“So what did you guys do this morning?” Sam asked. “Just worked out?”

“Yeah,” said Sarah. “And you’re going to join us for cardio in the evening. In fact, we’ve come to an agreement. We’re going to have you join us every weekday from now on, alternating between mornings and evenings. At least until you’re able to do both.”

Sam laughed. “So not anytime soon then?”

“You’re going to make it in no time. Just wait and see.”

“And you guys are OK with it? This torture session that you’re going to be a part of?”

“Exercise is healthy for you, mate,” Felix answered. “Even if you weren’t training to be a soldier, you should be working out regularly.”

“Oh no. I didn’t mean torture for me, although the experience is certainly going to be awful. I meant for you guys. Just think about it, having to spend time with me, at least an hour every day? Even my parents can’t stand having me around that much.”

“Don’t joke about that.” Sarah frowned at him to the sounds of Farris’ and Felix’s laughter. “You’re great to have around.”

“What? I’m not allowed to make fun of myself anymore?”

“Not like that, you’re not.”

“This is outrageous! Almost all of my self-deprecating jokes are about how annoying I am and how other people can’t stand me… That’s because if you make people laugh about that, then they’re more likely to believe my annoying behavior is intentional and, thus, are more willing to tolerate me better.”

“Sam!”

“I can’t help it! It just comes out of me. I’m like one of those people that see in math. But instead of seeing Pi everywhere, I just see different ways to make fun of myself. And keep in mind, that it’s not as simple a job as it sounds. You can’t keep making fun of the same thing. Firstly, because at some point it will stop being funny as people will have grown used to the material. But more importantly, people will eventually internalize what you are saying and realize that what you’re saying is in fact the truth and that they really, truly, can’t stand you. No, not the nape!”

Sarah seemed to take pity on his worthless self and just squeezed his shoulder with a defeated sigh at her inability to raise Sam into some measure of self worth. “Anyway, since you three are going to have a similar schedule, I also made Felix and Yvessa promise to work out with you when I’m not able to.”

“How is having them promise something like that different from any of the jokes I made?”

“She really meant it, for starters,” Felix said. “And I don’t think she was driven so much by a low opinion of you, but rather that her opinion of us wasn’t high enough. At least, that’s what I got from her threatening us with physical violence if we stood you up.”

“You’re the only one she threatened,” Yvessa said. “And that was only because you made that stupid joke about how you weren’t going to show up if you were getting laid.”

“To be fair,” Sam said, “the saying does go ‘bros before hoes.’”

“See he get’s it.” Felix nodded.

“I will hit you,” Sarah threatened.

“How come Sam gets a pass?”

“Did you just call me a hoe?” Yvessa asked Sam.

“Yes he did,” Farris said. “But he also called himself one as well. And I do believe the saying is comedic in nature, or at least his usage of it was. You see, the original meaning—”

“I know what that phrase means, Farris. Just as I know that if I ask Sam what he meant by it, then he’s going to say something stupid about how he’s actually sexist and it wasn’t a joke.”

Sam snuffled and made as though he were drying his tears. “I was going to do that!” He nodded eagerly. “I was going to say something along the lines how about all women are hoes but also worthless, and because I’m worthless, that means I’m a hoe as well. A two in one! Yvessa!” He reached over the table in order to hug her, but she just shook her head and made no effort to meet him halfway.

“I don’t think your logic works there, mate,” Felix said.

“What, my logic is what you’re having trouble with? Not the part about how all women are worthless?”

“I’m just going after the statement most easy to disprove.”

“Do both of us have to be there with him, Sarah?” Yvessa asked.

“I don’t know. Which of them is ‘him?’ Because if it’s Felix you’re trying to make fun of, then I’m going to allow it. But if it’s Sam, then no.”

“This is literally 1984,” Sam said. “Now even other people can’t make fun of me? You’re just going to make the other children resent me by treating me like this, you know? I mean, look at Yvessa. She’s positively stewing in her rage. She wants to lash out at me.”

