Now

  Regina looked at me, a gleam of delight in her eye. “You want to meet him?”

  I gnced down at the creature. It wasn’t quite a fox and definitely wasn’t a bouquet of flowers. It was, however, adorable all the way through. “Absolutely.”

  She bent and got her face in his. “Dee, this is Christopher. He’s our new recruit. We’re going to take him over to the castle and get him registered, then we’ll escort him to the academy.”

  A happy go lucky expression appeared on Dee’s face, his tongue lolling.

  “Just let him sniff you,” she told me. I first had to sit, because my legs really don’t like me hunkering down. After that was as awkward as could possibly be, and after I made noises like an octogenarian, I put my hand out.

  Dee sniffed at my hand, then yipped twice. The sound was filled with pure joy, and I couldn’t tell you how I knew that. I just knew. Dee leaned into my hand and allowed me to scratch at her head and ears, and the flowers sprouting inside and around her ears.

  “Um… do they, are they real?”

  She nodded. “They’re real. Dee is partly mammalian and partly pnt, so he photosynthesizes and also consumes food. The working theory right now is that the photosynthesis is for emergency purposes. He usually eats like a horse.”

  Dee liked the scratches, just like any doggo, so I went a little overboard, getting behind his forelimbs and over his back. He then went for the belly scratches too. The fur was incredibly soft there, long and white. He felt pure and magical. He was definitely the tter.

  Regina snorted ughter. “Oh yeah, he’ll just y there the whole day if you keep doing his belly like that.”

  “How did you… are there more like him?”

  She waved her hand up and down. “Yes and no. There will be a lot of fox-like creatures, but some of them will be part fish, some will be part lightning, some will be part steel or bronze, and then you’ll get the weird ones.”

  “Weird like what?”

  “Part fox and part whimsy. Part fox and part strategy expert. Fox with wings. Foxicorn. Void fox.”

  I ughed, watching Dee’s leg twitch with each soft belly scratch. Imagining a unicorn fox and then trying to wrap my head around what a void fox might be was both hirious and difficult. “I guess I’d better get to the academy and start learning everything from teachers and books, in cssrooms.”

  She grinned. “I confess to being pretty terrible at expining things. It’s why I’m a Ranger and guide instead of a teacher.”

  I nodded.

  “Any idea what you’ll end up being?”

  “Absolutely none.”

  Although I’d tried to get some of the reading done before I made it through the portal, there was a lot to prepare for my family. A division of income. I’d be making more money than I’d ever imagined, and that money wasn’t coming to the new world with me. Instead I set up auto deposit, then auto divided it out between Sarah, who would get a monthly stipend with the message ‘For Brayden from Toph’ and my folks would get most of the rest. They’d get a simir message. A tiny bit was staying, and would be headed for managed stock buys through a company Johnson introduced me to.

  So long as money went to my parents and my sister, great.

  And as I’d watched, Dick Johnson put over two hundred thousand dolrs into my account as a signing bonus. “As a show of good faith.”

  I just goggled at him.

  For the rest, there was also a scary bit about signing a living will, buying up some premium life insurance, and so much more that it became a dizzying headache. By the time they brought me to the portal location and into the portal room, I’d been taking regur naps after hours in the office. Finally, after mountains of paperwork and non-disclosure agreements, they went into the final stretch: what I should pack (basically nothing), and what I could expect in the other world. The details were left vague. “Everyone’s experience is different,” the HR person said. “You will see magic.”

  Here, Dick Johnson returned. “We’ve left it vague for several reasons,” he said. “One, most people don’t believe it. Two, you’ve already signed all these non-disclosure agreements… the less you know, the less you might distribute around the internet… not that anyone would believe you, but we don’t like to take those sorts of chances. Three, it kind of spoils the fun.”

  I just nodded. “Oh… kay. The fun?”

  “The fun.”

  This is Christopher rediscovering fun.

  ***