#The Man in Grey | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jennyeverywhereday · 2 years ago

Text

“The Wedding of Jenny Everywhere”

Site regular Aristide Twain has a chapter story this year (cross-posted from The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids). More of his stuff can be found on his Tumblr (including a completely canon Jenny Everywhere Day Fun Fact).

He's also working on an interview with Joe Macaré and Nelson Evergreen of classic Jenny Everywhere fame, but sadly it won't be done for today's event.

Whenever it's completed I'll post here so everyone can get a chance to read it.

For now, click past the cut to experience a marriage ceremony unlike any other…

Chapter 1: Someone Old

Doctor Laura Drake, genius inventor, C.E.O of the Altern Corporation, and amateur supervillain, was not always working in her laboratory on a delicate, time-sensitive experiment when Jenny Everywhere came knocking at her front door. No, not every time.

Sometimes, for example, she was in the middle of making breakfast.

88 Curie Avenue was a large, stately home, and it so happened that the kitchen was located at the back of the house, as far away as possible from the lobby. Laura had to run across three or four rooms, making sure not to trip on any of the abandoned prototypes, equipment, and other miscellaneous items which littered every part of the house, as the doorbell kept ringing with the stubbornness of a visitor who knew very well how distracted Laura could get when she was deep in an experiment.

Finally, she unlocked the door and opened it to predictably reveal Jenny Everywhere.

Well, she thought, better her than the Mayor.

At some point following the affair on Nowhere Island, Laura’s one and only girlfriend had reinvented her wardrobe of many years; gone were the blue trousers and green jacket, replaced with a long, rust-coloured coat and a pair of orange plaid trousers. Now, the coat, Laura could get behind, but the pants simply had to go, and that wasn’t some facile innuendo, thank you very much. Though it be as idiosyncratic as every other part of her lifestyle, Laura’s aesthetic sense was a sharp, unyielding thing, and she simply could not tolerate anything this screamingly orange (her own hair excepted).

Naturally, Jenny being Jenny, the new look was now every bit as unshakable as its predecessor; she wore it day in and day out, outdoors and indoors. In fact, what with everything, Laura had yet to catch a glimpse of what kind of a shirt the other woman wore under that coat — if any.

Perhaps today would be the day she’d find out — and if she got that far, she might very well find out what she wore under the shirt, too. The sky was the limit.

After all, Jenny’s arms were free, and there was no stroller in sight: evidently, she had left that baby daughter of hers at home.

Sophie Everytime — Jenny’s baby. Jenny Everywhere… had a daughter. Laura still found it hard to wrap her head around the notion, at times, all the more because she hadn’t seen very much of the baby since she had finally been born in linear time. The news had taken her by surprise, having come several months ahead of schedule for reasons which Laura could guess had less to do with medical anomalies and more to do with yet again more temporal paradoxes. Ah, what a fascinating subject of study the baby time-shifter would have made — but, of course, her inability to completely quench that basic craving was precisely the reason why the young mother had decided not to ask Laura to babysit, let alone co-parent.

And Laura understood that. She respected it. It had been a decade since she and Jenny had agreed that they would never see eye-to-eye on certain things, and made their peace with that; their relationship was founded on boundaries, and the scrupulous respect thereof, from the bed to the battlefield.

It just stung that, in practice, it had meant seeing so very little of Jenny herself, these last few months.

That was, she supposed, why her first reaction upon seeing Jenny again, alone and in no obvious state of crisis, was to pull her close by the lapels of her dark red coat, and kiss her smack on the mouth before she could even wave ‘Hello’.

“Mmmmh!?”

Jenny liked spontaneous things. It took the Shifter the briefest moment to realise what was happening, and then wrap her arms around Laura, pulling her closer as she added her own pressure to the kiss. But it was her who broke it first, eyes still wide, face slightly flushed.

“Woo-hoo,” she said in a light voice. “Lor, you are very good at this. I know I say this, like, every time, but dang.”

“Yes — well —” Laura blushed and adjusted her glasses. “You know I strive for excellence in every project I undertake.”

“And kissing girls is a project?”

“Kissing you,” Laura corrected. She was smiling, but there was a serious look in her eyes. “You know you’re the only one.”

“I know, I know,” said Jenny. “— May I come in?”

Without waiting for an answer, the Shifter took Laura’s hand and led her in a little half-spin across her porch, pivoting towards the inside of the house and then taking off into the lobby and the big, dark rooms beyond. Laura followed, quickly catching up to Jenny and then overtaking her so that she could quickly slide the bits of machinery out of harm’s way before they got trodden upon.

“— I mean, it’s still wild to me,” Jenny pattered as she walked. “I know I’m a handful, but still, nobody else? Not ever? You know I wouldn’t mind, I really wouldn’t —”

“In this, as in — careful, that’s live — as in everything else, I have exacting stand — watch out!”

Jenny stopped just short of stepping on a discarded cylindrical piston, left over from a failed attempt at a portable steam engine, which would doubtless have sent her careening into the shelf full of beakers and test-tubes that covered every part of the dining room wall except for the door through to the kitchen.

“You really should clean up in here, y’know,” Jenny observed blankly.

“I — yes, well — where are you going, anyway? What do you want?”

“Aw, can’t I just be dropping in?” Jenny said with a forced smile.

“The last time you tried to feed me that one,” Laura scoffed, “you’d just discovered your sister had replaced your boyfriend with an evil clone.”

“Yes, alright, fair point,” Jenny gulped. “Look, I was trying to get upstairs… I could have sworn the stairs were closer to the door.”

“They were,” Laura nodded. “I took them out last week.”

“You did what now?”

Laura pointed up and Jenny blinked at the rectangular opening in the ceiling, one side of the aperture bare and unvarnished where the stairway had once connected with it.

“I took them out!” Laura repeated. “Saves space, and I’ve got my anti-grav ray working now, and as for you, well, you can just shift up —”

“So you’ve… made your bedroom literally inaccessible to anyone who isn’t you or me,” Jenny concluded. “‘Exacting standards’ or not, there’s such a thing as setting yourself up for failure, you know.”

“Jenny, you’re impossible!” Laura chuckled fondly. “Anyone can use this.”

She threw down the big switch she’d bolted onto the nearest wall, and the panel of quartz she’d put under the hole in the ceiling hummed with power. She hopped on, and could not repress a squeak of surprise at the speed at which she found herself propelled upwards. In the blink of an eye, she had reached the upper floor; she pedaled through empty air for a moment before her right foot found purchase on one of the edges. She tried to step forwards, and tipped over onto her back, hovering there like a flipped tortoise until she grabbed the opposite edge of the aperture with her hands and, with a grunt, rolled herself off the anti-gravity beam and onto solid flooring.

She poked her head back over the edge, panting, and looked down at Jenny.

“…See?” she finished, defiant.

Jenny was laughing, a nearly silent wheeze as she held her sides. Then, a halo of rainbow-coloured light engulfed her and she dematerialised, reappearing right next to Laura and clapping her on the back — fortunately not hard enough to push her back onto the beam of anti-grav energy.

“Hah! I get it,” Jenny said. “Exacting standards. If they can’t even make it to the bedroom, bye bye, thanks for playing. Right?”

“Jenny!” Laura protested, but she was laughing as well, now. “Oh, look, can’t you find it within yourself to be a teeny, tiny bit impressed? Anti-gravity, Jenny! I’ve invented anti-gravity!”

“Oh sure. I mean, I’m certain it’s going to fly off the shelves,” Jenny said, earning a snort from Laura. “But, look, the thing is, I’ve seen it before, you know?”

“Well, I know you visit far-flung worlds of tomorrow and suchlike,” Laura argued as she found this floor’s switch and flipped it to switch off the now-useless anti-grav. “But anti-grav in 1983 is still impressive, surely.”

“I guess.” Jenny shrugged, smiling with deceptive guilelessness. “Mind, those swinging Copper-Colored Cupids I told you about, they have it, and they were created in 1960.”

Laura crossed her arms nervously as she huffed.

“You’re impossible.”

“Thank you,” Jenny answered without missing a beat.

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

Jenny froze — then slapped her forehead.

“Oh! Right. Yes. Almost forgot.”

Jenny whirled round and made for Laura’s large, oaken wardrobe. She opened it and began rifling through the clothing, but was quickly forced to conclude that everything contained therein was tailored to Laura Drake’s measurements and suited to her own, unique style. She frowned and turned around to face Laura again.

“Hey, Lor — I’ve got some stuff around here, right? Clothes and things? Ugh, I’m sorry, I should know this, but, you know, all these memories, I lose track of things —”

“O-of course!” Laura interrupted, mind racing. “It’s — oh, gosh, I didn’t even think, this is because of the Electro-Cat, right?”

“Yep. I wouldn’t mind so much about the house, but it was where I kept all of my stuff…” She blinked. “Where’s it gone to, anyway? The Cat? I thought you took it home after I shrank it, but I haven’t seen it around…”

“I, uhm, forgot to feed it a couple of times,” Laura said — then hurried to head Jenny off as the other woman’s expression began to sour. “No, no, it’s okay, it’s under control, we made it tiny again. And it only got about as big as a… pony? A small horse. It just made me realise I’m not much of a pet-owner. Jimmy’s taking care of it now.”

“Oh good. Yeah! A pet. He needed the distraction. Poor guy.” Jenny mused for a moment, then her eyes snapped back towards Laura. “Lor, you’re changing the subject. My stuff. Where is it?”

Laura took a step backwards, fidgeting with the chain of her pocketwatch.

“Laura…”

**********

“Okay,” Jenny admitted. “I admit, looking at your guilty expression back there, I… thought it would be worse.”

Doctor Laura Drake was not always disorderly. Like any competent scientist or indeed engineer, she was perfectly capable of being tidy where it counted; in fact, it might have been to outweigh her extreme tidiness in any given project that she cut loose when it came to the organisation of her personal living quarters.

In this, she was not at all like Jenny “Everywhere” Everton, who could not have kept a broom closet in order if her life depended on it.

Thus, despite their relocation from the bedroom to Laura’s laboratory, the personal effects that Laura returned to her were in fact in much better order and condition than they were when she’d left them. The clothes were folded up neatly; the shoes had been shined; the knick-knacks had been carefully sorted into several clear plastic boxes.

“…Yes, well.”

“No, really, you’ve washed everything,” Jenny said, eyes wide; then she frowned for a moment, and smirked. “…Oh. You’ve been treating these as specimens, haven’t you. An experiment.”

