FicWad

Disclaimer: Chrono Trigger and all its attendant goodies belong to Square-Enix. I'm just playing in their sandbox. Further information can be found in the header for Chapter One.



Part of Lucca's mind wanted to feel relief, another part remembered Fiona's eyes, and still another tried to unravel the paradox only to end up tangled in it. Over the three of them was a fourth piece screaming, Run to him, he has to remember you, you can't do this alone-

No, she thought, shaking her head, I damn well /have to do this alone./ She glanced at Nadia. More or less.

Nadia's grip tightened. "Lucca, what is that?" she whispered. "That's not Robo, is it?"

It was strange how knowing Robo had colored Lucca's perception to the point that several hundred pounds of armed machinery didn't seem threatening. Of course she was aware that he could be dangerous- she'd fixed his weapons systems more times than she could remember, and she'd fought robots with identical designs. But she had always been secure in the knowledge that Robo would never hurt her. Nadia had never had that certainty, and Lucca wasn't sure that it existed anymore.

"Stay behind me," Lucca said, extricating herself from Nadia's hold. "If I tell you to run, don't argue."

The stricken look on Nadia's face made Lucca want to say something to comfort her, but Lucca had never been good at lying to put people at ease. The best she could do was keep her wildest fears to herself.

"Is he..." Nadia paused, pursed her lips, and finally settled on "Safe?"

Lucca shrugged and drew her gun. "No idea."

As Nadia followed her, crossbow drawn, Lucca squinted at the area around the bright metal. The earth grew browner and firmer along the way, and little spindles of darkness were just visible through the heat distortion. The area was nearly identical to the one she'd visited two days and a lifetime ago.

At last she came near enough that she could no longer tell herself that it might not be Robo. Every detail was precise, down to the dent he acquired in the Tyrano Lair that she'd never managed to buff out. But even though Lucca should have shown up on Robo's peripheral sensors, he kept planting as if she were invisible.

"Robo?" she managed.

His head swiveled to face her, and his eyes flickered. "Good morning," he said without pausing in his work. "A defect. I am a defect."

Nadia drew in a loud, shaky breath. "Lucca, what is he-"

Lucca held up a hand to cut her off. "Robo?" she said again. Her voice sounded childish in her ears. "Robo, do you remember me?"

"Understood," he replied. "Madam Lucca fixed me."

This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening, because she couldn't have fixed him in this timeline. For him to exist here...

Lucca bit her lip, then said, "You're the eye of the paradox."

Robo's head turned back to the tree he was planting. "Half-human, half-dinosaur. An unlikely life form. Our interference has made them dominant."

"What is he talking about?" Nadia whispered. "And what on earth are you talking about?"

As Robo began a rambling discourse about the children on the warlock's throne, Lucca stared vacantly at the field and said, "I don't know what he's talking about now. It's like the timestream crashed in him, and he's picking up on possibilities that never came to pass." She turned to Nadia. "But what I'm talking about is the paradox I created when I saved Sandorino. If Robo never came here, then there never would have been a fire for me to stop, but if Robo came here, then I couldn't have stopped the fire, and-"

Robo interrupted with a whirring noise. "I know you," he said, turning to Nadia. "The princess is a frog."

Nadia gave him a distressed look. "No, I'm /not/. And you've never even met me!"

Robo blinked. "Do not upset her," he said, packing dirt around a recent transplant. "She is rather agitated right now."

Lucca put a hand on Nadia's shoulder before she could say anything else. "I don't know why he's like this," she said quietly. "Something must have kept him here to stabilize the timeline, but I don't what or how." That was more ignorance than Lucca cared to admit at once, so she added, "Yet."

As he marched forward to the next hole in the ground, pulling a cart of potted saplings behind him, Robo turned to Lucca again and blinked. "Re-evaluation of data indicates that the subject is indeed tricycle-based."