“She’s just going to have to bottle it all down until she complexly forgets that she had any negative feelings about you in the first place.”

“That’s not going to work at all. Bottling feelings is just going to make you end up with a black hole of negativity inside of you. And I would know a thing or two about that, considering what my favorite video game is.”

“Oh?” Farris twirled his fingers. “Do tell.”

“Don’t,” Yvessa said.

“Ooh, what a conundrum. Caught between a rock and a mentor who I don’t respect at all.”

“I’m the rock right?” Farris asked.

“You’re certainly as thick as one,” Yvessa said.

“So how does the ‘making no fun of Sam’ rule work in practice?” Felix asked Sarah.

“Only Sam is allowed to make fun of himself, and only on certain topics.”

“You make fun of him as well.”

“With him, not of him. And I’m allowed, as I am not getting any joy from doing that. I’m only trying to accommodate Sam as best as I can.”

“And we thank you for your sacrifices.” Sam reclined his head, then turned to Felix and Yvessa. “We’ll just have to keep the good jokes for when she’s not around. Write down your joke and the context surrounding it when you think of one and save it until Big Sister’s out of earshot.”

“What about if you’re out of earshot?” Felix asked. “Are we allowed to make fun of him then, Sarah?”

“No.”

“You guys talk about me when I’m not around?” Sam asked.

“Sarah does. We just listen and nod,” Felix said.

“That’s tough. You have my sympathies. The world would be a better place if no one ever spoke of Sam Anders again. Never mind, that’s too dark. I take it back.”

“That’s smart. I could see Sarah’s hand beginning to hover behind you.”

“That’s parental abuse, you know?” Sam turned his head to Sarah.

“You’ve already made that joke,” Sarah retorted.

“Today?”

“During this meal.”

“Well something’s certainly got to give. Any chance of you changing your ways? No? Then I’ll have to branch out to describing other forms of physical violence. How about elder abuse? Or does it cancel itself out because we’re both old as fuck?”

“How about you don’t call it abuse at all and just be thankful than I’m taking such good care of you?” She brushed his hair.

Sam gulped. “Farris, take me with you to back to Maynil, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Too late. I’ve already decided on the perfect person to teach you about threads.”

“Who’d you pick?” Yvessa asked.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Figures… You are going to consult with Erianna before making a decision though, right? Seeing as she probably knows the teachers better than you do. It’s been what? A million years since you had to study the topic?”

“Har har. I’ll talk with her, sure, see who she liked best. But seeing as I’m the one who taught her the most on the subject, I do believe that I’m a better judge of our teachers than she is.”

“How come you have so many teachers and we don’t have any?” Felix asked, with only a hint of the bitterness he was probably feeling apparent in his voice.

“Because the very few Terrans capable of teaching Thread-Weavers who aren’t Rulers, in active combat, or disinterested in teaching, are at Larsus.”

“Why can’t they be here?”

“Because there’s only two of them, one is a grandmother who’s married to an elf and the other one is trying to become a Ruler and he wouldn’t make for a very good teacher anyway, particularly not for Sam.”

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“Too hot?” Sam asked. “I would get too distracted?”

“Too hot tempered. But who can blame him when your one goal is to become a Ruler and your body dealt you a shit hand.”

“Felix just wants to make sure that you’re not hogging all the young hot Terran talents to yourselves.”

“I’m letting them keep you, aren’t I?”

“Yes, that’s a good point, Felix. Your forgot how awesome I am.”

“That’s my bad. I’ll be sure to hug my Sam Anders body pillow extra tight when I go to sleep today to make up for it.”

“Hmm… I like it, but I’m not sure it’s allowed. Judge?”

“It’s fine,” answered Sarah.

“Note that down, lady and gentlemen. Sarcastic agreements are allowed, so long as what you’re agreeing with is a positive statement regarding myself.” He turned to Sarah. “But, it’d be a lot easier if you just made a list of which types of jokes are allowed and which aren’t wouldn’t you agree?”