“Well, obviously,” Laura sniffed. “All these items were soaked through with all kinds of Void radiation, and interdimensional residue, and… things. I made multiple breakthroughs based on one of the scarves, alone!”

“You could’ve asked.”

“And you would have said no,” Laura fired back. “As usual. Side-stepping such hurdles is what being a mad scientist is all about. Cutting to the quick. Taking the low road to Utopia.”

“But it’s not how we do things,” Jenny complained. “You ask, I say no, we fight a bit —”

“— And then I lose?” Laura scoffed, then collapsed into her office chair. “Oh, look at us, Jenny. It’s been over ten years. A fun ten years, don’t misunderstand me, but… are we going anywhere like this? Either of us? We can’t do this forever. Can we?”

“No, we can’t,” Jenny admitted, her face a strange mix of sadness and… relief. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I wasn’t sure you’d understand… I’m sorry.”

Laura let out a small chuckle as she rose again from the chair, one hand held tentatively forward; she was nearly upon Jenny when the other woman returned the gesture, their fingers interlacing.

“Oh, Jen,” she said, “I might not be the first woman in the Multiverse to have cracked anti-grav, but please, give me some credit. When your girlfriend of ten years shows up at your doorstep, asking you if you kept her old stuff around and talking about how she lost her house… Well. I can take a hint.”

Jenny made a sound.

At first, Laura’s smile widened. She liked it when she got Jenny flustered.

But then Jenny let go of her hand, and on closer inspection, she realised the look in Jenny’s eyes wasn’t just embarrassed — it was guilty.

Impulsively, the other woman picked up the clothes in a messy bundle which instantly ruined her meticulous ironing and folding, and which she held tightly about her, her face disappearing behind the top of the pile in a manner which looked nothing short of deliberate.

“…Jenny? Why did you come here, exactly?”

A few, heavy seconds passed before Jenny muttered something from behind the pile of clothes.

Unfortunately, and again quite deliberately, the mumbling was quite unintelligible.

Laura sighed.

“Look, I’m sorry I… assumed,” she said. “God help us, if ten years is still too fast for you — d’you have money for the new place? I could buy it for you. Just say the word. I promise I wouldn’t booby-trap it. Well — I’d put a little trap somewhere, just for appearances’ sake, but something, you know, something really obvious.” She paused. “Something, er, safe for the baby.”

The girl behind the pile of clothes remained silent.

“…Or we could skip the trap altogether,” Laura hurried to add. “I get it, I really do, time and a place…”

There was another pause, and then Jenny repeated her mumbled statement, just a little bit clearer this time. This time, Laura very, very nearly understood it — but her every instinct rebelled against the conclusion, so she demanded:

“Say again?”

Jenny finally lowered the clothes a few inches, revealing a face twisted by indecision. After a few wobbling seconds, she stopped biting down on her lower lip and squeaked it out a third time.

This time, there was no mistaking her words.

Then, before Laura could react, the familiar burst of rainbow light engulfed her and the clothes — and she was gone.

It was just as well that no one heard Laura scream.

*********

“You’re… ‘moving in with Thymon’.”

“Yep, that’s, er, what I said, Arnie,” said Jenny Everywhere.

She was fidgeting with her scarf, avoiding the older man’s gaze.

“Jenny, please don’t call me that,” said Mayor Arnold Everton Hornblower. “This isn’t a house party. You came to my office. Ergo, this is official business.”

“Oh, don’t give me that, you’re still my cousin.”

“Second cousin, Jenny,” said the Mayor, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “And I’m still your Mayor.”

“Well, not really, no, that’s just it,” she explained. “It’s why I came to see you personally. But also officially. Thymon’s house — gosh, you don’t actually know who Thymon is, do you?”

“Indeed, until now, I counted that fact among the few blessings which had been accorded to me, but I suppose all good things must come to an end. Do enlighten me. Virgil, are you getting this down?”

“Always, sir,” said the secretary, looking up from his note-pad. “But if I may, sir, if you prolong this, you’ll be late for your meeting with Mr Roquat, and his temper —”

“Virgil, Norman Roquat is a man who manufactures garden gnomes,” the Mayor growled. “Rich or not, I think I can live with incurring his wrath.”

“Sir, the city’s interests —”

“— Are, hang it all, dependent on the whims and mood of my cousin Jenny,” the Mayor cut him off. “She’s solved most of our problems over the last ten years, with one exception, and she’s sleeping with that one. So pipe down and write. Jenny, you were saying?”

“Arnie, you say the nicest things,” a wry Jenny replied. “Thymon is — well, he’s been here, actually. To New Flaversham, I mean, not your office. In his human body. His blue human body — he was the blue man at Pride, didn’t you notice him?”

“At what? Oh, your gay parade thing in June?” The Mayor sighed. “Believe it or not, Jenny, I was not there. I don’t disapprove of the spirit, but I’m still an elected official —”

“Oh, come on, get with the times, cousin,” Jenny said — familiar ribbing, but not without bite. “I’ve been to universes that are forty years ahead of you on this stuff! …Granted, it’s literally the year 2023 over there, but that’s no excuse!”

“I’m sure. Jenny, if you’d be so kind as to get to the point before Virgil’s fountain pen runs out of ink, I just might give you the Key to the City.”

“Right, but that’s the point,” Jenny retorted. “Thymon is — well, it’s a whole thing, but he’s got a house, a big house, and we’ve got a kid now.”

“Congratulations. The point?”

“The point is, we were kind of considering it even before that, but my house got crushed by the Electro-Cat, so, we’re going to be raising Sophie — that’s our daughter — at his place, and so, uhm, I’m moving there.”

“Very nice. The point?”

“Arnie, what I’m trying to tell you — what I’m trying to do, is give you fair warning. ‘Cause you’re right. I don’t like to toot my own horn, and I’m no superhero, really I’m not, but you’re right — I’ve solved this city’s problems a bunch of times. And maybe you’ve grown toexpect it. Account for it.”

He nodded wearily.

“…But the thing is,” she went on, “the thing is, I’m moving in with Thymon, and I’m going to be busy, because, you know, newborn daughter. I’ll visit! Obviously. Buncha friends here anyway. But if weird stuff happens — the next time Laura does something, or the Protectorate lose control of their giant lizard — I can’t promise I’ll be around to deal with it. Not the way I used to be.”

Mayor Hornblower considered this for a moment, then spoke.

“You know, I have a telephone.”

“Oh, I know,” Jenny said, avoiding his gaze again.

His heart sank.

“Jenny, this Thymon of yours, where does he live, exactly?” he asked, already knowing the substance of her reply before she said it.

*********

Chapter 2: Someone New

“Another dimension.”

That was all she’d said.

Laura had imagined some strange, surreal dream, some mind-bending hellscape where a creature like the blue demon she’d met on Nowhere Island would seem ordinary. The Mayor’s imagination was not nearly so vivid; he thought of some alternative Earth, strange yet familiar — with its own history, its own New Flaversham — and who knew, perhaps its own A. E. Hornblower.

Both, of course, were wrong. But then, it would have taken a remarkable feat of intuition to picture an infinite expanse of blue skies, dotted with solid celfoam clouds. And if the Cupid Homeworld itself was unexpected, it would have been downright prophetic to intuit the existence of its people.

There were roughly a thousand and seven hundred Clockwork Cherubs in the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids. Though they all had their own quirks and personalities, they were united in their basic programming — in their overriding drive to fulfill their purpose, their duty to the Crew and to their human Creator, by swarming out across the Multiverse and spreading their simplistic brand of enlightenment. Even when they came home to roost, the tireless copper constructs could hardly spend one day before finding some new occupation for themselves; Departments and clubs and hobbies and adventures — frankly, one tended to lose track.

Why, then, did it seem that each and everyone one of those hundreds of robots had nothing better to do on this fine morning than to ring the doorbell of Lord Thymon’s House?

Thymon had built his doorbell before his unplanned, unwilling, and frankly inconvenient transmutation into a humanoid. In his true form, the complex subtemporal harmonics it employed were a thrilling, melodious delight; and the fact that they struck all mortals who heard them as hellish, guttural shrieks amused him more than anything else. He did like a bit of holy terror.

That was, he’d enjoyed being the focus of it. Ever since he’d acquired a pair of human ears, he had found that had much less of a taste for being on the receiving end.

And by all appearances, the same went for baby Sophie. For the third time now in a scant few hours, the girl’s efforts to do what a baby did best — sleep in her crib — had been thwarted by the sudden din, her blue locks standing on end and her glowing blue eyes opening wide. She didn’t scream, at least — not that Thymon was sure he’d have heard her over the racket.

“Yes, yes, I’m coming!” he shouted hopelessly.

His tall, human body lurched forward as he instinctively threw himself forward; he nearly fell, and a painful sensation in his ankles provided his reminder that he could not currently hover, or even glide.

One foot in front of the other — what an absolutely wretched form of locomotion. Even the Cupids had wings. This was so inefficient!

Finally, he reached the lobby and unlocked the great ebony doors. The shrieking stopped.

The figure who now stood on Thymon’s porch was, unsurprisingly, a Cupid. Not one he’d ever met before, as far as he knew. He was at least gratified to confirm that this was not a repeat visit from the representative of the Department of Biology; he and Jenny were quite keen to keep their ilk very, very far away from their House until Sophie was not quite so defenseless.

This new Cupid wore a raincoat, which made him look a little like Pythagoras-858, but the resemblance ended there: this one was a younger, shorter figure, a Mark XVI by the looks of him.

“Lord Thymon?” the Cupid inquired. He had a notepad, and the hand holding the pen was already twitching in expectation.

“…Yes.”

“Mhm. Mmmmh, hmmmm,” the Cupid said thoughtfully. “Yes, I see.” He paused, looking up from the notepad. “The Lord Thymon? You’re quite sure?”

“Y — well, no,” he allowed. “That is, yes. Well, I’m not sure — listen, is this important? I do have a baby to take care of, and a kitchen to sweep —”

“Oh yes, I assure you it’s very important,” said the Cupid. “What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

“What I mean is that I am, most certainly, Lord Thymon,” he said, nervously readjusting the red bandleader’s hat that adorned his bald, human head. “And I assuredly used to be ‘the’ Lord Thymon, until four years ago. That was when I had my epiphany.”

“Your what, sir?”