"Robo," Lucca said as firmly as she could, "let me open you up and see if I can fix you. Just like old times, okay?" She retrieved a screwdriver from her bag and took a few hesitant steps forward. "I think I can-"

Something blasted her backward with the force of a fire hose, landing her in a heap several feet away. Nadia shrieked and ran to help her up. As Lucca took her hand, wincing, she looked up to see Robo continuing his work as if nothing had happened.

"Nothing touched you," Nadia said, her words tumbling out in a verbal waterfall. "You just walked and- and - WHAM! It was like something threw you, but nothing touched you and- was it the wind? Can the wind do that?" She blushed at the look Lucca shot her. "Okay, not the wind. Wait- was that magic? Is that what magic's like?"

"That wasn't magic," Lucca said, brushing the soil off her legs. When Nadia looked dubious, she sighed and said, "Look, I've been hit with everything from tiny bubbles to freaking Dark Matter, and I know what magic feels like. That was... something else."

A mechanical humming came from Robo's direction. It took Lucca only a few bars to recognize the song that Gaspar had dubbed "Memories of Crono."

"That's it," she said, clenching her fists. "Stand back. I'm torching the trees."

"Are you sure-" Nadia began, but she cut off with a startled shriek as flames erupted from the space above Lucca's palms.

The fire streaked toward the saplings, casting a stark orange glow over the world. Lucca was too preoccupied by the fact that she still had magic to appreciate the moment. Perhaps her power's metaphysical nature meant that she would keep the spells for as long as she kept the memory of them. Or perhaps-

Lucca's train of thought derailed as she watched her spell fizzle into nothingness before it came close enough to damage the trees. Gritting her teeth, she marched toward the nearest sapling and was unsurprised when she was thrown back before she got close enough to uproot it. She sent two futile gunshots at it from where she'd landed.

"See?" Lucca said as Nadia helped her up again. "That was magic. It's a lot showier than whatever's going on here."

Nadia's eyes were wide. "I can't believe I just saw that. You just moved your hands and- BOOM! Could I do that, too? The BOOM and everything?"

"Something similar, yeah." Lucca's attention had turned back to Robo, who had stopped humming and was facing her as he planted another sapling.

"Do not despair," he said. "We placed too much hope in bringing Crono back."

"But he did come back," Lucca said, half to herself. A theory was already falling together in her mind, and the more she hated it, the more plausible it became. If I'd spent last year studying paradox theory instead of tinkering, this wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have needed to see it before it clicked. Damn you, Coffee Mate 2300.

Lucca turned to Nadia with more emotion than she'd intended. "I get it now. This, the forest, the future, all of it- having Robo here keeps the paradoxes in check." She paused to wipe her glasses, which weren't dirty. "When we left him here before, he became an anchor. And the timestream didn't need two of those. So when we sent him back to his era, we erased him."

Nadia shook her head. "But you told me there was a happy ending and-"

"We erased him." The words tasted like bile, but Lucca couldn't stop them from coming: "Oh, I'm sure he was still in the future, but he was Prometheus and never Robo. We wiped Robo out of existence the moment we sent him home. Now this is all that's left of him, and I-"

Something in Robo whirred. "That was my purpose?" he said. "Impossible. That would be rude." Then he turned and went back to planting, humming a slow, almost funereal version of Gaspar's melody.

Lucca stared after him for a moment, then wiped her cheeks to make sure that she wasn't crying. "Come on," she said crisply, turning south and motioning for Nadia to follow. "There's nothing we can do here."

Nadia ran after her, throwing a worried look over her shoulder once she'd caught up. "Um, where are we going?"

"Back to Sandorino. We need a new plan."

After a moment's hesitation, Nadia put a hand on her shoulder. "Lucca, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." It came out sharper than she'd intended, so Lucca took a deep breath and said, "I mean, I'm dealing with it. I just don't want to talk about it now."

"But if you don't talk about it-"

"Not now."

