Chapter One

She wasn’t pretty.

Maybe that’s the most important part of this story—she wasn’t pretty, and she was young. Alexandra Biblia Lewis was only twelve when it happened, although the story starts way before that.

She was a writer. That’s important, too.

It was a dark and stormy night.

The nights in the beginnings of Allie’s stories were always dark and stormy. This wasn’t terribly original, and she knew this. Allie felt mildly ashamed of this at times, because as the outcast of her small private school she felt obligated to be Different, but writing itself was Different enough.

And she was not pretty.

She wasn’t fat, exactly, but she was lumpy in all the wrong places for a twelve-year-old. Her hair was mousy and brown, usually pulled back into lumpy pigtails on her head. Her nose looked like it was made with a dollop of gelatine in the tip. Glasses sat atop the dollop, shrinking her eyes and marking her forever as a bookworm.

Her eyes were beautiful.

But men tend not to look at those until they need to.

She wore sneakers and cargo pants, with shirts that always seemed to grip in the wrong places. Her fingers were usually stained with ink or graphite, and they were strangely slender on the chunky body.

Entwined between them was a pen, and it was scribbling.

And she wasn’t pretty.

The rain showers on Irion were something to reckon with.

Marliana knew this because, often, she was stuck in them.

Lightning didn’t flash here. It exploded, crackling, into fragments in the sky. It raced through the clouds, trailing thunder along behind it, in a futile attempt at joviality. Rain gushed from the skies like upturned geysers. Ctenophores and jellyfish danced in the rich atmosphere of Irion, delighting in the mixture of their dual habitats.

Only the wind, thank the elements, was quiet.

Marliana marched on.

Allie’s parents were inattentive. Her mother, a pretty blonde with Career, was an executive producer of a local children’s channel on public cable. She spent all day with children dressed as acorns as they sang “I’m a nut, I’m a nut,” and pretended to know everything she could about children. Allie’s father was another local hero; the owner of the only ice-cream shop in a ten-mile radius. Everyone Allie’s age loved him, except for Allie.

Allie loved Walter, instead.

Walter was seventeen. He’d been seventeen for a long, long time, but Allie didn’t know that and neither did her parents. Walter had been that Nice Boy they’d called when to baby-sit when Allie was little, off an ad on a stop sign. Allie was old enough to stay home by herself, now, but her parents didn’t know that either.

Normally she would have protested, but Allie liked the company.

Walter was tallish with hair the colour of nutmeg spice and eyes the colour of an overcast day. He was fit, which Allie didn’t understand because he didn’t seem to ever exercise. He was skinny, which Allie didn’t understand because he ate her parents out of house and home. He was creative and mature, too, which Allie didn’t understand because he was male.

Allie didn’t like males, on a general basis. Her only experience with the Other Gender included farts, bathroom jokes, and sex jokes that just missed her full understanding. They made fun of her weight, and her clothes. Males were almost as bad as females; only not as clever.

Unless they were Walter.

Walter told Allie stories.

Allie wrote them down.

Weird wiggling worms crawled on Marliana’s legs, eating whatever it was that lived in the muck around here. She would have brushed them off, but disease and parasites were small worries when it came to immortality. Anyway, these didn’t eat human. They ate mud.

The night was bright with bioluminescence. Jellies and ctenophores were abundant in this part of Tridensdake. Mostly they were beautiful—unless they stung, in which case they hurt. But most of the stinging jellies lived south of here, where the air and the water were warmer.

She hated mud, and rain, and the occasional zaps of jellies on her bare shoulders. The air was summery-warm, and the colours of the world were strong.

This past year had been crap for her, and she did not need this right now.

Although, at least, this was only a shower. Real storms were something you didn’t reckon with—had this been a real storm, even immortals took shelter.

Somewhere in the electric whirlwind before her was a line of unmoving lights.

Unless she was very much mistaken, that was a town.

Hopefully a town with someplace to stay.

“I’ll have to finish the story tomorrow.”

Allie put her pencil down. “Why?”

“It’s almost nine. Your parents should be getting back soon.”

“What? No.” Allie glanced at the clock. “Okay, yes.”