“My epiphany,” Thymon repeated. “Oh, it was wonderful. Suddenly, I looked back on my entire mission in life — the entire cosmic purpose for my existence. Being the wrathful protector of linear time in the Void Between World. I had always thought it was the most important thing in, well — everything. But in that moment, I realised —”

“That it didn’t really matter?” the Cupid suggested.

Thymon straightened himself, frowning. “I should think not! No — I just realised it was actually the second-most important thing in the Multiverse. Because the most important thing was how wonderful you all were, all you Cupids; how much I liked you, deep down. It’s funny how the mind works. Looking back, I’m not even sure why I had that change of heart just then. I mean, a Cupid had just shot an arrow at me! Of all the times!”

“…Indeed,” the Cupid coughed. “Very mysterious. I’m, ah, I’m familiar with the incident.” He pocketed the notepad and, pointing the pencil at Thymon for emphasis, continued: “Juliet-178, the Department of Problem-Solving. Yes. You had an… unprompted… change of heart, and you abandoned your duties in the Void to come and live in the Cupid Homeworld.”

“I wouldn’t say abandoned, as such,” said Thymon. “Just — put on hold. I’m very good at putting things on hold, you know. Freezing time and suchlike. Well, that was how it started. But of course, time hasn’t been standing still for me. Look at me now! I’ve built a house here, instead of sleeping in the broom closet outside Philatel’s office… I’ve got a girlfriend, and, and now I’m a father! I’m not the elder-god I used to be. So I’ve been considering… retirement. Not from the Department of Postal Services, you understand; I mean from… being Lord Thymon. You know — hand over the reins to my nephew. Abdicate. Then he’d be the new Lord Thymon — the Lord Thymon.”

“But you haven’t yet?”

“Oh, no… Truth be told, I’ve been putting it off. I didn’t want to burden him with — and besides, I was afraid —” He frowned. “This is personal business, Cupid. Why do you ask? What, exactly, do you want?”

“Ah. Right. Ever so sorry,” said the Cupid, not sounding very sorry. He reached into one of his pockets, and pulled out what appeared to be an ID badge. “Ellis-1512. Department of Relocation.”

“So you… relocate people?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Ellis. “That’s the easy bit. The Department of Problem-Solving do that. We’re the experts. We handle the important things. The paperwork. Comings and goings, it all stacks up,. We’ve been getting more and more of your kind in the Homeworld. You know, off-worlders. Somebody’s got to keep track of you people. Run background checks. Issue visas, revoke visas. That sort of thing.”

“Oh, really,” said Thymon.

It was a good thing for Mr Ellis-1512, he reflected, that he was currently confined to a humanoid form. If he had been the same elder god he used to be, the fire in his eyes might have been a little more literal.

Which was strange — he suddenly thought — for two reasons. One was that he was a Cupid, and it was rare for him to get cross with Cupids, or at least it had been since the epiphany — but there, at least, it was easy enough to justify his sentiment as simply being that Ellis’s behaviour was unCupidlike; he disliked the obnoxious little creature not in spite of him being a Cupid, but because he was a Cupid, and it disappointed Thymon to see creatures he loved debasing themselves so.

The second reason was harder to square. The simple fact was this: loathsome as he found it now, in the not-so-good old days, his job had been much the same. God this and Embodiment that, the truth was that he’d really been a sort of celestial customs officer — and a diligent one, always happy to smite any unlicensed time-traveller going over the lightspeed limit with unholy fire.

But then — he hadn’t been that old Thymon in a long time. Jenny probably wouldn’t have liked him very much.

“Yes, really,” said Ellis. “And I need to confirm that this visa is actually yours.”

Thymon bent down to look more closely at the wad of paper the Cupid was holding up. It was an ID card, but not, as it turned out, Ellis’s; the inset picture did not depict an irritatingcopper homunculus, but a swirling vortex of bluish tendrils flowing endlessly around a great, black eye, its pupil a distant and gleaming singularity at the end of everything.

“Yuck,” said Thymon. “ID pictures. They always make you look so… blah.” He blinked. “But yes, that’s certainly me.”

“And you can confirm that, can you, Mr Blue Man? Because I’m finding it increasingly hard to believe.”

Thymon closed his eyes, unfamiliar fingers pinching the bridge of his unfamiliar nose. He took a deep breath and reached deep, deep within himself — past his false, woven heart and into the other one, the true core of his eternal being, buried beyond these four, stifling dimensions. It hurt, to do it halfway like this, without snapping anything. But he didn’t want to unspool himself all the way back into what he really was. Not yet. There was something he had to do first.

He breathed out, still human on the outside, but when he opened his eyes, there was a glimmer of eternity to them.

“hOw… AbOuT… nOw?!”

“…Ah yes. Quite. I see. Y-yes, that’ll do,” said Ellis once he’d picked up the note-pad, pencil and ID badge again. “Well, that’s alright then.”

“Excellent,” said Thymon. “Now go away.”

“Oh, no, sir, no indeed, can’t be doing that,” Ellis continued, regaining his poise.

“Why not?”

“Well now, sir, I believe you mentioned something about a baby…”

*********

There was a ding as Laura pushed the door of Jo’s Coffee Shop open. Despite her mood, some part of her could not help but glance up at the mechanism, which turned out to involve a simple bell-and-chain setup. Primitive. Downright embarrassing. Didn’t these people know that she could get them their ‘ding’ with nothing but a laser, a state-of-the-art microchip, and —

She squashed the thought and, pushing her way past the crowd of teenagers, she made a beeline for the bar.

“Hey, I was here first —”

“The usual, Jo,” Laura demanded, entirely ignoring the teenager she’d shoved out of the way.

The woman who’d been working the till turned around, to reveal an unfamiliar face — young, dark-skinned, and entirely unimpressed.

“Name’s Nancy, actually,” she said. “Jo retired four years ago. Now, ‘you gonna wait in line, or are we gonna have a problem?”

“I said, the usual —” Laura’s voice softened a fraction. “Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you? Hot chocolate, your darkest, no milk or sugar. Come on, chop-chop.”

“‘Chop-chop’?” Nancy stepped closer, until only the physical width of the bar stood between her and the older woman. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! If I was a teacher, I wouldn’t my students to see me —”

“Teacher? What do you mean, a teacher?”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” she scoffed. “Building right across from New Flaversham U, obviously we have two kinds of clients. Teachers and students.”

“Yes, exactly,” said Laura. “That’s why I became a regular here. I am a student. Er, that is, I was. But I didn’t tell you I’d graduated —”

Nancy answered with a remarkably passive-aggressive shrug.

“What are you implying, you little —?”

“Wait, in, line,” Nancy repeated.

“No, it’s alright, Nance,” said the teenager. “I’ll order for the both of us.”

Laura started — then took a second look at her.

“Oh, it’s you.”

*********

“Jenny? Is that you?” he called out.

Thymon had just finished sweeping the kitchen when he’d heard the telltale warping sound of a Shifter materialising in the next room. He guiltily put the broom away, wishing it was in his power to easily dematerialise it, and surveyed the outcome of his efforts. Things looked grim. Granted, it had been something of a rushed job, what with the time he’d lost placating that blasted Cupid — but he could have sworn he could see more dust now than there had been when he’d started.

He sighed. Too late now. Part of him knew his behaviour was irrational, of course. Jenny had slept over at his house many times before, and was no one’s idea of a neat-freak; he had nothing to hide. But somehow, the thought that today was the day she would officially move in had made him inordinately self-conscious.

He was feeling entirely too human. Perhaps it was messing with his head.

But it had its good sides. Rushing to the lobby, he quickly pulled Jenny into a lover’s embrace, hand in hand, lips against lips. The hugs he could provide in his natural form were nice, too — but this was new, and it felt right.

“Hello, Thyme,” said Jenny after he pulled away. “Ooh, new outfit? Again?”

Thymon chuckled, glancing down at the elegant, pastel-blue shirt, the well-tailored midnight-blue trousers, and the leather shoes which had been rather shinier before he’d set about his chores.

“You know how that Cupid is — Dandy-432. Ever since he saw my new body, he’s been in and out of here practically every day —” His expression soured. “Him and many others. Well, at least he‘s trying to help. He’s also started thinking about baby clothes —”

“Aw! That’s sweet,” Jenny interrupted him. “How is Sophie?”

“Fast asleep,” he reassured her. “And she’s been fed.”

“Ah, good, good,” she said, and patted his right arm. “See? I told ya you could take care of her like a champ. The sky didn’t fall or anything, did it, hm?”

Thymon bit his lip. “…Well, she did collapse the ceiling by sneezing.”

“Ah,” Jenny said simply. “I… assume nobody got hurt?”

“Oh, no, least of all her,” he quickly reassured her. “The rubble froze in time before it fell down on her. She really is remarkable.”

“Of course she is. She’s our daughter,” Jenny remarked. “…Still, might be worth putting some kind of protection spell on her bedroom, or… something.”

“Yes, yes,” Thymon nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. I — did you get everything you wanted?”

“More or less.”

Jenny snapped her fingers, and, with a volley of softer shifting sounds, an assortment of luggage, unsorted clutter, and shopping bags appeared around her.

“I mean, Laura’s blessing would have been nice,” she went on. “But I got all the stuff, anyway. Just the essentials. Some clothes, butter, sliced bread, what’s left of my comic book collection… And I spoke to everyone. They understand. Mostly. Like I said, Laura doesn’t really, but…” She trailed off.

“…but does she ever?” Thymon suggested, coming off a little snider than he’d intended.

He got a brief chagrined look in response, and avoided Jenny’s gaze, looking down in an implicit apology. The grocery bag full of butter caught his eye, and, crouching down, he set about transferring the butter in his eldritch refrigerator before it melted, summoning the strange, spider-legged appliance to him with a simple whistle.

“…She’ll come around,” Jenny said eventually. “She’ll have to.”

“Even if she doesn’t,” Thymon said, more softly this time, “she’s not in charge of you. And — I wouldn’t worry too much. From what you’ve explained, and what I saw on Nowhere Island, your relationship is no stranger to conflict.”

“Sure,” Jenny replied, “but… but I love her, despite everything. Like I love you. Annoying her is one thing, that’s just how we roll, but — I don’t like making her sad. You know? It’s complicated.” She snorted with a wistful smile. “Ah, you wouldn’t get it.”

“Why not?”

She breathed out through her nose again, grin widening, and poked his nose.

