetically at him.

  “I’ve thought about uniforms for my visitors,” continued Somnus nonchalantly, “but I think they’d oust me.”

  “Yes, they likely would. I’ve foreseen it,” agreed Flua-Sahng. “But this isn’t a uniform. I like your robes, Somnus, but I wouldn’t do that to my seers.”

  “Then why in the world is he wearing that getup?” frowned the Lord of Dreams.

  “Who knows?” waved the Queen of Heaven. “Maybe he just decided to go . . . ink-cognito today.” She tittered.

  She really was a lot like Mercune, wasn’t she?

  Shaking his head grimly, Somnus turned to Proto. “My mother makes more dad jokes than my father. Incidentally”—he turned back to Flua-Sahng—“I think he’s a squid, not an octopus.”

  Flua-Sahng tsked and rolled her eyes. “First, I made both species, and I made them cousins, and I’ll use them interchangeably in puns if I so please! Second, I’ll have you know, squids make ink too.”

  “Oh? Well, far be it from the Lord of Dreams to doubt the Queen of Heaven,” shrugged Somnus. “The mother hen knows her chick by its cry. And the Mother of All knows her cephalopod by its ink.”

  “Stop talking in the third person and have some tea.” Flua-Sahng turned toward a little table—even now apparating mistily behind her—and retrieved two elegant cups. “I brewed it special for my son, you know. I’ve been saving this leaf for eighty million years!”

  Somnus received his cup and sipped. “Mm. This is positively . . . Jurassic.”

  “No, Somnus. Cretaceous,” Flua-Sahng corrected patiently. “There were no flowers in the Jurassic, remember?”

  “Right. Yes, you would invent flowers and raptors in the same age, wouldn’t you?” he observed. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “That memory sometimes.” She shook her head. “I think you drink too much!”

  “Oh, I’ve lost nothing that mattered.” Somnus held a hand toward Proto. “For example, I remember when my mother first showed me what giant squids would look like. And I said, ‘Did you run out of necks, bodies and bones, Mother?’”

  “Aw, you remember that? Bless your heart.” Flua-Sahng squeezed her son’s hand, then turned to Proto. “Isn’t he sweet, Squid-Face?”

  Proto didn’t reply, of course, since he remained magically silenced.

  “Not very talkative, is he?” observed the Lord of Dreams.

  “Most squids aren’t,” noted Flua-Sahng. “But this one will surprise you.”

  “Fair enough,” said Somnus, then frowned. “Wait, ‘will’? Not ‘would’?”

  “Same difference,” she waved. “You know how I mix up my tenses.”

  “I think you drink too much!” chided Somnus. “You should keep things simple and always use the subjunctive.”

  “Shouldn’t we all though!” Flua-Sahng agreed delightedly. “It seems you are my son after all.”

  Quietly observing all this, Proto felt warmth welling in him, but also the cold gap that it was filling. He recalled his days at Somnus’ Palace and missed them.

  He wanted to greet his old boss and friend. But of course, even if he could speak, the Lord of Dreams wouldn’t know who he was yet. Further, by revealing his identity now, Proto may well send the future careening off course, so he’d never end up at Somnus’ Palace.

  So, Squid-Face sadly kept his silence.

  “Well then, son of mine.” Flua-Sahng regarded Somnus pleasantly. “What’s new in the life of the Lord of Dreams?”

  “Mother,” he sighed, “I’ve been doing the same things for aeons. That’s like asking the sun what’s new.”

  “For your information, I do ask Sol what’s new each time I see him. And he never makes wisecracks about it!” Flua-Sahng retorted.

  “Hmph. Best not get too comfy in your role, Mister Lord of Dreams, or maybe I’ll let Morpheus take your place,” she went on. “There’s a go-getter! At least he’s still getting major fictional characters named after him. When was your last major fictional character, Somnus? Anything after the Renaissance?”

  “First’s name, Mother, you’re cruel sometimes!” he lamented.

  “Don’t you invoke your father’s name against me!” she chided. “He’ll take my side on this, and you know it! He thinks I go easy on you.”

  Somnus rolled his eyes. “Morpheus is a striver, Mother. Would you really like me as a striver? Would you still invite me over?”

  “No, probably not,” she allowed. “But do try to find a happy medium. If I can do it, with a world of billions to oversee, you can manage it, with only one-man dream worlds to deal with.”

  “Billions of dream worlds, Mother!” he protested.

  “Yes, well, when your worlds go wrong, people wake up and everything’s all better,” she said. “When mine goes wrong, it’s ruined for everyone, and my seers and I have to save the world. Isn’t that right, Squid-Face?”

  “Is that what you’re here for, Squid-Face?” asked Somnus lightly. “To save the world?

  Proto sighed, as the only two people who’d consistently called him Proto joined the rest of the world in not doing so.

  “Yes, that’s right!” Proto wanted to reply. “Squid-Face will be saving the world soon enough, after he’s done saving the future. But first he has to finish waiting for two godlike chatterboxes to stop calling him Squid-Face.”

  The Queen of Heaven covered up a laugh, drawing Proto’s eye.

  As a result, he almost didn’t see Somnus’ lips curve up too, as zeal gleamed in his gaze.

  Indeed, by the time Proto looked at the Lord of Dreams a second later, the man’s face was straight and he was picking a nail. Probably just imagining things.