“And you don’t have your homework done. Again. They’ll fire me one of these days.”

“Psh.” Allie looked at the pile of paper in front of her. “Come on, you’ve at least got to get her to the town. You can’t just leave Marli out in the wet like that.”

“Tomorrow. When you get home from school. You know the drill.”

“You mean the drill that’s supposed to include homework?”

“Yes.” Walter grinned.

“And then pyjamas and bed, like when I was four.”

“Yes. Well.”

“The drill that the both of us have changed to fit my age over the years because my parents—“

Walter laughed. “That drill, yes. Go pretend to do homework, Al, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Allie smiled.

She was a reader. Her parents approved of reading, in general, they thought it was a terrible shame so few children read these days, but they disapproved of reading in Allie’s specific case. She read too much. It wasn’t natural. Why didn’t she play with children her own age?

They’d tried to break this addiction to stories, over the years, and so far nothing had worked. When she was young, they’d plunked her in front of Educational Programs on a regular basis. It never worked—baby Allie would crawl off. Her worried parents would find her, hours later, drooling over markers and bits of paper that were covered in what looked suspiciously like letters.

On Allie’s first day of kindergarten, her parents had been delighted to discover that she’d made new friends. Unfortunately, she couldn’t invite Encyclopedia Brown or Nancy Drew home.

When she’d gotten older, and they enrolled her in sports at age nine, Allie had remarked that the whole “soccer” thing was a bit dull, and weren’t there any Quiddich teams she could sign up for? [1] Or perhaps croquet?

The latest attempt at normalcy was the middle school Drama Program. Privately, Allie had labelled the entire cast of the current production—a dumbed-down Othello with a disgustingly happy ending—as future drug addicts and wife-beaters.

Something in her was vaguely aware that she was past the mark for “too old” when it came to Walter, and her parents were bound to notice sooner or later. They’d take him away, then, and she’d be stuck with the people she knew who were her age.

She didn’t like anyone she knew who was her age.

Not even Marci, and Marci was supposed to be her Best Friend Forever.

[1] Which had confused her parents until they mentioned the incident to more well-read friend, and were introduced to the idea of Harry Potter. Then came the teary-eyed acceptance that broomsticks could not, in fact, fly, and therefore playing sports on them was an impossibility.

“It’s not like it’s real,” said the blonde. “It’s not like Irion exists.”

“Yeah, it does,” said Allie. “Walter’s been there. He’s met Marliana, and Tarnmare, and the Generalla. And he fought Daemonicus and won, and he—“

Marci tossed her hair. She’d finally got permission from her mother to buy a hair straightener, and now it was smooth and silky.

Marci’s full name was Marcella, and apparently it was a family name, so Allie assumed Marci must have Spanish heritage in there somewhere. It didn’t show. Her hair was so blonde Allie had thought it white when they first met, and her eyes were aquamarine. Marci was skinny and pretty, and Allie envied her for that.

They were walking home from school—a half-mile stroll through a wooded path. Marci didn’t like the walk. She wanted to take the bus like Normal People did; but Allie kind of liked walking under the trees, and Marci didn’t want to leave her alone. They took the bus in the mornings as a sort of compromise, always walking home in the afternoon.

“It’s a story, Allie. Get over it.”

“It’s not, though,” Allie said, frowning. “Not the way he tells it, Marce. You’ve never heard him tell stories like this.”

“No,” said Marci. “Don’t plan to, either. I like my head in reality, thanks.”

Allie shrugged her backpack farther up her shoulders. It was an old thing, mottled with patched-up holes and sewn-up tears—five years ago, Allie’s parents had made the mistake of letting her pick out her own bag. Instead of choosing one from the neat, fashionable line of Disney Princess bags, Allie had run to the hiking backpacks and gotten something roughly the same size as she was.

Her parents got her a new backpack every year, always the trendiest one on the market at the time. All five lay in her closet, untouched. Allie liked this bag. It held a lot of books.

“Fairy tales don’t exist,” continued Marci. “Come on, Allie, you’re too old for bedtime stories.”

Allie shook her head so slightly that Marci nearly missed it.