“’cause you’re a big sweetie,” she said. “My big sweetie. You and me, it’s a sweet thing. It’s all sweet. Yeah? That’s what love has been to you. But with Laura…”

“Well, see here,” said Thymon, shutting the door of the fridge after loading the last block of butter, “I have been in relationships before.”

“You have?” Jenny blinked, tilting her head at him. “…I mean, it’s not a problem, obviously, it’s just, before, you said —”

Thymon raised a hand wordlessly, and she cut herself off, looking at him expectantly. He watched the fridge scuttling away, glad of the momentary distraction, then inhaled slowly.

“I apologise,” he began, “if I haven’t been clear. These things are hard to explain in mortal language — I think you’ll understand better than most people would. You see — I,” he emphasised, “had never loved with anyone, or, or slept with a mortal. Me. But further back — I’ve done it before. Done it all, and more. ‘I’ have. Do you understand?”

“Oh, your other selves!” Jenny cried out in understanding, eyes widening. “Sorry, I’m daft. I forgot you had those too.”

“Well, past selves, to be… more accurate,” said Thymon, although it was still a simplification on many levels. “For example, that was why my great-great-great-granduncle, Thymon of Many Eyes, retired. You see, he met this human in a shopping mall —”

“Right!” Jenny snapped her fingers. “Yeah, now I remember. We’ve met. Not this me, but another me once went to the same night-club as that other you. Funny. I’ve been in that Jenny’s head before, plenty of times. She’s — sort of important, you wouldn’t get it. But I’d never made the connection. But yeah, he was called Thymon too. I mean, you were.”

“No, no, ‘he’ works,” Thymon assured her. “We diverge, you see? After Thymon of Many Eyes retired, he became his own entity… A demon, not a god. A new Thymon took his place. I’m not him anymore, or, more accurately, he’s not me. I have his memories, but only up until he retired, and…” He thought for a moment. “That visit to the night-club, that must have been after that point. You might remember meeting him, but I don’t remember meeting — that other you.”

“Hm. Well, we could go back,” Jenny observed. “At some point. To that party. I think there might have been two of you there. Can’t quite recall, but it’s possible, eh? There were definitely multiple mes…”

“That sounds — paradoxical,” Thymon fretted. “A demon might do it, but Lord Thymon isn’t supposed to do things like that.”

“So retire already!” said a perky, female voice that was not Jenny’s.

There was a clear resemblance, but this voice was slightly higher-pitched, and had a strange, ethereal undercurrent to it. And it did not belong in this time-zone.

Thymon froze, and slowly turned around to face none other than Sophie Everytime.

Not the baby, who was still sleeping soundly in her room, but the teenager who had suddenly appeared in front of the pair — smiling widely, hands in the pockets of her forest-green hoodie. The girl looked about the same as when she’d helped herself be born; perhaps slightly younger.

“Oh, hello!” said Jenny, pulling the teenager into a hug. “Nice to see ya again. Wanna say hi to yourself?”

“Maybe later,” Sophie laughed. “But I think ‘I’m’ still a bit young for that. Paradox energy can be a little bit scary.” She seemed to see a surprised, almost betrayed look on Thymon’s face, and quickly added: “When you’re not used to it, I mean. Love the stuff now. But, you know. Takes some getting used to.”

“Ah, I suppose it does,” Thymon allowed with a smile. “One forgets. So what brings you here? Or, rather, what brings you now?”

“Here to help me unpack?” Jenny suggested, glancing at her suitcases.

“Nah — I actually figured you could use the help delivering the invitations,” Sophie explained. “I know you could do it, Mum, but Dad’s just been taking care of — well — me — all morning, I think he deserves a break. And besides, you still gave birth just a couple of months ago. You should take it easy.”

Sophie reached the end of her babbling, and her glowing blue eyes blinked slowly at the confused looks on her parents’ faces.

“What?” she asked after a pause.

“…Er… Invitations?” Thymon said simply.

“Well, yeah, for the wedding,” Sophie enunciated. “I know you both just want a homey, friends-and-family kind of thing, and that’s what you do, but with Mum being Mum, that’s still a whole bunch of people, right? And of course, the Department of Postal Services doesn’t deliver to other dimensions,” she recited proudly, winking at Thymon. “So you’ll need a shifter to…”

She froze again as her parents’ even more surprised expressions finally registered.

“…oh fudge. I’m early, aren’t I?” she squeaked.

Blushing a lovely shade of blue, she plunged her hands back into her pockets, her locks of organic blue ‘hair’ curling nervously.

“S-sorry,” she stammered, “I — uhm.” She blinked. “Sorry,” she said again with a little more. “S-see ya later. I’ll deliver the invitations once you, er, have them.”

Then she disappeared in a flash of blue.

Jenny stared for a moment, then slowly met Thymon’s gaze.

“…So,” she said, trying not to sound too amused. “Just putting this out there — was there anything you were thinking of asking me?”

*********

Chapter 3: Someone Borrowed

“She’s going to marry him.”

Having said this, Laura Drake downed the entire mug of steaming cocoa, then loudly set it down on the cheap, plastic table.

Jenny Anywhere kept stirring the coffee in her own cup, starting blankly at the older woman sitting across from her, who glared at her empty mug for a while, then indicated to Nancy, by means of a broad and unambiguous gesture, that things would not end well for her and her entire establishment unless the mug was refilled at very short notice.

“…Has she told you that?” the younger woman asked after a while.

“Of course not,” Laura snapped. “She might not know yet. But it’s inevitable. Moving in with him like this, the idea will occur to her. And you know how she is with ideas.”

“Why, Doctor Drake,” said Anywhere, taking a sip of coffee, “I thought you found her impulsive nature charming.”

But there was no real humour behind the barb.

It was an old argument, of course, insofar as a university student could have ‘old arguments’ with a 29-year-old woman she’d met a couple of years ago. Ever since she had taken on the mantle of ‘Jenny Anywhere’, Penny Anderson had made no secret of harbouring a degree of skepticism when it came to her model’s whimsical nature. Naturally, she more often sided with Jenny than with Laura, all the same — but if there was one thing about the original Jenny’s demeanour that she disliked, it was that shameless childishness. Sometimes it seemed that the whole world was a game to the unpredictable woman, and that was something Penny — no, Jenny, the superior Jenny — could not stand for, not in someone as powerful, as significant as the Shifter.

There was such a thing as responsibility.

It was not, to Penny’s mind, the same thing as duty. To be a shifter was not some grand heroic calling — she certainly didn’t believe in destiny, save that which she had quite consciously chosen for herself. By responsibility, she simply meant a basic understanding that having the power to summon eldritch demons from beyond mortal ken by snapping one’s fingers was not a license to freely do so whenever it seemed entertaining to do so. She meant the one quality which the otherwise-admirable Shifter had never, ever exhibited.

And for her part, Doctor Laura Drake was a Mad Scientist, and proud of it — she had it on her business card, capital letters and all. This put a severe upper limit on how reasonable she could ever allow herself to be, and her insistence on downing one mug of cocoa after another — this was her third — was just the latest in a long litany of self-destructive, aesthetically-motivated behaviour that Jenny Anywhere had observed.

It followed that if Laura thought Everywhere was being reckless, there was cause for alarm.

“Look, Penny —”

“Jenny.”

“— it’s not that I’m jealous,” Laura explained. “I’ve just… made enough mistakes in my life to know when she‘s making one. You know?”

Anywhere sighed. “I think I might. Not that you aren’t being jealous as well,” she said. “But your normal response to jealousy is to build giant robots, not… whatever this is.”

She glared pointedly at the mug, which had been emptied of its contents yet again.

“Well, I’ve also started building the robot, obviously,” Laura replied. “I do have standards. But — this time, it’s not just about me. Not even about her and me. It’s about… helping her. Sleeping around with demons is one thing. You don’t have to really, properly trust somebody to sleep with them.”

“Especially not when you can teleport,” Anywhere nodded sagely.

“But marrying one? Hell, entering any kind of contract with a demon? Back when I worked for the Protectorate, we had rules about that kind of thing. We had training programmes.”

“I’m something of an occultist, myself,” said Anywhere, taking a big gulp of coffee, “and I think you’re exactly right. Neither of us wants Everywhere’s soul in thrall to some Void-god about whom, frankly, we know frighteningly little, considering how fundamental he’s supposed to be for the very structure of multiversal existence. It’s fishy.”

“Well, more of a jellyfish, really,” Laura observed, “and taxonomically speaking, that’s a misnomer —”

Anywhere glared.

“I don’t know if this Thymon is tricking her,” she continued, “but we can’t let her take that risk. Even if he’s on the level — becoming the bride of something like that, it might change her. In ways neither of them understands.”

Laura nodded, then looked more intently at the brown-haired woman, who was just finishing her espresso.

“You’ll help, then?” she asked.

“It seems I have no choice,” said Jenny Anywhere. “…I’m doing it for her, of course. For her and for New Flaversham. Not for you.”

“That’s fine by me,” Laura said with a serious nod, and then began to get up. “Well then. Follow me, ‘Jenny Anywhere’. I have a plan.”

*********

Weddings, it turned out, were devilish things to plan.

They had done the guest list first — not so much because it seemed the most important, as because a lot of things, like the catering order, depended on it, and also because they didn’t want to keep Sophie waiting too long. If that was even a metric which applied to someone like her.

The final result had been something more like a small novel than a list, but at least they had something to be getting on with.

The ceremony would be in a decidedly human style; this was not so much a decision as a conclusion, driven by the simple fact that the Embodiments of the Void had no such thing as a concept of marriage, formal or informal. There had been Thymons who got married before, of course, but always in retirement; always as an eccentricity, a betrayal of their nature. There was no tradition to it. Thus, Thymon the Blue deferred entirely to her wishes.

Jenny’s natural iconoclasm had warred with her childlike love of silly rituals for a few days and many rambling conversations, until she had arrived at a set of conclusions.

She would have a bridesmaid, she’d decided, and Thymon would have a best man. Just one each; she’d been reluctant, at first, to limit herself that way, but the simple fact was that if she started handing out the honour to all of her feminine acquaintances, she’d never stop. Or else she’d have to, and slight the rest.

She did want rings. She had curiously avoided the question when he’d asked if she intended to wear her wedding band, but the coincidental fact that Thymon currently had fingers was just too tempting to pass on; and besides, she was certain that the rings Thymon would select would be worth it.

