Hitherby Dragons

¹ This has nothing to do with the old Batman TV series. Why, the people talking could be anyone!

“Holy dangling intestines, Batman! Are you all right?”

“It’s nothing, old chum. Just . . . get me to the . . . Bat-Reconstruction Chamber.”

“Sure thing, Batman! We’ll have your molecules back in their original locations in no time!”

Silence.

Whirr. Click. Whirr. Grind. Click.

Silence.

“Ahh. Much better. It’s nice to be in one bat-piece again. Yet I can’t help feeling this . . . strange hunger . . . for the blood of the living.”

“Holy pennangalan, Batman! Have you always been able to detach your head and viscera and fly them around the room?”

“Yes, Robin. It’s been my . . . little secret.”

“Wow! It’ll be an incredible asset in our fight against crime! I’d better call Commissioner Gordon!”

“Maybe we’d better not tell him about this one, old chum. He might . . . take it the wrong way.”

“Good point, Batman. He might want to modify the Bat-signal to show the head floating above the bat-body . . . and that would give away our edge!”

Music. Spinning. The world blurs.

“Penguin! You . . . dastardly fiend! I won’t let you corrupt the youth of Gotham City!”

“Wark, wark, wark, wark, wark, wark, wark. Now that I’ve taken Elvis’ six-week correspondence course on rock and roll guitar, I’m no ordinary Penguin — I’m a superstar!”

Strum.

“Robin! Quickly! The bat-earplugs! Before his devastating music proves the end of us!”

“Holy hip gyrations, Batman! Take this bat-blindfold, too!”

“Wark, wark, wark, wark, wark. If you can’t see or hear my fine fishy flunkies, you can’t fight them!”

Strum. Girls scream.

Strum. Something soft thumps onto the stage.

Biff! Pow!

“Holy self-inflicted handicaps! He’s right!”

“It’s all right, old chum. It’s time these pesky punk-rock pirates learned . . . to fear the night!”

Biff! Pow! Thud.

Piff. SLURP.

Tif. Tif. Tif. Thud.

Piff. SLURP.

Tif. Tif. Tif. Thud.

“Wark, wark, wark, wark — erk.”

Squish. Squelch. Tap tap tap tap tap.

Biff! Pow! “Take that, you carnivorous cowled crusader!”

Piff. SLURP.

Tif. Tif. Thud.

“It’s all right now, old chum. You can take off the bat-blindfold and earplugs.”

“Holy Godless universe, Batman! What happened?”

“Things were looking bad, old chum, when suddenly a giant shark showed up and tore the Penguin and his baleful backup band into bloody pieces. Then it licked my face and jumped into the sea.”

“That explains the blood on your mouth! Wow. I guess that sea life everywhere must hate the Penguin!”

“Not any more, old chum. Not any more.”

On the mountain, there lived a young man. He had a creature that he kept in a box. It had a lot of eyes and mouths. He loved that creature.

The creature was all that kept him going. His job wasn’t happy. He didn’t have a girlfriend. His art never went anywhere. His life was small and sad. But he had his creature. His thing. He could come home and sit by the box and push food through the bars. It would eat the food. It made his heart glad. So the man didn’t have much, but he had something.

One day, he read:

If you love something,
let it go.

“I understand,” he said. So he took the creature down to the city. He opened the box. The creature crawled out.

“If you come back to me,” he said. “It was truly meant to be.”

The creature snarled. It crawled into the city. It began killing people one by one. The city called out the army. Infantry shot the creature. Tanks bombarded it with shells. It killed the infantry. It crushed the tanks. It tore down the buildings. The city died. The creature crawled on.

“This isn’t like in the proverb,” the man said. Then he shrugged. He was sad. He went back to his mountain.

He checked the news now and then. The creature destroyed civilization, bit by bit. Its path went away, away. The creature killed people the man didn’t like. This made him feel a little better. But it also killed people he admired. That made him feel worse. He stopped checking the news.