“Hell,” said the blonde, tasting the unfamiliar word on her lips, “You’re too old for a babysitter. The only reason Walter still comes over is your parents treat you like a baby.”

“You know,” said Allie, “I really don’t see anything too wrong with that. I’m not in a hurry to grow up.”

“Why?” Marci asked, incredulous. “Why would you want your parents to treat you like a kid?”

Allie shrugged. “I dunno. You ever talk to adults, Marci? They’re boring. They talk and talk and never ask questions. They’re full of blind faith, virtues, and Because-I-Said-So’s. They don’t learn. When you grow up, you stop learning.”

Marci thought about school, and her textbooks, and her 89 on the last spelling test.

“You know,” she said. “I really don’t see anything wrong with that.”

They laughed—a joke between friends.

It was empty laughter.

Zephsilens had never known any other name.

He was one of the Lost Generations, kidnapped—

“Wait,” Allie said. “What about Marli?”

“What?”

“Marli. You can’t just start on a Zephsilens story when you left Marli standing in the rain like that. You can’t just start a story and not even let it take off.”

Walter laughed. “I’m not. You know what Zephsilens has been doing all this time.”

“Looking for her,” Allie said, flipping back through her notebook. It was only the latest in a mass of them—composition notebooks took up the entire lower shelf of her bookcase. The handwriting got gradually more childish as the notebooks got older. Walter had been telling her Marliana stories since she was old enough to listen. Maybe even before.

“Exactly. But I haven’t told a story with the both of them in it for a while, have I?”

Allie shook her head. “Not for years.”

“So shut up and listen, missy,” Walter said, and laughed.

Zephsilens had never known any other name.

He was one of the Lost Generations, kidnapped by the Tridensdakian Army and put into slavery during the last war. And set free into servitude, once that war had ended—one of the lucky ones, in that he hadn’t been dumped in the middle of a forest somewhere.

Zephsilens had always been lucky. He’d been lucky when he worked at Stone Castle. He’d been lucky when he befriended Princessa Marliana. He’d been lucky when he sipped from the Fountain of Youth—

Oh, yes, he thought bitterly. I’m lucky. Lucky to be alive and here, and that the woman I love is immortal, too. Unlucky in that I can’t find her, maybe, but I know she’s here.

Maybe she even remembers me.

Ctenophores bumped, flashing, into his body, illuminating the muddy worms on his legs and breeches. Rain tumbled out of the sky—

“Really?” Allie asked. “He’s gonna—“

“Allie, shush.”

Rain tumbled out of the sky and onto his head, and he was shivering in the wet. The air wasn’t cold—Zephsilens was trembling in excitement and, yes, he’d admit it, fear.

She stayed here last night, the woman had said. Marliana. I thought it was a strange name, seeing as how it’s disrespectful to the Revered Princessa.

She’d stayed there last night. Zephsilens had run his hands over the bedsheets, imagining that he could feel her essence on the cloth. Imagining her beautiful face asleep on the pillow.

He’d smiled then, and he smiled now. Perhaps of his mouth were thinner in his anticipation, but the shape of it was there.

She’d gone on to the next town, and she’d be staying there for a few weeks, just resting there. And he’d see her again.

For the first time in a thousand years, he’d see her.

Oh, yes. He was very lucky.

This was a lot smaller than she’d thought it would be.

Marli plodded into the “town” with a certain amount of disappointment settling down on her shoulders. It was hardly more than a few straw houses in a puddle of mud. The Big Bad Wolf[2] could have blown the entire place into nothingness with a brief exhalation.

The inn was near the road—a sorry little wooden building, two stories tall. Sad, wet light drizzled out from the windows, half-lighting a sign with an illegible name on it.

Inside wasn’t much better. The bottom floor consisted entirely of a bar, a stage, and some table-chair sets. Various disgruntled townsfolk sat in the room, nursing various alcoholic drinks. A scrawny, half-dressed woman crooned on the stage. Rather badly, Marli thought, but she seemed to love her job.

