Theora realised she was dreaming when Dema’s tail twitched in her arms.

Dema didn’t have a tail. Much less one so thick Theora could use it as a body pillow while the rest of Dema was sprawled out across and beneath blankets and Theora’s legs.

It was a true bummer. Theora gave the tail a squeeze and then a kiss. Dema moaned a little, all sleep-drunk, but didn’t wake up. If this was a dream, then couldn’t Theora do some pretty amazing things right now? She could go outside and make up new flowers that didn’t exist… She could make some truly outlandish tea, maybe. Sky tea? Star tea?

“Mm,” Dema murmured and turned in her bed. The demon horn on her forehead grew and branched into an intricate crystal antler, glittering in the moonlight like frosted glass. “Could use time to infuse tea,” she murmured, half asleep.

Time tea. Actually, Time. Wasn’t there—

Dema’s tail twitched again. Theora hugged a bit closer. Truth be told, even time tea couldn’t compare to snuggling up to Dema.

Theora realised she was dreaming when Bell won at hide-and-seek. Dema would never let Bell win.

She watched them from the kitchen table, cutting forms out of cookie dough with a pair of scissors.

“Why do you cut them like this?” Treeka asked.

Theora blinked, then looked down at what she was producing. One of them was round, like a cookie. But within dreams, things might not be what they seemed. Indeed, a round shape could be anything. It could be a planet, the sun — or an eye.

The other cookie Theora had cut out was a little less ambiguous — it was an arm.

“I just cut them the way I want,” Theora admitted. “Hadn’t thought much of it.”

Treeka let out a hum. She was sitting on a thick root, her hand grazing it softly. Suddenly, an iridescent antler sprouted from underneath the bark between two of her fingers. As if trying to reach out to Theora, the antler stretched and stretched — until the farthest branch broke off, shattering into a puff of silver dust.

Treeka nodded at the shape forming in Theora’s hands. “You’re making body parts. That one looks like a—”

Bell suddenly cheered. She’d won again, it seemed. Theora looked back down and found herself cutting off a silver antler branch.

One after another, friends walked by the coffee table with Lostina’s legs on it. The table stood on calm water as it reflected the gently clouded, bright sky. Theora didn’t know where to look — it was all so beautiful. But her gaze kept finding Lostina, because Lostina was the reason they were here.

Lostina tucked a strand of green hair behind her ear as she watched Gonell pass by between trees growing out of the water on the other side of the clearing. “Gosh, I still get flutters when I see her,” she murmured with a smile. Then her gaze returned to Theora, and after a moment she broke into a laugh. “What!” she said accusingly.

“Nothing,” Theora said, smiling back. “Just glad you don’t have to hide your affection for her anymore.”

Lostina shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “Yeah, we sorted stuff out. Not seeing each other much for a few years helped too. Makes it a bit less awkward…”

“I can imagine.” Theora crossed her legs and absentmindedly picked a fork into her cake on the plate of the small table, arm stretched out to reach it.

Lostina frowned.

“What?” Theora asked, having just stuffed her mouth. “Everything alright?”

“That’s what I want to ask,” Lostina said. Her eyebrows knitted themselves together. She gestured up and down Theora. “Since when can you hold yourself so confidently?”

After looking around with a suspicious gaze in her eyes, Lostina inspected the palm of her hand — then pressed down on it with her other thumb. It went right through, like she was a ghost.

“Ah. It’s a dream. That’s why.”

Theora pulled a grimace. “I didn’t want to realise that yet.”

“How long have you been asleep to concoct a scenario like that?”

“You wound me,” Theora said. “I’m a little more talkative right now than I would be if I was awake, but I did make progress.”

“Progress?” Lostina asked, mulling over the word. “Well, it’s about Time.”

Theora winced. “That’s… well, yes. I’ve been making progress with that too.” Theora sighed, looking at the prototype pair of SCISSoRs she was holding.

“Wasn’t that a fork a moment ago?” Lostina asked.

“Ah, sorry.”

“Don’t tell me this is your dream? God, and I thought I was rid of authorial influence.”

Snap, snap. The SCISSoRs didn’t leave a cut in the world because Theora wasn’t using them with intent yet. Quite convenient.

“I will try not to subject you to too much authorial intent,” Theora promised, trying to swat a cloud away from between them. Then she held up the SCISSoRs for Lostina to see. “It’s an instrument we made to retrieve the Fragments of Time,” Theora explained, then playfully added: “You were the one who brought that up.”

“Sorry about that,” Lostina said. She leaned back in what now was a couch; Theora didn’t quite remember what it was before. “So, does it work?”

Theora blinked. “Does what work? The instrument?”

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“Yeah,” Lostina said, nodding with a curious expression on her face.

“No idea,” Theora murmured, eyeing it while scratching her head. “Couldn’t try it out yet. It’s a prototype, and I would need to enter another world to make an actual attempt.”

Lostina gave a look, then gestured at the surface of the lake they sat on, at the trees growing from it, and at the chocolate. Theora followed with her gaze, but eventually re-established eye contact, confusion showing in her face by way of what she assumed to be a frown. “What?”

Lostina clicked her tongue, then pointed at the black hole in the water on the horizon. Then, she pointed at the bright sky, where the sun was missing.

“I know the dream isn’t perfect,” Theora said defensively. “Please don’t judge.”

“I’m not judging you,” Lostina lied. “All I’m saying is — is this not a different world? Your dream world. Ulfine said you can find Fragments in other worlds you haven’t gotten one from before, right?”

Theora’s finger involuntarily twitched, grabbing unhappily into her pants. “You weren't there for that.”