One morning the last city fell. He could hear the rockets in the distance. He could hear the fireworks. People were celebrating. It was a momentous occasion. “That’s the way of people,” he said. “When the sadness is too much, you have to start celebrating instead. I suppose, without urban centers, it’ll have to hunt people down one by one.”

It didn’t matter. He went inside. He sat by the box. He pushed some food through the bars. “Come on,” he said. “Eat.”

Nothing happened. The creature was long gone. He laughed at himself, and he took the food back. But he did it the next day, and the next. Then he cried himself to sleep.

In the morning, he woke to the sound of sirens. The creature was coming to the mountain.

He went outside. He didn’t bring his gun. There wasn’t any point. He stood out in the open, where it would see him easily; where it would kill him easily.

The creature approached. He spread his arms. He closed his eyes. He could hear it shuffle closer. He could hear it shuffle past. He heard it shuffle into his house.

He turned. His heart was very still. He went inside. He went to the box. He pushed food through the bars. It ate the food.

This made his heart glad.

You shouldn’t keep people in boxes! That’s the rule.

Category…

Mercury is a cookie. She is tall and gorgeous. Her hair is long and flows down her side. Her primary ingredients are whole grain rolled oats, brown sugar, and coconut. She’s a lot like a gingerbread man, but she’s prettier and has less ginger.

She cools on a pan for a while. Then Emma, who is five, picks Mercury up and puts her on a shelf next to the other cookies.

“You stay,” Emma says. “Talk to other cookies! If you have to go outside, tell Mommy first. That’s the rule!” Then Emma leaves.

“Hi,” Mercury says to the other cookies.

On the shelf, there’s a rabbit, and a dashing pirate, and a wolf, and a faceless man. All of them are cookies. All of them say “Hi,” except for the faceless man. He doesn’t have a mouth, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I’m a cookie,” Mercury explains. “I just cooled.”

“Welcome,” says the pirate. “We’re telling stories. Do you want to join in?”

“I’d better listen first,” she says. “I’ve never told a story before.”

“I bet you’ll do fine,” says the pirate. Even his voice is dashing. It brightens Mercury’s heart. “But you can have a turn after the wolf.”

“Okay,” Mercury agrees.

The rabbit says, “There’s a place. Very far from here.”

“How do you know?” asks the wolf.

“An angel told me.” The rabbit makes a throat-clearing noise, and continues:

There’s a place that’s white and cold and its sky is dark. It hangs high above the world. It looks down on the Earth. My people live there: not just one, not just ten, but thousands. Thousands of rabbits, their fur white with frost. The enemy cannot find them there. So they live in peace. There are plenty of things for them to enjoy. There’s one there whose heart is one with mine. She waits for me. She doesn’t care how long. She looks down at the Earth; and waits; and loves me.

“Ah,” says the wolf. “That’s very fine.”

“What’s love?” Mercury asks.

“I don’t know,” says the rabbit. “Not really. But when the angel said it, it meant something to me.” The rabbit coughs. “It’s your turn, pirate.”

The pirate thinks. “In the morning,” he says, “I’ll set sail.”

“How do you know?” asks the rabbit.

“Some things you just know,” he says. His voice shares both a sadness and a quiet joy. “It’s like this:”

In the morning, I’ll set sail. I’ll go to a faraway place. I’ll fight many battles. I’ll be a hero. Everyone will admire me. But you can’t be a hero forever. Someday, someone will get in a lucky blow. I’ll crumble. I’ll die. That’s okay. Whoever kills me, they’ll give me back to the sea. And my life will have meant something.

The rabbit thinks. “You’re lucky,” he says. “To know all that.”

“I suppose,” agrees the pirate. “But it’s sad that I won’t have someone to mourn me.”

“I’ll mourn you,” says Mercury, impulsively. “I’ll think of the sea, and say, ‘goodbye.’”

The pirate laughs. “See? A happy ending. But it’s the wolf’s turn.”

The wolf considers. “I could live,” she says.