A wedding dress, though, was right out; on this she would not budge. She had never worn a dress once in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now. It was all Dandy-432 could do to persuade her that wearing her usual coat-and-scarf combo to the proverbial altar might be considered something of a wasted opportunity; he had taken her measurement, despite considerable wiggling, and promised to deliver something dazzling, personal, and elegantly gender-non-conforming.

(After double-checking Thymon’s, he had also taken the baby’s measurements, which neither parent had the heart to tell him might be considered a tad excessive.)

Three weeks later, only two questions remained.

And Thymon wasn’t telling anyone about the first one, so really, as far as Jenny and the Multiverse were concerned, one question remained: the choice of venue.

“You know, Hilbert’s Hotel always has a certain je ne sais quoi,” Thymon remarked.

They’d been stuck on the problem for two days, now. Jenny Everywhere… knew a lot of places. As for Thymon, though he was not so well-travelled, he had still spent eons as an ostensibly omniscient, pandimensional being.

But that only meant they were spoilt for choice, so it wasn’t actual frustration that coloured their banter as Thymon chopped a batch of fresh, luminescent baruga roots on his obsidian kitchen-top.

“Aw, come on, Thyme, Hilbert’s is for squares,” Jenny thus fired back with a smile.

Young Sophie Everytime deemed this an opportune time to stop suckling, and emit a baby-noise which sounded distinctly like “Pfah” — or, rather, “PfAh”.

“See?” Jenny added. “She gets it. You, clever girl, you. You got good taste.”

She nuzzled the baby’s nose with a finger; laughing, Sophie grasped at her mother’s hand with every limb she possessed. Jenny let out a ticklish chuckle of her own as a few strands of her daughter’s blue hair coiled themselves around her finger, tightening briefly but releasing their grip as soon as she pulled away.

“Squares? Well, we are inviting my siblings,” said Thymon. “And Spatium, why, she’s made of squares, the dear woman. Well, that and circles, and triangles…”

“Thyme, when you say someone’s a square, it means —”

“I know what it means,” he blurted out, more plaintive than reproachful.

“Oh, I’m sorry, that was a joke, wasn’t it?”

The bald man nodded.

“Yes, dear,” he confessed, “but please, don’t you laugh on that account alone. My humour will never improve if you humour me. Bah. To think that fellow, Sneer, seemed to take to mischief so easily, after millennia of staid orderliness… It really goes to sh — oW!”

Jenny bolted upright, though she kept her careful hold on Sophie, and started towards Thymon, only slowing when she saw him drop his knife and bring a sore finger to his lips.

“Ow, ow, ow,” he repeated, without the slight echo his first cry of pain had commanded. “That didn’t use to happen.”

“Happens to me all the time,” Jenny said soothingly. “It’s a human thing.”

“I’m all too aware of that,” he sighed.

“Here, let me —”

Jenny’s words died down as she maneuvered to catch her fiancé’s wrist in one hand, without endangering her hold on the baby, who was staring at all of this with bright, confused eyes.

The cut was small and shallow; just a small incision just above the second knuckle of Thymon’s ring finger. Some might have called that a bad omen in itself, but that wasn’t what shocked Jenny, as such.

What surprised her was this: the cut wasn’t bleeding.

It wasn’t even oozing. Instead, it seemed as though Thymon’s skin — so human, so fleshy in all respects save its bluish colour — had been torn like cloth. The edges of the cut were frayed, a thousand tiny blue threads that had lost their weave and were even now wriggling uselessly as they attempted to reknit themselves. Inside the wound, she could see nothing but more tendrils, thicker ones, coiled in beautiful dark-blue spirals, no different from Sophie’s hair — pulsating like viscera, or, perhaps, like a tightly-coiled spring just about to release.

She stared at it for just a few seconds before Thymon clenched his fist.

“…Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.”

“Thyme —”

Jenny moved towards him, but he half-drew away as he turned to face her.

“It’s nothing,” he said, his eyes flashing blue as he emphasised the word in a way no human could. He clenched the fist tighter, his knuckles paling, and breathed out slowly. “I… thought I had more time left.”

“It’s just a little cut…” Jenny began sympathetically.

Thymon let out a laughing snort. “Oh, Jenny — you humans are so fond of fabric. You should know better. A loose thread is the beginning of the end. Believe you me — unless I were to spend them lying in bed, absolutely still, I’ll be my old self again in just a few short days, you may rely upon it.”

“…Oh,” said Jenny. “— Well, I like you that way, too,” she said mutinously, “so there. And Little Sophie, she’s yet to even meet you that way. That’ll be fun, won’t it?”

“Of course, darling, of course,” said Thymon, as he slowly picked up the knife again and resumed his cooking, averting his eyes. “But I had hoped… Well, it doesn’t matter.” He was silent for a moment, then added: “Mind you — I did buy the rings, you know.”

“Oh? Well, you could —”

“Jenny,” he said suddenly, grasping her free hand in his, “let‘s get married.”

Jenny chuckled. “Hey, I already said yes.”

“I mean now,” he said intently, his eyes flashing again. “Well — today, or tomorrow. Soon. While I’m still like this. …Please?”

“Just so you can wear the ring on your finger?” Jenny laughed. Thymon moved his head in a way which wasn’t quite a nod. “Well, alright. But the invites —”

“Oh, that‘s an easy one,” said Sophie Everytime. “Also, hi.”

Upon hearing the voice, Jenny looked down at the baby in her arms for a moment, then turned around to find that the teen had once again materialised without a sound. She was sat at the kitchen table, one leg crossed over the other, and nibbling on one of the peeled baruga.

“Please tell me I’ve got it right this time,” she said, “I’m not going to beat this entrance.”

“That was wonderful timing, dearie,” Thymon quickly complemented her.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said. “Learned from the best. Anyway, the point is, time-shifter, remember? I can deliver the invites months ahead of time, as far as the guests are concerned. Have you printed’em yet?”

“Yes, yes,” Jenny nodded quickly. She hesitated for a moment about where to go, the baby moaning in her arms. Finally, she awkwardly held her out towards the teenager. “Er, could you hold… yourself… for me, please?”

“Fine, ” Sophie replied with a comedic pout before meeting her younger self’s big, curious eyes. “Okay, kiddo, this is going to tickle a little. Don’t freak.”

There was a brief, brief flash of red sparks as the teen’s hands connected with the baby, who let out a startled yelp, but then fell silent.

Jenny wasted no time in shifting to her room; a few seconds later, she came back, on foot this time, holding a large cardboard box held shut with rainbow-coloured scotch-tape.

Mother and daughter, each with her arms full, exchanged a long, confused look as each stretched her arms uselessly, holding out her own burden for the other to grasp.

Thymon blinked for a moment, then, chuckling, walked over to the teenaged Sophie and gently took the baby from her arms. A relieved Jenny handed her the box, and she nodded.

“Alright then! I’ll take it from here! See you… tomorrow?” she said meaningfully.

“Tomorrow,” Jenny nodded, casting a smile in Thymon’s direction.

“Oh, and Dad —” Sophie paused, then frowned. “No, sorry. Forget it. I shouldn’t tell you late. It’ll be f —” She cut herself off again, shaking her head, then flashed them a smile. “… See you. See you both.”

Before either parent could ask anything more, she vanished.

Jenny began to turn to Thymon —

— who made a show of suddenly being overcome with another idea.

“I should put Sophie to sleep,” he said. “Why don’t you, er, think about the venue?”

“Oh yeah,” said the Shifter, her prior train of thought forgotten. “There’s a point. Honeymoon’s on me, but the big day… Ugh. I hate making decisions.”

As Thymon walked briskly out of the room with Sophie in his arms, she sat down in the chair the older Sophie had used, and drummed her fingers on the table, eyes lingering on the half-eaten baruga root.

“Let’s see,” she muttered to herself. “We need somewhere roomy, roomy enough for a whole bunch of guests… where my kind of people gathering in one place won’t create too much of a fuss. It needs to be safe, too, can’t have Nowhere getting any ideas…”

Absently, she carved out the bitten end of the root, then brought it to her own mouth, nibbling uncertainly on the crunchy, slightly minty food.

“…’d be good if it had some kind of staff, too, some people to help with the setup… and I can shift up some gold in a pinch, but friends would be best. Ugh. Who…”

She reclined in the chair, and found herself staring out the window at the clear blue skies. A large cloud was drifting close by; a small Cupid construction crew was busy with a new warehouse.

She bolted to her feet.

“THYMON!” she shouted. “I HAVE AN IDEA!”

*********

“Alright, then — here’s the situation. Jenny is getting…” Pythagoras-858, Prefect of the Department of Problem-Solving and former companion to Jenny Everywhere, trailed off, staring at his counterpart on the other end of the desk. “What’s wrong with your coat?”

Celebration-665, Prefect of the Department of Festivities, looked down at his trademark harlequin coat, which was looking unusually ridiculous today, owing to the fact that it was half-unbuttoned, with its upper half hanging limply from the Cupid’s metal frame.

“Well, when you came in, just now,” the other robot replied, “you shouted, ‘alright, everyone! whatever it is you’re doing, stop it! this is urgent!’. And I was busy changing backinto my work clothes after the rehearsal — we’re trying to put on a play, you see, a musical, well, a sort of pageant —”

“Button it up,” Pythe cut him off.

“…Yes sir,” Celebration gulped before complying.

As a Mark VII to Pythe’s Mark IX, Celebration was older by several years, but that never seemed to matter on those rare occasions when they came face to face. Fortunately for both Cupids’ nerves, both strove to keep such encounters few and far between. Desperate times, however, called for desperate measures.

Pythe sighed.

“Listen, ‘665, we’ve had our differences,” he began. “The Christmas debacle, the Quantek incident —”

“Oh, yes, I always meant to ask,” Celebration interrupted with a nervous smile, “how did you get all those nice people back to normal?”

“Oh, with extreme difficulty,” Pythe said with a wry, mirthless smirk. “You know, I’ve seen some bunglers in my time. I’ve solved problems you wouldn’t believe. But the Quantek, oh, that was a special one. Bunch of alien librarians, stuck using just the letters in the words ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ because you tried to make them love Christmas itself. Truly, truly remarkable depths of incompetence. You should be proud.”

Celebration kept smiling, not so much because he’d failed to note the sarcasm in Pythe’s voice as because he felt that if he let his façade crack even a little bit, he just might cry.