“Or… I could hit someone when they make a joke about you that I don’t like and thus physically condition you three to behave yourself.”

“Us three?” Yvessa asked. “What about Farris?”

“Are you suggesting that she hit me? A royal prince? Why, that’s tantamount to treason.”

“I can’t hit him,” Sarah said. “He’s my boss.”

“Not yet, actually,” Sam said. “He’s only going to become our boss once we finish our tenure here and officially join the fighting infantry. So until then there’s no hierarchal barrier preventing you from inflecting violence upon his royal person.”

“He could kill me.”

“He won’t. Would you?”

Farris shook his head. “No, of course not… I’d wait until she’d come under my command and then send her on a suicide mission.”

“Ah… A real royal move there. Respect. See, Sarah, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Feel free to punish him for my sake.”

“I’m pretty sure going on a suicide mission counts as a reason to be afraid,” Sarah said

“Sure, but every mission carries with it the risk of death. And who’s to say which mission is suicidal and which isn’t? Besides, a suicide mission is guaranteed to be completely safe in the case of the odds being a million to one. Which they often are in a fantasy narrative like ours.”

“Life isn’t a book, Sam.”

“Of course not. One single book? Perish the thought. Why, just listing down all of my hot takes would take a full-bodied hardcover. But, at the very least, think of our life as a never-ending series of adventure books, which are guaranteed to last for a lifetime because that’s how long the divorced author will have to pay alimony for. That is the only way to capture the myriad complexities that is our very being.”

“Life isn’t a never-ending series of books as well, Sam.”

“Look, think of this salt shaker, going up and down and back and forth.”

“What are you even trying to say? You’re just moving it around.”

“Yeah, I know. I was sure that I was going to think of a metaphor in time. Ah ha! Got it. Think of this salt shaker as me, your precious a hundred-and-something-year-old new Taken. Now think of this table as the entire world, I mean Web, and everyone in it. Every story to be told, every life to have been lived and those yet to be born.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“If you’ll just let me finish… Now, think of this table as an electron in motion. It only exists in space and time as long as someone is there to observe it. And if it just so happens that an electron doesn’t actually work like that, then throw away the analogy and just focus on the other thing I said. Now, we’re going to take me, the salt shaker, out and away from the table, returning to the status-quo that reigned in existence until six days ago. Are we clear so far?

“Good, so what are we left with? That’s right, a simple boring table. You might say, ‘Sam, that’s not a table, that’s the real world and everyone living in it.’ But I’ll say ‘Nuh uh. There’s no one out there to observe that this table is more than just a table because it doesn’t exist if there’s no one to observe it.’ OK? Now we move the salt shaker back to the table and what do we have now?”

“A dirty table?” Felix ventured.

“No. An unsavory meal. Which needs salt. Which is where I come in as the hero. Which makes this a story. Which is what I was trying to prove.”

“That made no sense,” Yvessa said.

“It was awful,” Felix agreed.

“I liked it,” said Farris. “It confirmed to a few of my conjectures regarding the nature of existence and the meaning of life.”

“Thank you.” Sam extended his hand towards his precious mentor. “At least someone gets it.”

“Yes. And casting yourself as the salt? Very appropriate.”

“Sarah…” Sam nudged her shoulders. “Farris made fun of me.”

Sarah was busy rubbing her temple, which was probably why she didn’t rise to Sam’s defense. “Sam? You know how you just complained about not knowing whether the stuff you hear about is important or not? I sometimes think the exact same way about some of the stuff that you say.”

“Oh. That’s very easy to figure out. I’ll tell you the secret. Just consider everything I say as stupid and not serious. Unless I’m angry while saying that. In which case, I am serious, but I’m very likely not in the right and am unjustifiably upset. In the rare case that I do have a reason for feeling mad, then I’m probably still in the wrong as the way in which I express my anger is not appropriate for the preceding circumstances.”

“Sam! I’m serious.”

“So was I, paradoxically.

“Sam!”