Nadia paused, sighed, and followed her in silence back to the town.



Two hours after checking back into the R & R Hotel, Lucca still wasn't ready to talk about it. Instead she'd been scribbling madly in her notebook, hoping for a breakthrough and growing increasingly resentful of Sandorino. I wreck the future for you, and you give me a desk with a wobbly leg?

"Lucca?" called Nadia from her perch on the bed. "How about another, um, whatever these are?" Lucca turned to see her holding up one of the unidentified bread products they'd purchased on the way to the inn after Nadia had complained about the recent lack of meals.

Shaking her head, Lucca returned to her notes. "Not hungry."

Nadia snorted. "All I've seen you eat so far was that puffy thing with the raisins. Here, I think this is a croissant."

Something buttery landed in the middle of Lucca's sentence. Sighing, Lucca yielded to Nadia's need to be helpful and turned to face her, nibbling at the pastry. It tasted like wax paper.

"Much better," Nadia said, taking a bite out of something that might have been a muffin. "Now, we don't have to talk about, you know, that thing, but can we talk about what we're going to do next?" When Lucca didn't protest, she continued, "Okay, good. Any ideas yet?"

Lucca set down the probable croissant and sighed. "Right now, I'm thinking we should just kill everyone and hope for the best."

"Lucca! That's horrible!"

"I was kidding. At least, I think I was." She twirled her pen between her fingers to give herself something to concentrate on. "I'm just getting really frustrated. I mean, I can come up with an infinite number of theories, but there's no way to test them."

Nadia got up and peered at the mess of scratch-outs in Lucca's notebook. "For instance?"

Marle had always been a "particulars" person. Start conjecturing about deathbed regrets, and she'd want to know if there was something you wanted to go back and change. Tell her what your new invention did, and she'd display a complete lack of comprehension until you made a trial run for her. Of course, Lucca was used to that sort of mindset after a lifelong friendship with Crono. She could vividly recall having to spell out practically the entire Guardian line of succession for him after Marle disappeared. Funny how she could remember that and forget his eyes.

Well, if nothing else, fleshing out a conjecture would give her mind something else to focus on.

"Allow me to demonstrate," Lucca said, flipping to a fresh sheet of paper. "We'll work from the basis of 'Crono's Ancestry Is Disrupted.'"

Nadia shifted positions to get a better view of the page. "Yay! Story time!"

"Uh, sort of. So back around 758, let's say there was a girl-" Lucca drew a smiling stick figure in a skirt- "and a boy who was in love with her." A less happy-looking stick figure stared at the first with lopsided eyes.

Nadia inspected the artwork. "What are their names?'

"They don't have any. This is hypothetical, remember?"

"Well, they need names."

Lucca rolled her eyes. "Jack and Jill. Happy?" When Nadia nodded, she continued, "And one day, this traveling merchant from Sandorino visits." Another stick figure joined the couple, this one with a grin and a sleazy mustache. "And he-"

"What's his name?"

Lucca tapped the paper impatiently with her pen and said, "Biff. Now he-"

"I can't take him seriously if you call him Biff. Jill wouldn't pass up Jack for /Biff/."

"Okay, fine. You give him a name."

"Renaldo," she replied, a little too quickly.

Lucca quirked an eyebrow. "Someday I want to hear the story there." As Nadia's cheeks reddened, she said, "Anyway, Renaldo comes to town and sweeps Jill off her feet. They either get married or plan to, and then Renaldo goes back to Sandorino on a business trip."

Nadia nodded again, pointing at the unhappy stick figure. "Poor Jack. I think he's my favorite."

"Ahem," Lucca said, giving her a Look. "So Renaldo happens to be in his hometown when Ozzie the Whateverth attacks, and he dies in the fire." To make her point, Lucca sketched flames over his visual representation and drew "x"s over his eyes.