“But no, the truly remarkable thing about that incident,” Pythe growled, “was Juliet, Valerius and Carter managing to devise an intelligible set of phrases using only the letters B, D, F, G, J, K, L, N, O, P, Q, U, V, W, X and Z, that we could romanticise them into loving as well. So it would cancel out, you see?”

“A-ah, yes, clever,” Celebration laughed desperately. “Sounds like a challenge alright!”

“Doesn’t it just,” said Pythe. “Thymon helped, of course. Supplied the names of some old friends of his, some places he’d been. Ever been to Xxxklngjlk? It’s a lovely sort of glnponzz. They have gluvuwuls for days.” He sighed. “Look, I’m not here to scold you — not this time.”

“P-promise?”

“I do,” he said more calmly.

“Then why are you here?”

“Why am I ever anywhere? There’s a problem I need to solve,” he explained, “and I need your help to solve it.”

“Then why did you talk about… all that?” Celebration asked. “The Department of Inspirational Phrases have put out some very neat proverbs, you know, about water and bridges. They do framed prints —”

“Sounds ghastly,” Pythe said neutrally. “…Celebration, are you familiar with Jenny Everywhere?”

“Sure,” Celebration nodded, beginning to regain his natural cheer. “There aren’t that many offworlders living in the Homeworld, after all, and they’re all such fonts of information on holidays from across the Multiverse — why, just the other day, I learned about this real neat thing they have on August 13th in some universes —”

“Yes, quite,” Pythe interrupted him. “Well, then, you might have heard that Jenny is a friend of mine. A very close friend. The kind where we lost track of how many times we’d saved the other’s life. I don’t suppose you —”

Celebration tilted his head and raised a finger. Pythe reluctantly fell silent.

“Look now, Pythe,” the other Prefect said, “I know I might seem like a fun and fancy free sort of fellow to you, but Hullaballoo and I did serve in the Second Great Spaghetti War, you know. Fresh off the Foundries. Why, if it hadn’t been for my brilliant idea about organising a dance-off between the Duke of Pomodoro and the Earl of Arrabiatta, the Zorkal Realm might never —”

“Right, right, I see,” Pythe interrupted again. “I’m… sorry for assuming. I’m sure your backstory is as profound and gritty as it is compelling,” he lied. “That’s not the point. The point is that I care about her. And, you see, she’s getting married. Here. In the Homeworld. To Thymon. And — hello?”

Celebration had frozen.

Slowly, a tinny squealing sound rose from his throat.

Pythe groaned and waved a hand in front of the other Cupid’s face.

“Celebration. Focus.”

“A wedding?!” Celebration suddenly shrieked, leaping out of his chair and grabbing Pythe by the collar of his brown overcoat. “A wedding in the Homeworld? A real wedding in the actual Cupid Homeworld? The first one ever? And it’s up to my Department to plan it?!”

“Yes, Celebration, that’s what I — said —” Pythe said as he pushed the other Cupid a less distracting distance away. “You can do it. You will do it. I…” He sighed. “…trust you.”

“Really?” the other Cupid asked, beaming.

“Well, I’ll have to, now won’t I?” Pythe tempered. “The Supreme Quaestor wouldn’t let me hear the end of it if I usurped your duties, or asked someone else to do it. This is Department of Festivities business, no two ways about it. And besides, that under-worked official wedding expert of yours —”

“Valentine?”

“Yes, that’s the chap. He’s a sound lad. You should listen to him more,” the Problem-Solver added. “And that’s exactly my point. This is for Jenny, and for Thymon, and they’ve been through a lot, lately. This must be perfect. No literary larceny, no bellicose beaver-things, and definitely no unscheduled explosions, I want you to drill that into Hullaballoo’s head as best you can. Understood?”

“Sir-yes-sir,” said Celebration, who was still walking on clouds — that was, above and beyond the mundane sense into which a Copper-Colored Cupid was always, quite literally, walking on clouds.

In his excitement, he entirely forgot to feel bad for Palooza-747, his Co-Prefect, who was currently on a skiing holiday in the Land of Manik and would undoubtedly miss this entire development — glory and all. Well, thought Celebration, these things happened. And here was his chance to prove himself as a capable leader — perhaps to even earn Pythagoras-858’s respect, one of the most coveted resources in the Cupid Homeworld.

Celebration’s mind was already racing. A wedding? There was no Cupid Town Hall, and the Temple of Aphrodite, the closest thing they had to a church, would be completely unsuitable. Perhaps he should persuade Foreman to build a venue just for the occasion — that was three days at least…

“Yes, sir,” he said again once he’d worked out a rough estimate. “I think we could set that up in a couple of weeks.”

“Oh, you don’t understand,” Pythe said, flashing him a slightly feral grin familiar to bureaucrats everywhere — that of a bearer of bad news who didn’t like it either, but found a certain animalistic relief in imparting the frustration on some other, hitherto-innocent soul. “I need it done perfectly — and I need it done tomorrow.”

*********

Chapter 4: Someone Blue

These days, Lord Thymon thought of it as a burden, more than anything else; a weighty duty of which he could not wait to rid himself. But there were benefits to being the reigning Embodiment of Multiversal Time, even bound as he was in a fraying human form. Probability… liked him, for lack of a better term. Things he’d set his mind on tended to happen, even if he didn’t consciously force them to.

It was probably no coincidence that the Cupids had become so central to the affairs of the Multiverse, and so successful at it too, ever since Thymon’s little epiphany. Not that he’d told anyone about that.

The point was that his idle wishes had a way of coming true. And oh, how he’d wished, a few weeks ago, that he could bring his full eldritch power to bear against that boorish agent of the Department of Relocation.

A new day was dawning in the Cupid Homeworld, a most momentous one, and while in his own master-bedroom, Thymon was rising happily — though his left hand had almost completely unraveled — elsewhere, Ellis-1512’s mind was being assailed by a horror beyond his comprehension.

One, three, a dozen off-worlders, he could deal with. He could find them, document them, interview them, and, if at all possible, harass them until they went away. He’d driven the Wind-Up Beast into hiding, and counted that as a great success.

And yet, he was but a single, obnoxious Cupid. That morning, he walked out of his prim and tasteless house, and found the Homeworld… invaded.

Ellis had been awakened by a discordant nightmare playing just under his window, which turned out to be the sound of the Department of Orchestration attempting to learn Elgar’s bridal march, under the breathless direction of Celebration-665, whose enthusiasm was matched only by his complete inability to read sheet music. It had put him in a sour mood to begin with, but that much was par for the course when you lived in the centre of the Cupid Homeworld.

But then, he had noticed the intruders.

Thymon’s infamous birthday party a couple of years back had been nothing next to this. They were all there — that was the terrible thing. Hastur, Vrullu, Orkogorruk, K’thylliss,he’d spotted them all — even the Flatwoods Monster, who had come hand in hand with a huge, furry creature who looked like a cross between an owl and a moth. And yet the small gaggle of eldritch gods could almost be lost in the crowd.

A huge area of the Mainland Cloud had been cleared, with a stage and altar erected at one end, and thousands of foldable seats deployed in front of it. They were half-full already, and with every passing moment, more ships and shifters arrived, materialising near the stage and streaming out to greet each other and choose their places.

The dozens of Jennies Everywhere were but the start. They came in small groups — old ones, young ones, shih tzu ones and giant robot ones — and, of course, they’d brought friends, diverse and rambunctious. Dandy, fresh off fitting Jenny’s gown, was frantically chasing a roving pack of Australians and jungle-lords, imploring them to sample his vast wardrobe — for propriety’s sake if not for fashion’s. Ellis, for his part, almost exploded at the sight of a huge, black yeti with glowing eyes, who introduced himself as Raleigh in impeccable English and asked for directions. When the Cupid proved unable to provide them, a dragon called Garsecg stepped in, their dark scales glistening in the bright Homeworld sunlight, and calmly told the ape what he needed to know.

Elsewhere, an honest-to-goodness superhero, with a full-body green leotard and a sigil on his chest, was suspiciously eying a coven of sugar-themed witches, who looked a little too villainous for his liking, as their respective Jennies tried to act as go-betweens. Elsewhere still, a boy-genius couldn’t keep his eyes off the Clockwork Cherubs whenever one crossed his path, though his curiosity — and screwdriver — were kept in check by two other friends of that Jenny — immortals, by the look of them, for they surveyed the crowd of gods and monsters with a benign, weary familiarity, like an old sage watching children at play. And even here, Pixie Pristine was dodging paparazzi, standing ready to sing once the dancing started.

And still, the likes of them were the least of Ellis’s concerns. Titans had come, and warlocks, and great Intelligences; and the Citadel herself, walking proudly in the light. There were gods here, and things beyond gods. Conceptual beings walked the Homeworld, as they had but once before, during Conquest-932’s ill-fated master-plan. All thirty-six Abstracts had made the trip, and had taken a row to themselves; behind them, one could almost have missed a group of seven siblings, who might have looked like humans to the untrained eye. They’d come only because their oldest member had insisted, and their presence was, it went without saying, strictly unofficial.

Besides, if she, the oldest, had advertised her name, it might have spoiled the mood — not that her scythe-wielding, hood-wearing colleagues seemed to have grasped that particular insight. There were four or five of those boys, who were stalking menacingly through the crowd. But they were watched, each of them, by some of the more imposing Jennies. The message was clear: as guests, they were welcome — at least one of them was an in-law, after all — but no business, please. Today was one of those days when a gentleman of their persuasion simply had to take the proverbial holiday.

Still they came, foes and friends, mortal and timeless, united in purpose. This was the day, and the place to be. Who would miss this for the world?

*********

Ellis fainted long before he’d finished taking stock of the incoming horde.

But even had he lived up to his paper-pushing ideals, it is unlikely that the mechanical bureaucrat would have noticed the most important thing about that crowd. It wasn’t a question of who was there; the answer was, more or less, “everybody”. No, the question lay in that ��or less”, for there were a few key faces missing. One was Tarsa, but she hardly counted — her mysterious abduction via magical burlap sack had already made the news across the Omniverse, to those who knew where to listen. And that son of hers was here, attending in her place, alongside one of Tarsa’s most convincing self-portrait marionettes. No, there were only a few names whose absence really should have made a cunning observer wonder.

The first, naturally, was Jenny Everywhere — the Jenny Everywhere, the bride herself, Jenny Everton of the 38167th Universe. But that was tradition. The ceremony had yet to begin, and the bride had to make a real entrance. Besides which, this particular bride was also a young mother, and a certain blue-haired baby had woken up hungry.