The faceless man makes a noise.

“I could,” says the wolf. “It’s part of what a wolf is. Listen:”

This is what it means to be a wolf. This is the promise written in our bones. If we’re fast, if we’re smart, if we’re strong. If our senses are sharp and our footfalls soft, we’ll live. There’s always meat for a wolf, if we dare to find it. There’s always water. There’s always warmth. Some don’t make it. Some die. They get sick. They get killed. They go lame. But if you’re strong, if you’re fast, if you’re smart, you’ll live. That’s the only story wolves know. It’s the only one we need.

The faceless man makes another noise.

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” says the wolf. “So I don’t know if I’ll live. But I won’t give up. I’m a wolf.”

Mercury says, “You’re very brave.”

“Not brave,” says the wolf. “Just me. It’s your turn.”

“I’m made of oats,” says Mercury. “I was baked in the oven.” She thinks. “That wasn’t a very good story, was it?”

The pirate laughs. “You’ll tell a better one tomorrow,” he says. “It takes a little practice.”

Emma comes into the room. “Wuf!” she says. She picks up the wolf. She gnaws on the wolf’s ear. She leaves the room.

Mercury makes a startled noise. “Hey.”

“Ah,” says the pirate. “I wouldn’t have thought it’d be her, next.”

“What happened to the wolf?”

“She’s gone to war.”

“War?”

“It’s why we’re here,” says the pirate. “We’re waiting, to go to war. We’ll fight back the enemy. To protect everyone else.”

“Oh,” says Mercury, feeling a little stupid. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” says the pirate. “A lot of us get confused after baking. I’m sure you’ll be a fine soldier. But you have to live longer than I do, to mourn me.”

“And go home,” agrees the rabbit. “I don’t know if your home is like mine, but you should go to it. Afterwards. You seem nice.”

“I don’t have a home,” Mercury says. “Just you.”

“Then you should visit, afterwards,” says the pirate. “Visit the rabbit on the moon. Make a grave for me, down by the sea. See if the wolf survived.”

The faceless man makes a noise.

“You could visit the faceless man, too,” the pirate adds. “He’s the best of us, you know.”

“I will,” Mercury promises. “But oh, I’d rather if you lived too.”

“Ah, lass,” says the pirate. “It’s not such a world as that.”

Night falls. For a time, the cookies are silent. Mercury passes into dreams and visions. When she wakes up, there’s a tiny angel sitting next to her on the shelf. The angel’s not a cookie. She’s a girl. She’s got wings sticking out through holes in her jacket. Above the wings, the back of her jacket reads Magic.

“Hi,” says Mercury.

“Hi,” says the angel. “It’s the first dawn of your life, so you get a wish.”

“I wish I could be with the pirate when he dies,” says Mercury.

The angel dangles her feet off the shelf. “Wouldn’t you rather save him?”

“If I save his life, he might die again,” says Mercury. “But if I’m with him when he dies, he’ll know he’s remembered.”

“That’s sweet,” says the angel. “So I’ll see what I can do.” The angel sparkles and vanishes.

Slowly, the other cookies wake.

“Good morning, Mercury,” says the pirate. “Do you understand stories better after a good night’s rest?”

“I think so,” says Mercury. “I have a people, too. Like the rabbit.”

“How do you know?” asks the pirate.

“Because I’m alive, and someday I’ll be dead,” she says. “And in the meantime, this is how it must be:”

I have a people, in a faraway place. They don’t know the kinds of things I’ll have to do. They don’t know what it’s like at war. But they’ll know I’m fighting for them. There’s a boy in a field, and he looks up. He remembers that we’re fighting. There’s a lady in a school, and she looks up. She remembers that we’re fighting. All my people. Not often. But sometimes. They stop, and they remember.

“Mm,” says the pirate. “I think you’ve got it.”

“Thanks,” says Mercury.

Emma comes into the room. “Pirate!” She picks up the pirate. Then she looks at Mercury. She thinks. There’s an angel on one of her shoulders. There’s a devil on the other. For once, and Emma finds this very strange, they’re both saying the same thing.