"Oh! I get it!" Nadia snatched the pen away. "So Jill turns to her best friend Jack," she said, drawing hearts over their heads and giving Jack a smile. "And then she realizes that she loved him all along, and they get married and have Crono's great-great-somebody." She added a happy-looking bundle of folds that was presumably meant to be a baby, then looked at Lucca and beamed.

"Exactly." Retrieving her writing utensil, Lucca added, "And in the timeline where we didn't save the forest, one of Renaldo's ancestors would have died in the landslide."

Nadia nodded. "Well, what are we waiting for? All we have to do is find Renaldo and keep him away from Jill!"

"Not so fast, Princess." Lucca grabbed Nadia's arm as she reached for her sandals. "This is all guesswork, remember? Instead of being a dashing young merchant, Renaldo might have been a murderer who killed one of Crono's ancestors. Or the priest who got Crono's very great-grandmother to join a nunnery. Heck, he might be Renalda. Or multiple Renaldos."

"Oh." Pursing her lips, Nadia flopped back onto the bed. "So how can we find out who died in the fire?"

"We can't. There's no record of it anymore." Lucca sighed. "It looks like the only way to fix this is to find a way to open another Red Gate and stop myself from saving the town."

Nadia frowned. "But then all those people would die."

"Better them than the whole planet." I can't believe I just said that. Before Lucca's brain could wrap itself around the implications, she added, "But the point's moot for now, since the Red Gates are a total mystery. As far as I can tell, they use a tremendous amount of supernatural energy to create a temporary wormhole between two specific events in the timestream." Nadia's eyes were glazing, so Lucca added, "Gate weird. We need. No can make."

"Hey!" Nadia stuck out her tongue.

Lucca returned the gesture. "Anyway, Gaspar lives at the End of Time, and I think he could help us. He's outside of time, there, too, so he should know what's going on."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Nadia leapt up and started for the door. "Let's go find him!"

Lucca grabbed her arm. "Hold your horses. The only way to open the path to the End of Time is by going through a Gate with more than three people. We're not more than three people."

"Oh." Nadia pursed her lips, then said, "Well, how hard can that be? There are lots of people around."

"Anybody you'd particularly care to trust with the secrets of space and time?" Lucca flipped over to a fresh page in her notebook. "Let's take me, for starters. I've got no friends. Zip. Nada. Nil. Just a lot of people who think I've completely lost it. And how about you? Got a lot of time to forge lasting relationships when you're running away from home every other weekend?"

For a moment, she thought that Nadia was going to slap her. But she only frowned at Lucca for a moment, then said, "Okay, I get it. We're lonely. So what else can we do?"

Didn't mean to strike a nerve, there. Lucca shrugged and said, "I know we can trust the friends I had before. And Frog's in this era. Probably still living in the... dammit." Muttering under her breath, she flipped to the narrative section of her notebook and skimmed the pages. "Cursed Woods. Why don't I remember that?"

Probably because she was developing a clear memory of her twelfth birthday party, which she had spent alone. Not even the promise of cake and party favors had lured her classmates to the "freak house," and Lara had been sick with something that required Taban's near-constant care. Left to her own devices, Lucca had dumped her cake in the garbage and spent the afternoon making furious modifications to an unfortunate appliance.

As much as she wanted to believe that she and Crono had held their own party somewhere, she couldn't remember anything to suggest that they had.

"Cursed Woods," Lucca said again, hoping that the syllables would strike a chord if she heard them often enough. "North of Porre. I should know this."

Nadia, who had probably never held a grudge against anyone who wasn't a blood relative, patted Lucca's shoulder. "It's okay. Let's go meet Frog."



At least, Lucca reflected as she and Nadia forced their way through the bug-infested bracken, we didn't waste time bathing. While the humidity and general bogginess made the woods an ideal home for amphibians, they also made it reek. The smell brought back a lot of memories, which would have made Lucca much happier if they had been about the way to Frog's hovel instead of the way her clothes had stunk for days after each visit.