“What? OK, so I say a lot of stupid stuff. But if it’s something that I really care about, then I’ll let you know. Don’t worry about it. Besides, obviously I wasn’t completely serious about the whole ‘this is a book and I’m the main character’ bit.”

“Not completely serious?” Felix asked. “So there was a part of you that somewhat meant it?”

“What? No. No. That’s not what I meant. I assure you, unlike Farris, I have no delusions of my grandeur.”

“Than that means that you were serious about how this world is like a story.” Yvessa frowned. “Which is much more concerning than over-believing in yourself, in my opinion.”

“No.” Sam waved her off. “That’s not what I meant.”

“If you’re trying to say that you still think that this world isn’t real, then I will hit you,” Sarah said in a halting voice.

“No! Of course not,” Sam lied. “I’ve gotten over that completely.” He hasn’t. While not as deep into total skepticism as he was five days ago, he still held a bigger measure of existential doubt than he was used to. But that wasn’t important right now. He was digging himself into deeper and deeper holes while trying to escape the consequences of making a seriously unfunny bit. And now Sarah looked like she was two seconds from crying because she was taking what he said too much to heart.

Sam had to pivot. He had to change the tone and focus of the conversation completely. And he had to do so in such a way that showed that he not only completely believed in the totality of reality but also that he didn’t share Farris’ high regard for himself at all. He only had one chance at this. And so, he turned to the one method that he knew worked best, making fun of the Japanese.

“OK, OK, I’ll tell you what I meant. It’s not that I think life is a story or anything. Obviously, that would be mental. But there was something that bothered me and I kept fixating on that might have had a thing or two to do with me coming up with that metaphor that I, again, was completely joking about.” He turned and pointed a blaming finger at Farris, who was in the middle of taking a bite, unconcerned by the turmoil around the table. “He started it!”

“I saw him using a phone, and ever since then, it hasn’t left me. I mean, what kind of elf uses a phone? That’s not what elves do. In what stories do elves use phones? I’ll tell you in what kind, shitty iskeai ones. And I know what you’re going to say: ‘Shitty isekai? Isn’t the first part redundant?’ And why, yes Felix, it is. Insert laugh track here. It is redundant.

“And I know what you’re going to say now: ‘That doesn’t help your argument at all. You just said that you didn’t think about how life was a book, but now you criticize reality because it’s similar to bad literature?’ But that’s just because you haven’t heard the rest of my thought process. You see, right after thinking about how having the horrid thought that the real world was similar to an isekai. After that, I had another thought: ‘Isn’t isekai just rip-off or another name for a certain sub-genre of fantasy? And wouldn’t that genre might provide us with examples of elves using phones that aren’t a heap of garbage?’ Why yes, yes it does. Bam! Shadowrun! Bam! The world that I made up in my head, which is almost identical to Shadowrun in concept except without the cyberpunk theme, but that I also came up with before knowing Shadowrun was a thing.”

He paused there to take a much needed drink of water. “Where are you going with this, Sam?” asked Sarah, who seemed to regain her calm somewhat.

“It’s just this: you guys are worrying that I think that this life isn’t real and I’m in a book—”

“Or a dream, or a simulation. I seem to recall you giving those examples as well.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. That was first day Sam, that guy was a mouldy piece of clay. What I’m trying to say is, you don’t need to worry about me. I know, no strike that, too strong a statement. I believe that this world is real, but even if it isn’t, I don’t care and am willing to treat it as reality. Why? Because, through the power of mental deduction, I concluded that, despite elves using phones, there is no chance that the story we’re living through, if indeed life isn’t real, is an isekai. And if it isn’t an isekai, if it’s just similar enough to a story that I myself came up with years ago, then I’m fiiiine. But because a part of me is still the same old ball of anxiety, I kept thinking about this and wondering whether this world might still count as an isekai if made into a story. And that’s why I fixated on that stupid table and salt bit. I’m sorry.”

“I have no idea what you were talking about,” Yvessa said. “In fact, I’m now less assured of your sanity than I was before.”

“Yvessa!” Sarah hissed at her.