“But I’m a fabrication of your subconscious. It’s called being meta. Sorry — I come from postmodern earth. This kind of stuff is all over pretentious media of my time.” Lostina hesitated, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Wait. We’re in your dream, so… if I know that, then you do too. But how do you know that?”

Theora shrugged with a hint of pride. “Well, I’ve grown up on postmodern earth too.”

“Wait, really?” Lostina perked up her eyebrow and then leaned forward, taking her legs off what was now a coffin. “You never told me.”

Obviously Theora had never told her — because, “It happened after we met.”

“Ugh.” Lostina massaged her temples in mild annoyance and then gave up, falling back into what was now a large cushion. “Okay, fine, I get it. I’ll stop teasing you with dream knowledge and you’ll stop teasing me with real life knowledge. Deal?”

Theora wanted to answer, but—

“Can you keep this dream a little more consistent, please? I’m getting disoriented.”

Theora put away the whale. “Sorry, I was focusing on what you said.”

Lostina nodded at the SCISSoRs in Theora’s hand. “So, are you going to try them out?”

Snap, snap. “Maybe I should,” Theora mused. “It’s a dream, after all. Not like anything could go wrong.”

Lostina winced at that, and this is when Theora remembered the concept of ‘death flags’ and ‘dramatic irony’. “Don’t worry,” Theora reassured. “We’re not in an author’s story anymore.”

“You are the author right now, and that’s terrifying,” Lostina deadpanned immediately. “Like okay, you’re the strongest being to ever exist, but usually you don’t have the ability to change the entire world around you. Authors have responsibility, you know? Can’t just do whatever. You need to be mindful— And, honey, please. The whale.”

Theora sighed, and patted the whale on its back to send it off. It flew to the horizon, getting smaller. Theora shrank in turn to get back to Lostina’s size. “Sorry. They are my favourite animals, I get distracted.”

“Didn’t you just say you were focusing on me?”

Theora turned to look at Lostina’s frown. “I am. You were scolding me about needing to take on more responsibility for my creations. And I am. I offered Isobel help, and I’m sure she’ll come to me if she needs me.”

Lostina pressed her eyes shut, like fending off a headache. Two silver antlers started growing from her forehead. “You’re changing the topic.” She pointed at Theora’s hands again. “Are we going to do it or not?”

Snap, snap. Theora sighed. Might as well.

Theora realised she was dreaming when, upon cutting the fabric of reality with prototype SCISSoRs, it actually worked.

“Wow, damn,” Lostina let out, leaning forward to inspect the thin cut. “That’s spooky.”

“It really is,” Theora agreed. “I’m glad that it’s a dream and that I’m not really doing it.”

That prompted Lostina to give her a look.

“Sorry,” Theora mumbled. Dramatic irony again. “Slipped out.”

Lostina sighed, shaking her head ever so slightly. “Stop slipping about that, I’m serious.” She gestured at a train driving along tracks on the horizon — it caused waves in the water flooring, but they didn’t reach far. Then, the train crashed into an iceberg. “See, stuff like that? Writers often use dreams to add foreshadowing. Have to be mindful of what you say.”

“I’m not an author,” Theora said. “And you are being a bit—” She swallowed, catching herself before raising another flag. “Fine.”

“Even if you’re not an author, we are in a dream, and both conscious of it.” Lostina let out an unhappy grumble. “I hate dream chapters. They have no tension because anything can happen and at the same time, nothing ever does happen because the characters will conveniently forget everything and nothing they did will matter.”

Theora smiled. “Don’t worry, I will remember everything.”

“Theora, you can’t be serious.”

Oh, right… dramatic irony again. That sure was a bother; like it punished the exact quality Theora had only recently attained: a sliver of self-confidence.

“Not only that,” Lostina added, “but you are also notoriously bad at remembering things. It has less to do with self-confidence than it does with self-awareness.”

“L-let’s move the plot forward,” Theora said quickly. She leaned forward, head next to Lostina’s, their hair touching as they both looked closely at the gleaming fringes of reality, colours aberrating in strands of loose ends. “Probably should have sharpened it more.”

“Yeah. Also looks like you’ll need some kind of tool to sew the rift shut again.”

“You mean like… a stapler?”

Lostina gave her another look. She didn’t seem to be running out of them. “No, I don’t mean a stapler. Since when do you know what staplers are? Do they have staplers in your world?”

“They probably do,” Theora mused. “But I told you, I grew up in Reality as well.”

“Still, why would you think of a stapler? This is tailor’s work. Obviously I was talking about a needle.”

Theora blinked. She looked around; they were in a sewer’s workroom now. “Right. Yes, a needle. You can weave wounds shut with a needle and thread too, that’s true.”

“Ah…” Lostina sighed. “You’re thinking of it as a wound. Figures.”

“Well,” Theora started, conjuring a mechanical stapler from thin dream air, “it is a wound.” The workshop changed to an old hospital surgery chamber, with empty seating rows climbing up around the operating table, which the wound in the world hovered over. Then, right as she was about to close it, Lostina grasped her wrist.

“Wait,” she said. She didn’t look like Lostina anymore. She looked like… Theora couldn’t quite place it, the face was mushed and blurry, but antlers grew from the forehead. Frosted glass antlers, and whenever a branch grew too far, it broke, revealing a puff of silver dust. “You forgot to take it out first,” Not-Lostina said.

Theora sighed and gently squeezed her arm through the opening. Then, she tugged.

Tugged, and tugged. Focused on finding what was hidden behind the fabric of this world. The thing that was lost, filed away, never to be put together again.

She pulled it out.

Not-Lostina let out a strangled noise when she saw what appeared. “Gosh, that looks like a—”