"I can't believe anyone would live here," Nadia said, trudging along behind her. "It's so omigodEW!"

Lucca turned to see that the final four syllables had been prompted by Nadia's sinking her right foot into a marshy patch. Grimacing, Nadia pulled herself free and stared at her toes as if she expected to see weeds sprouting between them.

Suppressing a grin, Lucca said, "You know, you really should find some better-"

"Shoes. I know." Nadia shuddered and shook her foot in a futile effort to dislodge the grime, then let out a long sigh and started walking again. "So how far are we from Frog's place?"

"I told you, I have no i-" Lucca cut herself off as the trees suddenly gave way to a clearing. Something flickered in her memory, and she called over her shoulder to Nadia, "Straight ahead this way. Under those bushes."

The bushes in question parted with a comforting rustle as Lucca worked her arms between them, revealing a makeshift trapdoor. Beneath it was a ladder that led down into what looked like an earthen oubliette. Had Frog ever felt the need to booby-trap his home? More importantly, would he have if we hadn't come?

"It's so sad," said Nadia. "Why would anyone want to live down there?"

Lucca put a finger to her lips, then started to climb down the ladder. If Frog had heard them, he would be concealed somewhere near the ceiling, waiting to get the drop on them. In another life, he had slid from aggression to welcome in a blink. There was no telling how he might react to less familiar intruders.

Bracing herself, Lucca reached the bottom and turned, putting on her best non-threatening face.

Nothing happened. As Lucca's eyes adjusted to the dim mix of candles and filtered sunlight, she discerned the outline of someone in a wooden chair, and a low voice croaked, "Who art thou?"

From somewhere high up the ladder, Nadia stifled a shriek, resulting in a muffled, high-pitched sound that Lucca was certain would raise Frog's defenses. Instead he gave only a quiet sigh and said, "Thou art human. A maiden, if mine eyes deceive me not. Didst thou lose thy way down these dark paths?"

"I came here looking for you, actually." Lucca weighed her next word, then decided that deep depression called for desperate measures. "Glenn."

During the ensuing silence, Nadia made her way to the bottom of the ladder, looked around for a place to wipe her hands, and settled for her pants. "Hi," she said, a little too brightly.

Frog's voice shook. "What devilry is this? The visage of my queen, and the barer of my shame? Begone!"

"Wait! No devilry!" It took Lucca a moment to realize that her vehemence was unnecessary; Frog hadn't even reached for his sword. Taking a deep, calming breath, she said, "This is Nadia. She looks like the queen because she's Leene's descendent. And I'm Lucca Ashtear, the super-genius your mother warned you about. We're time-travelers."

"Devilry and witchcraft," Frog murmured. "Nay, the guilt of a soul so burdened it hath sunk at last into madness. Wilt thou, too, haunt me?"

"Oh, for the love of..." Not quite certain what was being loved, Lucca trailed off into a sigh, crossed the room to Frog's chair, and struck him once on the head.

Frog's bulbous eyes blinked, then focused sharply on her. "Thou art material. If thou art Mystics come seeking vengeance, be thou apprised that though this knave contributed naught to thy fall, still might his blade spill wicked blood."

"Wow, you sure are gloomy when you don't get to beat up on Magus." At his flinch, Lucca added, "Look, there used to be another reality where you got what you wanted. You're better than this."

Nadia nodded eagerly. "And we saved the world, and you helped save me when Leene disappeared and you had to get her but I showed up and made things weird." Despite Lucca's look, she continued, "And then there were cavemen. I bet we would've liked it."

Frog's gaze passed suspiciously from one girl to the other. "Mayhap thou art mad as well?"

"Nobody's mad here," said Lucca, "expect in the sense that I'm getting a little pissed off. You're stronger than this, and I can't stand to see you mope."