“TWO cookies,” Emma says, happily. She picks Mercury up. Then, a cookie in each hand, she leaves the room.

In the old days, they didn’t know very much about the world. But they made maps anyway. If they had to map something they couldn’t, they just drew whatever they felt like and wrote, “Here there be dragons.”

Someone found this site by asking google whether dragons are real.

If you tried to map the world today, you could detail every inch of the world’s surface. Satellites could show you every forest and every bush, every mountain and every field. They could show you your house and mine. There are no empty spaces left.

We don’t know very much about the world; and there are things to map of it besides its surface.

Can broken things be remade?
Can destinies change?
Is it worth the risk of hope?

Important questions, but one can only shrug, you see.

Here, there be dragons.

in which Jenna examines various locations in light of their suitability for the story to follow, which is to say, her existence:

In January, 1974, the Pandora Squad began putting things of great value in the tunnels. Gold. Jewels. Subway trains. Ruby-studded jet zeppelins. Rare and collectible giant spiders. Promises, hopes, dreams, and silver. No one ever found out why, because the Pandora Squad promptly exceeded its budget and went defunct.

Three months passed.

Jenna has an immortal soul and a mortal nature. She demonstrates them while talking to the hero. He makes a point. Jenna dies. There’s an awkward silence.

“Clearly,” says the hero, “you’re a mortal creature, bound by time.”

Jenna slumps on the floor.

“I shouldn’t make my points so forcefully,” the hero says. It’s gallows humor. On a dead audience, it falls flat. Jenna doesn’t giggle. She just grows colder.

“. . . I should probably cremate you.”

Jenna is mortal. But she also has an immortal soul. She demonstrates that too! She reanimates her body and hops to her feet. “You don’t have to cremate me. I can be a zombie!”

He’s the hero. He’s suave. He can handle this. But it disturbs him. “Zombies rot and their body parts fall off. Maybe you could be a vampire? Then you’d be my arch-nemesis.”

“I could be an anentropic zombie,” Jenna proposes. “Instead of rotting, I’d grow ever more beautiful! And I could be a mime!”

“I don’t want you to be a mime.”

Jenna pretends to be an anentropic zombie trapped in an invisible box. “Look! I’m inside an invisible box! It’s a sealed system, so the order constantly increases. That’s my noncompliance with the principle of entropy at work!”

“I appreciate the explanation,” the hero says, “as I would not readily have derived that from your visual cues. Mimes don’t usually narrate, though.”

Jenna ignores him and pretends to be an anentropic zombie struggling against the wind. “Oh no! Bits of fashionable clothing are blowing onto me from all over and replacing my dreary cerements! But my umbrella—it’s inverted!”

The hero sighs, leans back, and closes his eyes. Once he has his equilibrium, he says, “I love you.” It’s true, but it’s also the only way to stop the narrated miming.

“You shouldn’t cremate people you love. I mean, not when they’re still moving around.”

“That’s true. I try to live my life by this rule.”

“We all should!” Jenna declares. “We could achieve a perfect world.”

“But an anentropic zombie can’t live in our house,” the hero points out. “People would talk.”

Jenna snorts. “People.”

“And I’m not sure I’m ready for it.” The hero thinks. “You could live in the tunnels.”

“Is an anentropic zombie very valuable?”

“Rarity would seem to suggest it.”

Jenna shakes her head. Her hair grows shorter but ever more beautiful. “Nope. Scarcity is an entropic measure of value. For anentropic objects, commonality would have to determine value—the arrow of time points the other way!”

The hero sighs. “You could be a ghost,” he offers. “Ghosts are rare but subject to entropy.”

“I want to exist,” Jenna says. “I want to be me. When I heard that I was dead, that was all I could think. I’m not done being me. I like myself. I’m cool. So I dragged myself back from the grave.”

The hero smiles. “Narcissist.”