The room seemed to go silent when she entered it; Marli felt like a parody of a fairytale. Isn’t that funny, she thought. Look at me, the princessa with her gown of worms and sparkling mud-caked hair. The room falls silent as I enter, ugly and covered in muck…

She smiled brilliantly, and tried to move like she wasn’t. When you had all of eternity in your hands, embarrassment didn’t matter so much, really.

[2] Although Marliana herself wouldn’t understand that analogy, seeing as how that story hadn’t come around yet, and wolves don’t exist on Irion.

“This story sucks,” Marci said, feet in the air as she laid on Allie’s carpet and flipped through a notebook. She slipped another spoon of Chocolate Demise Ice Cream Blast into her mouth. “No plot. And there’s like, no romance or anything. It’s all philosophy and action.”

“What’s wrong with philosophy and action?”

“It’s boring.”

Allie laughed into her Strawberry Addiction. Ice Cream Fridays were an age-old tradition; Allie, Walter, and Marci would go down to her father’s ice cream store, buy a personal jug for each of them, scrounge up every topping in the house, and take the whole mess up to Allie’s room to watch movies.

“Action’s the antithesis of boring, Marci.”

“The what?”

“The exact opposite,” said Walter. “And I’ll have to agree with Allie on that one. Action isn’t boring—that’s why it’s action.”

“You can’t define a word with the word you’re trying to define,” Allie pointed out. “Pass the Reeses Bits.”

“In strawberry ice cream?” Marci asked.

“I like strawberries. I like chocolate. I like peanut butter. I do not see the problem.”

Tonight’s movie was Moulin Rouge, a jumbling flash of music, second-long clips, and even a bit of plot. Allie had read an interview with Ray Bradbury where he’d condemned the movie as a perfect example of the real world turning into Fahrenheit 451. She was inclined to agree.

Only she liked the movie, which made Allie feel a bit insecure. She was a bookworm, so shouldn’t she hate television? And movies?

She put a spoonful of strawberry peanut-butter chocolate gunk in her mouth and smiled. Guilty pleasures, what the hell?

“Well, I like ‘em,” Allie said. “The stories.”

“Yeah, but they aren’t real.” Marci rolled her eyes. “How can you like something that isn’t real?”

Allie glanced at Walter.

He kept his mouth shut.

His name wasn’t Walter.

Perhaps that was apparent in the story, perhaps not, but that doesn’t matter because I’m telling you anyway. Walter’s name is not Walter. It’s not even close. He only calls himself Walter because he picked that name up somewhere in the fifties. He picked that name up because his real name is kind of embarrassing in today’s day and age.

Walter is immortal.

Watch, now, as he leaves the house of his young friends. Let’s follow him a moment, tracing his way through the streets and back to his apartment. He trots up the stairs—one, two, three, four stories—with a slight skipping step, takes the third door on the left…

Apt. 427. One of the women who lived with him had insisted on the number for some reason. The number had a special significance for her, she said.

He had two flatmates. Both were youngish, and one was beautiful. Both were female, and one was tough. Both were as old as he was, and one he’d known since she was 42-9ttle girl.

This may be because she was a little girl, technically. She was an immortal woman, too, but when you’re immortal and you travel through time enough, you can be both at the same time.

Daria was on the couch, sipping a glass of iced tea and reading a Michael Chriton novel. She was the beautiful one, with dark, clean hair and wide blue eyes. Physically, she was in her thirties. Chronologically, she was older.

Both were immortal. One was his oldest enemy.

Both were immortal. One was his closest friend.

“How’d babysitting go?” she asked, grinning. “Little Al doing okay?”

“Ha, yeah, she’s fine. I’ll miss the kid.”

“It should be getting close, huh?” Daria looked up. “You told Allie yet?”

“Which one?” Walter gave a dry laugh. “But I haven’t told either of them.”

One was Daria.

The other was Allie, but she was a lot older on this side of Walter’s life.

When you mess around with time, things get complicated.

an: My apologies for the clumsy formatting of this. I hate the page-break lines, but FP doesn't seem to like me using anything else. In case you couldn't tell, the [#]s are footnotes, which FP also doesn't like, and I put in at the end of the section. It's easier to read that way.
Reposting this story with a major rewrite. Maybe I'll actually like this version.