"I know this is kind of weird," added Nadia, "but Lucca says there used to be this other world where everything was better for us, so we're trying to get it back. And if you were all set to believe we were some kind of funny magic, you can believe that, too."

Lucca smiled. "Air-tight enough for me."

There was a long silence. Then, in a series of ponderous motions, Frog rose from his chair and stepped into the light. Nadia gasped, and even Lucca had to bite back a cry, although for different reasons.

It wasn't that he had degenerated in any dramatic fashion. Apparently not even despair could keep Frog from his training, and he at least went to the effort of patching the holes in his threadbare clothing. Rather, it was the summation of all the little changes- the slight stoop, the tatters in his cape, the sunkenness of his eyes- that told the story of cold hope and lost purpose. Frog might not have been inviting death per se, but he was leaving the back door unlocked and setting an extra place at dinner.

"Thou hast told me a tale," he said, indicating that his guests should seat themselves; "now shall I spin one for thee." Clearing his throat with an odd, amphibious noise, Frog returned to the chair at the far end of the table and said, "Once there lived a knight most noble and true, whose courage was unmatched in all the land. Before him evil itself did tremble, and even the vilest nightmare of hell fled. At his side was a lad, green and untried, who had naught to offer but fealty and devotion.

"And it came to pass that the golden knight set forth to cleanse the land of wickedness, and with him traveled the callow youth. Though the knight met the darkness unafraid, fortune deserted him at the moment of his greatest need. 'Tis true the lad remained at his side, yet the boy proved naught but a recreant. Nay, worse! He could not flee even to preserve himself at his dearest friend's command. And finding him unworthy of death, the darkness stripped from the wretch the shell of his humanity."

Lucca's fist hit the table. "That's not how it-"

"Pray let me finish my account, lass." Frog's eyes focused somewhere past her, as if he were reading his memories from the wall. "It came to pass that this beast, this less-than-man, had thoughts of redeeming what little honor he might by carrying on the quest of his beloved friend. Yet he met always with failure. During his vigil did his sovereign queen vanish, during his penance did his kingdom come nigh to ruin and his liege-lord fall, and in the depths of his despair was even the hope of vengeance plucked from him. There can be no honor for him now, not even an honorable end."

This time both of Lucca's hands hit the table. "Bullshit." Ignoring Nadia's increasingly frantic efforts to hush her, she said, "You're not even trying to change. You're just wallowing in it."

"Excuse us," said Nadia, grabbing Lucca's arm and dragging her away from the table. "Okay," she whispered once they were out of earshot, "what the heck are you doing?"

With an indignant noise, Lucca pointed back at the table. "Did you even understand half of what he said?"

"Yes!" At Lucca's look, Nadia amended, "Most of it." The look persisted. "The words were really pretty."

Lucca sighed. "Point is, he's got himself convinced that everything was all his fault and that he doesn't even deserve a chance to make things better."

"But you're just making him feel worse." Nadia bit her lip, then turned and walked back to her seat, where she coughed for attention. "Look," she said, "things went really bad for you. But you just need a chance! In the better world, you saved Leene and me, and you had a magic sword, and we all fought Magus together."

Frog sighed. "'Tis a fantasy, lass, and a cruel one with which to tempt the craven thou seest before thee." He paused, staring at his gloved hands. "Yet if thy tidings hide but a grain of truth... Pray, did our mission succeed?"

Lucca grinned. "We kicked his ass."

"We can show you something, too," said Nadia. "There's this place in Truce Canyon where Lucca waves her magic wand-"

"Gate Key-"

"-around, and you can go the present!" Nadia looked thoughtful. "Um, I guess it's the future for you. We have running water."

Frog's expression indicated that he had given up trying to make sense of her. "I am regaled with talk of wonders," he said, turning away, "yet I have brought only darkness and dishonor to all whom I pledged to serve. Pray leave me."