“Narcissism is important,” Jenna says, firmly. “The first thing the universe said to me after I was born was, ‘love yourself.’”

“Oh?”

“Yup. ‘Love yourself. Trust yourself. Be true to yourself. Oh, and, by the way, you can no longer absorb nutrients through your belly button.’”

The hero smiles. “I’m glad you came back.”

“I can’t live with you?”

“You’re dead.”

Jenna closes her eyes for a moment, and then opens them. “Depreciation is a function of entropy,” she says. “So I’m a good investment, at least.”

“I’m sure that’ll do.”

“Yay!” Jenna says. “I get to live in tunnels!”

The tunnels are deep. The tunnels are dark. They have lots of water in them, and giant spiders. They also have a subway. Sometimes, the subway hits one of the giant spiders. Whoosh! Bam! The spider goes flying end over end. Then it scurries off to the side with a horrid shambling gait. It licks its monstrous spindly legs. It meant to do that! That’s what its body language says.

Jenna lives in the tunnels too. She likes to watch the subway train. She’s decided that it can hit anything. She’s seen it hit ruby-studded zeppelins. She’s seen it hit frogs. She’s seen it hit ancient mummies groaning with the weight of years. In December 1981, Jenna watches it hit Dukkha, the principle of universal suffering, the world’s fundamental tendency to include hostility and anguish in everyday life. Dukkha goes flying end over end. Then he scurries around on the tracks, scarring them black with his passage. He licks his left bipedal quality. He meant to do that. Oh, yes. It was all part of his plan. Whoosh! Bam! The subway hits him again. Jenna giggles.

On the landing, not far from Jenna, Ninja Tathagata watches. He’s as still as the mind that knows emptiness. He’s as calm as a placid lake. His expression is flat. It shows no gloating. Ninja Tathagata has freed himself from attachment to material existence. He does not gloat like ordinary men. His smug satisfaction is a flower blooming in nothingness; a diamond shining in the darkness; a perturbation in the nihilistic void that is Nirvana. He is a ninja Buddha, and he does not giggle. Instead, he turns away and slips into the trees.

Jenna shouts, “Hey!”

Dukkha looks up, eyes blazing. He doesn’t see her. Ninja Tathagata’s already taken hold of Jenna’s wrist and dragged her away.

“You shouldn’t shout around Dukkha,” Ninja Tathagata says. “It’ll only attract his attention.”

Jenna puts her foot down. “There shouldn’t be any trees here. Tunnels are a subterranean environment. Trees are superterranean! Down here we only have their roots. You’re hiding in an illicit forest!”

Ninja Tathagata smiles. “Your anger stems from an irrational attachment to the prevailing conditions of your home. It’s natural, but the key to happiness is understanding that all things change.” Wisps of enlightenment rise from Ninja Tathagata like the steam from a fresh-baked pie.

Jenna pokes his chest. “You’re the Buddha,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want and blame it on other peoples’ irrational attachment!”

“That’s a fair cop,” admits Ninja Tathagata.

“Good,” says Jenna. She sits down with her back against a tree. “I suppose that the trees aren’t so bad. It’s really only because of the character of suffering and torment pervading the universe that I mind.”

On the track, the subway hits the pervasive universal character of torment and suffering. He shrieks. Then he narrows his eyes. “If I get off the track now,” he murmurs softly, “everyone will know I didn’t really plan to get hit three times. I’d better just lounge here, bitter and languid, until I hear a Dukkha Call.”

“It’s difficult waging a constant shadow war against Dukkha,” Ninja Tathagata explains. “Sometimes I need a break. That’s why I carry a forested glen with me everywhere I go. It’s relaxing to sit under the green and watch the shadows drift by.”

Ninja Tathagata sits under the green. The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. There’s a thump.

“You’re deliberately not looking smug,” Jenna observes.

Ninja Tathagata winks.

The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. There’s a thump.

Jenna sighs and pats the tree. “I get tired of pain, too,” she says. “I suppose you’d say that I should cultivate enlightenment?”