“I got it,” said Felix. “Although Sam is completely wrong. His life is one-hundred percent an isekai. Or he’s and Sarah’s, to be more concise. All modern Taken actually.

“No it isn’t!” Sam argued. “How do you even know what isekai is anyway?”

“I read books. I watch TV. The sub-genre still exists, although it’d be more correct to categorize it as a sub-sub-genre. And you guys check all the check-marks for an isekai story.”

“No we don’t.”

“Yes you do. Born on earth? Check. Transported by a mysterious power into a different world? Check. Said world has different races and magic and can be categorized as pre-modern fantasy? Check. Main character is extremely unlikeable? Check. Also has a cheat power? That’s another check. These two last ones are just you, though, Sam.”

“OK, first, I don’t agree with your conclusion. Two, that was a joke at my expense, so make sure Sarah hits you later. Three, I’ll agree with the extremely unlikeable part, too mild I’ll even say, but I won’t agree with the cheat power point. That’s bullshit. I got nothing going on for me.”

“What about the whole Thread-Weaver stuff?”

“That doesn’t count because A: it’s not unique. And B: it’s not something that was given to me. That’s like counting good genes as a cheat power.”

“But you don’t know whether being a Thread-Weaver was inborn or a quality you acquired later in life,” Yvessa said.

“Sure… Yeah, I don’t. But it seems reasonable to assume that it’s something inborn, right?”

“Indeed, that makes sense to me as well. I’m with Sam. It doesn’t sound like a cheat power.”

“You don’t even know what a cheat power is!” Felix said.

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” declared Sarah. “The point is that our life isn’t similar at all to an… isekai, right? An isekai story, so Sam has no reason to think that this world isn’t real.”

“Now hold.” Sam raised his hand. “I didn’t say that it isn’t similar at all. There are some similarities, there must be since we do posses some of the features of the greater portal fantasy sub-genre. But, similar to the good old quadrilateral example, isekai is a rectangle while we are more of a trapezoid.”

“Who’s side are you on?”

“Mine, obviously. And the truth, of course. But that’s just saying the same thing twice, right guys?”

“Thinks too much of himself?” Felix said. “Check.”

“OK enough out of you, check boy. We’re done talking about this. Life, if made into a book or some other form of entertainment, is not an isekai. End of discussion.”

“I don’t know…” drawled Farris.

“Oh, I was wondering when we were going to hear from you,” Yvessa said. “Where do you stand on the issue?”

“Hmm… thank you for asking. And I’ll admit, I didn’t know what isekai meant, so I was out of my depth for most of the conversation. That is, at least, until Sam mentioned that it is like Terran portal fantasy. Now that genre I know.”

“Sub-genre,” Sam corrected him. “Wait, no! That doesn’t matter. We were done talking about this.”

“But surely you should take the opinion of your dear mentor into consideration. I was the one that started you on this road of thought, after all, did I not? By the way, it is somewhat racist to think elves don’t use phones.”

“Now you’re just twisting my words. I didn’t say that you don’t use phones. That’s a descriptive statement. I said elves shouldn’t be using phones. That it’s twisted and revolting. A normative statement.”

“That makes it very racist then.”

“I’m just trying to keep the world the same way it was when I was growing up and educated on Tolkien. If that makes me a racist? Then so be it.”

“You’re going to have so much fun in the multi-racial modern army.”

“Thank you. I can’t wait to learn some stereotypes about the other races so that I’ll know how I should be treating and thinking about them.”

“Oh, but we can take care of that right now. Let’s start with the race you’re least likely to meet: the ningani. The first thing you should know about—”

“No!” Sarah and Yvessa yelled.

“You’re not seriously thinking that this world isn’t real, right?” Felix asked Sam, leaning in while the other two were busy ganging up on Farris. Sam pursed his lips, furrowed his brow, and rolled his eyes. A perfect, obviously not, face. “Good, then that means that we can talk about this isekai business later. I’m still not convinced.”

“Come to me in a year’s time. We’ll reopen the discussion.”