Lucca's temper snapped. "That box in the corner has the hilt of the Masamune in it, which broke off when Magus killed Cyrus and made you green. In my timeline, we fixed the sword for you and got back the medal you dropped in a fit of drunken depression, and then we all had a merry old time getting through Magus's pretentiously decorated castle." When Frog remained silent, she added, "You haven't got a bellybutton."

He shook his head. "Whether thy words be true or false means naught to me. 'Tis mine own dishonor that damns me, and though thou may offer proof beyond reproach, there is naught that can efface the stain of my guilt."

"That's not true!" Lucca couldn't stop her voice from rising. "Just because it would have happened this way without us doesn't mean this is how it's supposed to be! This isn't who you really are!"

Nadia's hand rested on her shoulder. "Lucca-"

She pulled away and took a deep, calming breath. "It doesn't matter." Then again, more firmly: "It doesn't matter. We want you to help us make the world better again, and if you can't do that for yourself, maybe you could at least do it for your king. Or your queen. Or Cyrus."

There was a protracted silence, during which even Nadia seemed to be holding her breath. At last Frog said, "Mayhap there be honor enough yet in this wretched carcass to feel the sting of shame. Yet 'tis o'ermuch for mine heart to comprehend, and I must ponder this turn of events. Pray leave me to my contemplation."

Lucca clenched her fists. "What do you want? A day? A week? We don't have time!" A nightmare flashed through her brain, of Crono's face with the eyes gouged out. "You don't understand," she said, babbling to keep her imagination at bay. "There isn't time. There really isn't time."

"Thank you," said Nadia, with a cheerfulness that very nearly didn't sound forced. "We'll come back." Grabbing Lucca by the wrist, she headed for the ladder.

"There isn't time," Lucca insisted, but she sighed and climbed out of the hovel. The sting in her eyes she attributed to the swamp vapors; she felt she'd failed enough today without adding "public hysteria" to the list.

Nadia put both hands on Lucca's shoulders and gave her friend a firm look. "Lucca. Calm. Down. You can't rush him. This is a pretty big thing to throw at somebody."

The irony of being told to calm down by Guardia's princess gave Lucca the motivation she needed to get her thoughts on track. "Right," she said, wriggling out of Nadia's grip. "I know. It's just frustrating to see him like that." She took a deep breath and started walking back toward Sandorino. "And it kind of of limits our options."

Nadia followed. "Well, let's see. Your other friends were, um, a cavewoman. That would make four, if Frog's okay when we come back."

Lucca shook her head. "There's no Gate to the prehistoric era that we can reach. It only connected to the Dark Ages and the End of Time." Funny how clear that was in her mind, probably because of the trouble they'd had getting back into Zeal.

Bingo.

Quickening her pace, Lucca said, "New plan. This is kind of a long shot, but Belthasar might still be alive in this world."

"Who?"

"Inventor of the Epoch. Lives in the-" and here's the less fun part/- "future." A low-level panic played in Lucca's head, centering on the paradox in the forest. /Breathe, she told herself. Focus. Don't obsess.

Nadia cleared her throat. "Um, are we supposed to be going to Porre?"

Gritting her teeth, Lucca turned north. Nadia didn't ask any further questions, and they arrived in silence, still stinking of the Cursed Woods, at the bridge.

"Ah," said the detachment's leader, "it's them again."

"Everyone says that," muttered the soldier nearest him, "but techinically the complement ought to be in the nominative-"

As the leader smacked him on the helmet, Nadia took the opportunity to chirp, "Yes, we had a lovely visit with our uncle," and awkwardness once again eased them past the checkpoint.

"You're good," Lucca said once they were out of earshot.

Nadia grinned. "Soldiers're easy. I used to run rings around the ones back home."

"Once again, I fear for our kingdom's security."

As they began to trace their path back to Truce Canyon, Nadia said, "If we can stop by your house for showers, I'll tell you another story."

"With a happy ending?"

"With a loofah?"

"I think I can swing that."

"You're on."