“In the long term,” Ninja Tathagata agrees. “In the short term, if you’d like, I could leave the forested glen here.”

The light of the subway train washes across the branches. Shadows race by. Someone shouts, “What’s that? Is that a Dukkha Call I hear in the distance?” There’s no thump.

“Oh!” Jenna says, disappointed. “He must have swirled his cloak around himself and become a nonlocalized phenomenon before it hit.”

“I didn’t hear a Dukkha Call,” says Ninja Tathagata. “I think he made that part up.”

“What’s a Dukkha Call?”

Ninja Tathagata doesn’t get a wicked grin. His sudden, mischevious impulse is a blind man’s sunrise; a fire without fuel; a warmth and a heat rising in and filling and falling in the emptiness of Ninja Nirvana. He stands and walks over to a pile of leaves. “Help, help,” he says. “The placidity in my heart is stifling my potential for growth.”

With a swirl of his cape, Dukkha localizes. “Then face the malevolent wrath of Dukkha!” he shouts. Under his feet, the leaves give way.

“The covered pit is a nice touch,” Jenna admits.

The forest is dry. Its soil is brittle. Its air is sharp and clean. The pine trees smell like antiseptic. Spirits live in the forest. They invite Jenna to play.

“It’s great fun to look for truffles,” suggests Boar. “Also, if there are any knights around, we can gore their sides.”

“Take to the air as a duck!” offers Duck. “Nothing flies as elegantly as a duck.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Coyote says dubiously.

“It’s not a lie,” says Duck. “There’s an implicit ‘exactly’. Nothing flies exactly as elegantly as a duck.”

“I can’t come and play,” says Jenna. She’s chewing on a hamburger and writing in a black and white composition book. “I’m writing a book of examples of filial piety.”

“Oh?” says Duck. “Can you read some to us?”

Jenna swallows, and recites:

In 1983, the giant spiders were very hungry. One had a clutch of eggs, so she was extra-hungry. They tried to eat me, but I’d always bonk them on the nose. So the mother grew very thin. She thought she might die. “Don’t worry, mother,” said the little spiders, hatching. “You can eat us!” So she did. By keeping their mother alive at the cost of their own existence, the little spiders fulfilled their filial duty.

“That’s very moving,” agrees Boar. “But is it really virtuous?”

Jenna considers. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I think the sacrifice is beautiful, but does it compare to the beauty of a giant spider’s life?”

“I don’t know,” Duck answers. “What is the beauty of a giant spider’s life?”

“I’m biased,” Jenna says, “since they keep trying to eat me. But I think it’s the way that they’re cruel without hating. They do monstrous, horrible things. But inside their heads, it’s cold, clear, and empty. They’re not ugly like demons. They’re pretty. Like the winter. And they have potential.”

“You should read another,” Coyote says, slouching.

Jenna recites:

Vicious Lily was a robotic assassin created in 1925 to advance the cause of Impressionism. “What is your o-pin-ion of Mo-net’s pain-tings of the Thames?” it asked me. I assured it that all of Monet’s works were masterpieces. “Good,” it said. “I will let you live.” Then it turned to the wall. “What is your o-pin-ion of the Rou-en Ca-the-drals se-ries?” The wall made no answer. Vicious Lily’s laser arm clicked. A dial spun. Vicious Lily blasted the wall until nothing remained but rubble. “Take that in the name of ro-bot jus-tice!” it said. Not a moment went by that Vicious Lily did not think of its creator, Monet.

Boar grunts. “It’s a robot. It can’t help it.”

“Robots can break their programming,” says Jenna. “It happens all the time on TV. Plus, I heard that if you flip your Transformers toys into a special third configuration, they come to life, embezzle your money, and flee the country in disgrace.”

“Point,” says Coyote. “In a way, a robot that doesn’t break its programming exhibits filial loyalty. Still, I’d think that a true example of robotic loyalty would be a death machine that, having broken its programming, decides to go around killing people for the agency that created it anyway.”