Lord Thymon, too, that most notorious of grooms, had yet to make an appearance — in the incarnation who was to be wed, at any rate. At first, it was assumed that he was simply matching Jenny; a few in the crowd suggested that the bride and groom might have been delayed by a last-minute dress rehearsal of the wedding night, which would have been easier to chastise if the main proponents of the hypothesis had not been other incarnations of Jenny Everywhere. But multiple Cupids and guests testified that the blue man had left his House earlier in the morning — then turned a corner and vanished from sight.

His family had inquired most strenuously; his siblings, Spatium and Psykha, did not think it too late to talk him out of it, while his hundreds of ancestral incarnations could not wait to congratulate him on sticking it to the siblings in question.

But no matter how many times they asked, no matter how Valentine-974 pleaded, Thymon’s best man simply adjusted his hat, leaned back on his umbrella, and muttered something about a lord of Time never being late, or early, but arriving precisely when he was meant to. Eventually, the questions stopped. Better people had died trying, without ever getting the faintest hint of an answer out of Nyarlathotep.

If he had been inclined to elucidate, however, here is what the Man in the Panama Hat might, perhaps, have related.

*********

Many Thymons had come to the wedding of Thymon the Blue.

Not all of them — that would have meant an infinity, at least if you counted the future as well as the past — but many.

Thymon the Kraken was there, and Thymon the Purple, and Thymon of Many Eyes; even Thymon Space-Heart, that living legend to whom even Tarsa the Toymaker would have paid her grudging respects.

Slithering among those glorious dozens, the Old Gods of eons, Tiny Thymon hardly knew what to do with himself. There was never a question of him missing this day, but… he had not thought it would come so soon. Not with his Uncle still the reigning Thymon. He should have been Lord by now, seeing off a predecessor. And it was not that he wanted that power, with all its dread responsibility; oh no. But that was how these things were done, and to a Shapechild who had grown up absorbing rituals and protocols as a human babe absorbs its mother’s milk, the lack of a script was daunting.

Tiny Thymon… was not so Tiny, now. He had been growing, inwards and outwards. He stood as tall as any Thymon, now; the six-dimensional crutch with which he had made up for his under-developed tentacular crown had long since become obsolete. And his memory stretched far. First he had remembered being his Uncle; then his Great-Uncle; his mind had grown, day by day, to encompass eternity. He, who had been raised on tales of Space-Heart, could now remember those great deeds that had filled his dreams with wonder.

Soon he would be complete. Ready.

Tiny Thymon had never disliked his nickname, but it was getting silly, all the same. He didn’t understand. Why had his Uncle not abdicated by now? He had done everything short of abdication. He had abandoned his duty, and the palace under the Chronon Sea;he had made mortal friends, taken a human bride, even called himself a demon at times.

He was burning to ask the question, but knew, when he materialised in the Cupid Homeworld, that there was little chance of that today. Today of all days — Thymon the Blue had other things to do. He could at least understand that.

Thus, Tiny Thymon was entirely unprepared when a bald, blue man with a muted, but familiar aura took him aside, discreetly dragging him away from the watchful Spatium towards a disused warehouse.

“…uNcLe?” the Shapechild finally breathed out, after the blue man had shut the doors behind them.

“Yes, nephew,” the man said — in English, not the eldritch thought-speech of the Embodiments, but there was a hint of the Voice behind his words, trying to break through. “Don’t you remember what I wrote to you last?”

The green Thymon waited for a moment.

“…i DoN’t BeLiEvE mUm LeT mE sEe ThAt PaRtIcUlAr LeTtEr,” he said at last.

The older Thymon frowned. “Ah. Pity,” he said, though he did not sound surprised. “She was ever such a…” He smiled, though wanly. “… such a square. Listen, nephew — I called you here today, because there is something I must do. And I hope that you will forgive me. Thymon, my successor — are you ready… to be a god?”

Tiny Thymon started.

“i wIlL bEcOmE iF aNd WhEn YoU cHoOsE, uNcLe,” he assured the blue Thymon. “ThAt Is YoUr RiGhT. i… WoNdErEd AbOuT tHe DeLaY, i CoNfEsS, bUt —”

“I… had my reasons,” the older being said. “Many reasons. Some wise, some — perhaps less so. There is one I stand by, one I hope you will understand for yourself, in time, but perhaps it would not have sufficed on its own. But in the main — in the main, nephew, I was afraid. I’ve rather made a mess of things, you know. Let it go for too long, and then all those Rifts, and now whatever is up with Tarsa — I kept thinking I could come back, right the ship, and then retire. For your sake. You understand?”

“UnClE, eVeRy ThYmOn HaS hIs BuRdEn,” the green demon assured him. “DiD yOuR uNcLe SeAl ThE fAtE oF tHe AbStRaCt oF tImE iN yOuR pLaCe? DiD HiS uNcLe SeTtLe ThE wAr Of ThE sEcOnD aNd ThIrd? I aSsUrE yOu, TaCkLiNg ThEsE cRiSeS sHaLl Be My HoNoUr, UnClE.”

“Of course, of course. Ah, such a dutiful lad,” laughed the old Thymon. “I was like you once. It’s not a bad way to begin… but Jenny could teach you a thing or two, as she taught me. I’d say you should find yourself a Jenny — although perhaps, not in quite so many words. You don’t want to turn out too much like me, I expect. Or else, what would be the point?”

Tiny Thymon laughed at that, at least.

Realising his nephew was waiting for him to say more, Thymon inhaled deeply and went on.

“Well, right or wrong, there’s no running anymore. That ridiculous looming coincidence — I sense another hand in it, but it was my will, as well. Subconsciously. Or else I wouldn’t have permitted it. It was one more excuse to… belay, to procrastinate. As long as I’m like this, all woven and humannish, I’m not quite Lord Thymon anymore. In a different way than if I abdicated, of course, but the end result is the same… I… could have married Jenny. Without fear of… side-effects.”

“Ah. YeS. i ReMeMbEr WhAt HaPpEnS, wHeN wE — iF wE —”

“Yes,” the old Thymon nodded again, shuddering, “and who knows what would happen if we did it to Jenny Everywhere. Out of the question. And as you can see —”

He sighed again and held up his wounded hand; the shape of fingers was entirely gone, now, and the freely-floating tentacles made him look distinctly as though he had obtained a pirate-style prosthetic that was constructed from a mop, instead of a hook.

“— my plot is unraveling fast, now. So. On to Plan B, as Pythagoras likes to say. Nephew…” His voice was shaking. “Are you ready to BeCoMe?”

Tiny Thymon waited for a moment, tasting the frightening exhilaration of the moment, then nodded and held out a green tentacle of biodata.

Thymon the Blue extended his left arm, and one of the loose tendrils stretched out to meet the tip of his nephew’s. Blue met green — there was a flash. Startled by the light, Tiny Thymon closed his single eye —

— and the Great Eye of Lord Thymon the Green opened.

Thymon the Blue beamed at his successor, a wide smile full of pride and kindness and remorse, and seemed about to say something.

Then there was a flash of red light, and the newly-instituted Lord Thymon disappeared from the Cupid Homeworld.

The remaining Thymon blinked.

“…Uh-oh. That‘s not supposed to happen.”

*********

It might have helped Thymon the Blue to understand what had just happened if he had not been so concerned with his family affairs, and had thus paid attention to the other two missing faces; if he had asked two simple questions.

Where was the Bridesmaid?

And where was Doctor Laura Drake?

*********

Like many bridesmaids, Jenny Anywhere, alias Penny Anderson, student and friend to the Jenny Everywhere of the 38167th Universe, had spent many weeks preparing for this day. Unlike most bridesmaids, she had entirely failed to show up to the ceremony; nor had she ever intended to.

Instead, she was kneeling on the floor of one of the Altern Corporation’s more discreet hangar bays, generously donated to the cause by Altern’s founder herself, Doctor Laura Phoebe Drake. The lavender-tinted floor had once been immaculate, but over the last month, the Shifter and the Doctor had filled it with a dizzying array of symbols, circles and pentagrams. Anderson had called upon every scrap of lore she knew, from classical alchemy to the Glyphs of the Greys, and Doctor Drake had contributed her own brilliant intuition when it came to matters of dimensional engineering.

Here, at last, drawn in blood-red ink, was the result. A binding lattice of dimensional magicks, which would summon that demonic Lord Thymon, and trap him here. Forever, if that was what it took, but at least for a couple of weeks. Enough for Jenny to calm down; for her two friends to talk her down, and convince her that they had just saved her from a very great peril.

At first they’d been going off a hunch, a mere generalisation. But in her research, Jenny Anywhere had learned more about the Embodiments of the Void. They had been known to take consorts in eons past. But such a match was fusion, not just union. The mortal was subsumed into the eternal, absorbed, their identities merged irreversibly into a greater, wiser, yet other being.

The idea repelled Laura; that her Jenny would be lost to her, bound inextricably to that rude blue ponce she’d met on Nowhere Island. If there had been any jealous feeling in her to begin with, it paled in comparison to the rage which filled her now.

Anywhere’s worries were more practical, but no less urgent. Though she had not been there, she had been told what Jenny Nowhere had attempted to do to young Sophie Everytime on that island. Was the logic not the same here? If one Jenny Everywhere melded into that timeless god of the Void, would they all?

Where would that leave the Multiverse? And — if she could be forgiven for a measure of self-interest — where would that leave Jenny Anywhere? She was her own Jenny, a better Jenny, she liked to say. But how different, how distinct were they, really?

The wedding had to be stopped.

But Anywhere had been trying to enact her part of the plan for several days, now, ever since she’d completed the glyph-lattice. And it wasn’t working.

Again she slammed her palm down on the input-glyph, discharging a blast of concentrated shifter energy through the lattice. For a moment the whole darkened room lit up with the glowing red lines as the spell hummed to life like a great machine —

— then, just as abruptly, it stopped.

The diagnostic was clear, as it had been every time.

The spell was functional, but it found no target.

There was no such person as a reigning Lord Thymon. Not as the magic understood the core traits of such a being.

Anywhere let out a raw, desperate shriek.

Either the Cupid Homeworld was even more cunningly warded than Laura had been told, or…

But that didn’t make sense. They had an in. They had the coordinates, thanks to the invitations they had both received; and Laura, secure in her own part of the plan, was already on her way without issue. So what was going on?