  Frowning, Somnus peered into the distance, then sighed. “I’ll have to ask you both to excuse me for a moment. Something’s gone wrong in a dream, and—as usual—there’s only one man in the universe who can fix it.”

  “Ugh. Can’t it wait?” complained Flua-Sahng.

  “Just being a go-getter, Mother.” The Lord of Dreams waved a hand and misted away, dispersing within a few seconds.

  “Always turning my words against me!” bemoaned Somnus’ mother. “What a lovely boy though. Don’t tell him I said so.”

  Proto eyed her patiently.

  “Oh, you’re still muted, aren’t you!” She tittered, then waved a red-glowing hand, and he felt a tingle through his body.

  “Thank you,” he grumbled through his tentacles.

  “‘There’s a face to wake up to,’ Squid-Face!” The Queen of Heaven cracked up. “I’m sorry, Proto.”

  “It sure was nice, thinking someone in the world spontaneously admired my face,” he recalled wistfully.

  “Well, she did . . . in a sense,” giggled Flua-Sahng, as he sighed. “Sometimes it’s happier not to know everything, isn’t it? Ask Oedipus. Or ask the Queen of Heaven.”

  “Anyhow, don’t be too sad, Proto,” she continued. “I’ve seen to it that plenty of people admire your face. They just don’t tell you. Instead, they call you names like Snow Blow, Spunky, Vajojo, Moo, and Squid-Face.”

  “Mm-hmm,” he grimly affirmed—then paused and frowned. “Wait, did you just—?”

  “Anyhow, it’s time you woke up. Bye, Proto!” sang the Queen of Heaven, sweetly smiling and curling her hand at him a couple times.

  Before he could say another word, he was hurtling off through a grey void, tumbling headlong, as faraway stars whirled in parallax. He soared and spun, waiting for this voidal plane between planes to resolve into the waking world.

  But instead, a woman’s voice filled his head: Well, you’ve gone and done it now, haven’t you, Young Man! It was Miss Beatrice again, his fifth-grade teacher. The world never was enough for you, was it!

  I don’t know what you mean, his inward voice innocently replied.

  Oh, you know precisely what I mean! she chastised. “A face to wake up to.” “Squid-Face.” Hmph! What’s next? Flowers, tiramisu, and prophecies?

  Feeling like a ten year old caught with pie on his face, Proto struggled to muster up a defense.

  But there was no need, for the voice of Somnus mingled with Proto as a middle-aged lawyer was already on the job.

  Come now, let’s slow down and take a step back, the man’s voice urged. One thing we can all agree on is that it’s important to respect one another. Yes? And that entails respecting the choices we all make. Yes? And that’s true whether we choose tiramisu, or donuts, or cookies, or the port and cheese plate. Yes? Here, we have a fine young man who’s out to save the world—nay, the future and the world! Who could blame him for thinking hard about his future choices? True, he spends an extraordinary amount of time with immortals. And he may be somewhat irreverent and familiar with those immortals. But who could blame him? After all, his mortal body soon will be a scuttled wreck, broken inwardly to bits, shattered by a 5,000 pound impact at over fifty miles an hour—

  Okay, I think we get it! winced Proto’s inward voice.

  Oh, yes, I get it! You always could convince a girl a gaslight was a gold ring! Miss Beatrice retorted hotly to Somnus-Proto Lawyer. I’ve always despised that about you.

  And far be it from me to deny you your feelings! Or your right to have them! We all are masters of our own hearts, and only we know what’s inside them, rejoined Somnus-Proto Lawyer. Yet I also think, if you look closely down there, you’ll find a little more than spite.

  And how would you know where you stand within my heart? Miss Beatrice countered calmly.

  I don’t, he sighed. I only know where you stand within mine.

  Oh, quiet you, chastened Miss Beatrice, then paused. It’s been years.

  And yet it’s in the quiet moments that it’s hardest, Somnus-Proto Lawyer lamented.

  It’s hard? Her voice was pitying at first, then coy. What’s hard?

  Hm. Would you like me to tell you? he asked.

  I always tell my students, “Show, don’t tell,” she cooed.

  Is that how you think of me? the man asked evenly. As a mere student?

  Oh, we’re all students. And I’ve learnt a lot these last few years, she breathed. Let’s see what we can teach each other. Right now!

  Ah, Beatrice, how I’ve waited!

  WTF! I’m still here! cried Proto’s mental voice.

  Well, Young Man, you shouldn’t be! Miss Beatrice scolded.

  And with that, he woke up—alone on his tousled bed, and fully dressed in his Saturn-marked tracksuit. He blinked his bleary eyes, listened to strains of dreamy music, and mused that there were more things in Heaven and Earth than he could dream of.

  At least, he sure hoped that was the case. The alternative—that he’d dreamt up that last scene—was too disturbing to contemplate.

  Proto got up, splashed some very cold water on his face, combed his hair, brushed his teeth, and started to change into something business-casual.

  Then, clenching a manly fist, he threw his button-up shirt aside and slipped back into his tracksuit. Ah, but that felt good.

  He supposed he might draw a few looks at work. But who cares? Are my A/B tests gonna be offended? What could they possibly do to me? Am I gonna get hit by two cars? Is the world gonna end twice?

  So, off he went toward work and the inexorable future.