“That would be more impressive,” says Jenna, “but I haven’t seen an example of that. Do you think I should fictionalize my work for greater impact?”

“Not really,” says Coyote. “I’m just sayin’.”

Jenna takes a few more bites of her hamburger, swallows, writes a bit more, and then recites:

Mei Ming was born in 1975. The monster pulled her from the shadow’s womb. The shadow kept her in the tunnels to protect her from the world. Mei Ming wasn’t scared of spiders, but thieves—that’s scary! I tried to look at her with my flashlight helmet, but she shrank from the light. “It’s best to live in the shadows,” she said. “That way my mother always knows where I am.” She gave up light for her mother’s peace of mind—that’s how pious she was.

“What did she look like?” wonders Duck. “I mean, was she all shadowy?”

“A little,” agrees Jenna. “You could definitely see the filial resemblance.”

“You should stay away from her,” counsels Coyote. “The tree never falls far from the branch. Bad eggs like that only lead you into trouble.”

“It’s an interesting issue,” Jenna decides. “I don’t think she can be a bad egg, because if she’s evil, that’s just being loyal to the shadow. And if she’s wonderfully sweet and nice, then that’s not very much like a bad egg, either.”

“Nor like a deviled egg,” Boar points out. “Those aren’t sweet. They taste of mustard.”

“I want mustard,” Jenna says unhappily. It’s hard to find condiments in the tunnels sometimes.

“It’s not about taste,” Coyote answers. “It’s about security.”

Jenna recites:

I met a girl standing over her father’s grave. She was wearing a jacket. “He had a hundred plans,” she said. “But none of them ever worked. So I’ve decided to honor his memory. If you can catch me, your next plan will succeed.”

“It’s dangerous to make promises like that,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “When you make a promise that humans can’t fulfill, you can’t be human any more. I’m okay with that.” By making this promise, she put her filial duty to her father’s memory above the human condition.

“The human condition’s not so great,” Coyote points out. “Now, me, I’m great. Compare and contrast as you will.”

“Humans live out in the world,” Jenna points out. “You hang out with Duck, Boar, and me.”

“See how my fur shines? That’s classy. The human condition doesn’t have class like that. And my teeth are just glorious.” Coyote smiles. “Case closed.”

“What are you going to do with the book when you’ve finished writing it?” asks Duck.

“I’m going to take it to the market and trade it for three magic beans. Then I will plant them, climb to the top of the beanstalk, kill any nearby giants, and, making a block and tackle from their ligaments and bones, lower the castle into the forest.”

“That’s a stupid plan,” Coyote says. “Why don’t you just trade Cow?”

Jenna lifts a finger to answer, pauses, and turns bright red.

“What?” Coyote asks.

Jenna ducks her head. “My lunch had no foresight,” she embarrassedly admits.

The lady sits in her room. She weaves a tapestry. She looks out towards the sea.

“Ms. Brown,” she says.

Ms. Brown attends her. “Yes, milady?”

“The sea,” she says. “Does it seem altogether well?”

Ms. Brown looks out the window. “It’s a bit ragged at the edges. The horizon’s coming undone. I suppose the world’s ending.”

“There are angels who promised that this place would live forever,” the lady says.

“Angels forget.”

“And gods,” the lady says.

“Gods forget, too.”

“And all the others. Dragons and women and beasts and men and the spirits of the sea; they said they’d give this place their shelter.”

“It’s been a very long time, milady.”

“Ah,” she says.

“It’s not painful,” Ms. Brown says. “It’s very gentle. The world just comes apart, and then there’s nothingness. You and the sea and the land—you all fade away together.”

The lady looks up. “It’s happened before?”

Ms. Brown shrugs.

The lady smiles, lightly. “It shan’t again,” she says. She takes the tapestry and folds it under her arm; and she walks from her tower, and down to the land, and out across the sea. All around her, chaos eats at the edge of the world. She steps beyond it.