Feeling tears of frustration in the corners of her eyes, Jenny Anywhere hit the input-glyph again. Yet again the magic hummed to life…

…and took.

A writhing shape appeared in the innermost of the many concentric circles, layers upon layers of bindings and protections. Swirling tentacles, a creature that swam through realities as a jellyfish drifts through the ocean — swishing and whipping uselessly as they fought against the power that had leashed them to this room. A pulsating heart, and a great eye, which Anywhere did her best not to stare into. Yes, Lord Thymon was precisely as the old tomes had described him. Who knew why the twenty-seventh time had been the charm.

Now, it was all up to Laura. But the hardest part was done.

And yet — there was one nagging question on Anywhere’s mind.

Since when was Thymon green?

*********

One view would have been that once you had seen one inexplicable abduction of an all-powerful interdimensional being, you had seen them all.

Another would have been that if he’d already been worried about Tarsa before, Thymon the Blue should have been doubly worried about Tarsa and his nephew disappearing in much the same fashion in such short succession.

In practice, however, little could distract Thymon from the sight of Jenny Everywhere making her grand entrance in a halo of rainbow light. The outfit that Cupid tailor had designed for her was simply perfect; though there was not a scrap of white fabric to be found, it felt quintessentially bridal; though it was distinctly a dress, it did not jar as Thymon had half-expected from the sight of his ever-tomboyish Jenny in such a garment. She had a scarf, too, a long, light one, which trailed behind her like a veil, and it was hard to see where the dress ended and the scarf began. Golden goggles gleamed on her forehead like a princess’s tiara. And she only had eyes for him.

He spared one last look for Nyarlathotep, whose obsidian-black eyes were twinkling, and then he walked slowly to meet her. Though he was certain he was still in human form, he felt as though he was gliding. The tendrils of his unraveled hand closed around her own, faintly-callused fingers with infinite tenderness.

She winked.

And together, they walked down the aisle.

The ‘altar’ had not been provided by the Department of Festivities, nor by the Department of Sculpting, and certainly not by the Department of Quasireligious Obsequiousness. Instead, it was the latest and greatest work of the Department of Baking.

It was, in fact, a huge slice of toasted bread, mounted onto four, nearly-invisible struts of Celfoam.

Behind it stood Philatel-426, his golden bodywork polished like a new penny, joyful tears of oil pearling at the corners of his sky-blue eyes.

Had she not been away, had the wedding not taken place in the Homeworld, had a hundred things been different, Jenny might have thought to ask Tarsa to officiate — but as soon as the plan had become clear, Philatel had stood as the first and only choice. There was no figure of authority or wisdom that the groom had ever acknowledged more deeply.

The Cupid read some words, then, from a handsomely-bound book he had placed on the bread altar. No one really listened to them, not even Valentine, who had spent much of the last, sleepless night writing them, printing them, and binding the book. Two words alone mattered, and sent the crowd in its hundreds shouting and crying and cheering.

“I do,” said Thymon.

“I do,” said Jenny Everywhere.

*********

And the story might have ended there. Thymon wouldn’t have complained.

But stories about Jenny Everywhere never end. Not really.

This one’s lack of finality, however, was more obvious than others, and rather more quickly —

— for as Thymon leaned down to kiss the bride with those temporary human lips, another figure rushed down the aisle, shouting its apologies for its lateness.

“dEaR, dEaR, dEaR! …fOrGeT mY oWn HeAd NeXt!” the figure said as it glided down the many hundred feet. “YoU mUsT hAvE BeEn WoNdErInG wHeRe I wAs, Hm? I dO hOpE yOu DiDn’T sTaRt WiThOuT mE!”

The figure skidded to a halt within ten feet of the altar, twirling on itself, single eye blinking with amusement at the startled faces of the guests. Doctor Omega frowned, and whispered something in Jenny Over-There’s ear. On the row where the Protectorate’s representatives had gathered, a grey man turned to Doctor Hinterlist in askance.

“hA! hA! I’M jOkInG, oF cOuRsE,” the late-comer continued its boisterous monologue. “hOw CoUlD yOu HaVe A wEdDiNg WiThOuT… tHe GrOoM?”

The tall, midnight-blue, tentacular form of Lord Thymon, red hat upon his head, finished its final half-twirl, rotating so that the great, glowing eye directly faced the pale blue man who held Jenny’s hand in his own, with matching bands on their fingers.

“…How indeed,” said the human Thymon.

“wHaT?!” the new arrival shrieked, and bent down to stare at Jenny. “jEnNy! WhAt Is ThE mEaNiNg Of ThIs? WhO iS tHiS… tHiS iMpOsToR?”

Jenny winked again — but held her free hand forward and grasped one of the midnight-blue tentacles, squeezing tight and not letting go.

“I think you know, dear,” she said. “And I think I know too.”

“…Jenny? Jenny, explain,” the real Thymon asked, voice wavering.

“In a minute, dear,” she said, looking at him again and planting a quick peck on his lips. Then she turned again. “Well, what are you waiting for, Mr Postmaster?”

Philatel blinked, adjusting his reading glasse.

“W-waiting for? What do you mean?”

“I came here to marry Thymon the Blue, didn’t I?”

“Y-yes…”

“Well, we’ve done it once, but it seems there’s a spare. You wouldn’t want to leave a job half-done, now would you?”

“I — certainly not!” the Cupid said primly, before he began to shake again, paging frantically through Valentine’s book. “But I — I’m sorry, Madam, this is most irregular. I married you once already. Perhaps you could have Valentine update this code, b-but for the time being, nothing in the ceremony accounts for the concept of — of multiple spouses —”

“Who said anything about multiple spouses? This is Thymon the Blue,” she said, nodding at the blue man. “And by every appearance, this is also Thymon the Blue.”

“I — yEs! Of CoUrSe!”

“So you’re marrying me just the once, you see,” Jenny grinned. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“I — but — Thymon, you’re alright with this, are you?” the Postmaster asked.

The blue man thought for a moment. “…I trust Jenny,” he said at last.

“…oh, very well,” Philatel sighed at last. “It’s your wedding. S-shall I read the thing again, or shall we take it as said?”

“I think we’re good,” Jenny said playfully. “Let’s just skip to the fun bit.” She inhaled and said, for the second time, and with considerable gusto: “I do!”

“wH — wElL — yEs, yEs, oF cOuRse! sO Do I — tHaT iS — I dO!” the newcomer exposed.

“Right!” said Philatel, who seemed to be in something of a hurry to get through the ordeal. “I now pronounce all… three… of you, to be lawful spouses in the eyes of the Goddess Aphrodite, the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids, and the Council of Frogs! You may kiss, and…” He checked the book again, then read the words over again before he sounded them out uncertaintly “…eat the altar?”

“Yum!” said Jenny, immediately tearing a chunk of warm toasted bread from the titanic slice. She bit down on it greedily, swallowed, then kissed the human Thymon with passion.

She held the kiss for a solid thirty seconds, to wild cheering from the audience, then finally let go.

Thymon blinked.

“…oh. Oh my. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, you are very, very good at this.” He paused. “But now, in all seriousness — would you explain? That —” He pointed, “is not me. I would feel it.”

Jenny elbowed the old-school Thymon. The gesture produced a strangely metallic clang.

“Well? You want to do the honours, spouse of mine? I know you like this bit.”

“…oH, aLrIGhT tHeN,” came the echoing voice from within the construct, and suddenly the voice-filter cut out. “It’s me. Mwa-ha-ha, and all that,” a woman’s voice explained.

There was the hissing of pressure being released, and a seam opened at two thirds of the height of the Thymon construct. It split apart, and the top third pivoted off like a lid, revealing the reddened, oil-stained face of Laura Drake.

The real Thymon had no time to ask questions before Jenny put a hand on each of Laura’s cheeks and pulled her into a kiss which was no less hungry or passionate, and lasted precisely as many seconds.

“I… I don’t understand…” Laura panted once Jenny drew away, her smirk reaching proportions of fond smugness previously unknown to humankind.

“I think I’m beginning to,” Thymon said.

“But… but… Jenny! I was trying to trick you into marrying me!” Laura wailed. It was undoubtedly too hot inside the tight animatronic suit, but this was unlikely to have much to do with the intense red hue that was now colouring her face.

“You old silly. We tricked each other. Only way it was ever gonna happen, don’t you think?”

“You planned this!”

“’Course! Well, some bits. I knew what you were doing, and I let you do it,” Jenny chuckled, booping her wife’s nose. “But I’m always happy to leave the details up to chance. You don’t mind, do you, husband?”

“N-no, of course,” her husband assured her. “I told you I did not need this to be exclusive, and I meant it absolutely. You… you might have told me…” He said hesitantly, before laughing: “But oh well, I didn’t tell you I was abdicating. It seems you guessed anyway, but I didn’t tell you. Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.”

“Hang on,” Laura blinked. “I’m not married to him now, am I?”

The prospect also seemed to bring a frown to Thymon’s face.

“What now? Of course not,” said Jenny, biting down on another chunk of toast. “I married you, and then I married you. But legally speaking, you’re the same spouse. Isn’t that right,Phil?”

“Yes. That’s right. Don’t call me Phil. Thank you,” Philatel said in a very small voice. He had sat down, cross-legged, behind the altar, and was rolling gently back and forth.

“Well, you can’t very well be married to yourself, now can you?” Jenny paused, and blinked. “…Now granted, I’ve done that. But that’s, you know, a whole other story.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Laura and Thymon’s laughter rose into the clear blue sky.

She hugged them both tightly, then turned to face the guests.

“Well? What’re you lot still sitting down for? Let’s dance!”

*********

THE END

*********

The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

The character of Jenny Anywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Anywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

The character of Jimmy Anytime is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

The character of Jenny Over-There is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Over-There, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.

The character of Laura Drake was created by Jeanne Morningstar and is available for use by anyone.

The character of the Electro-Cat was created by Aristide Twain and is available for use by anyone.

The character of the Man in Grey was created by Callum Phillpott and is available for use by anyone.

The Abstracts were created by Benj Christensen and are available for use by anyone.

#JennyEverywhereDay #2023 #Aristide Twain #Jenny Everywhere #Jenny Anywhere #Jimmy Anytime #Laura Drake #Jenny Over-There #The Man in Grey #The Electro-Cat #Sophie Everytime

7 notes · View notes