Four Thirds was her name yesterday, but that one hadn't been right, either. Today, she was Westley. It was a good, chivalrous name, but she could already feel it being too big for her own ambitions. And she had no princess to rescue.
She'd wondered all week if there was more to what Lute had said about immortality. She'd been curious, but if she was wrong—or worse, if she'd only imagined it—Westley wasn't ready to go, yet.
Friday had felt lifetimes away back when she'd met Lute on Tuesday, but now that the Sun was beginning to set she wondered—not for the first time—how, exactly, she was meant to get to dinner.
Lute hadn't exactly left her number. But, then, having seen how Dream left, she supposed Lute didn't exactly need her number, either.
It was six in the evening on the dot when a knock came from a door that hadn't been beside her worn sofa five minutes ago.
The door was tall and ornate, carved wood that depicted a bountiful garden, and Westley took only a moment to look over what she'd chosen to wear. Maroon dress pants that matched to the suit jacket she wore, sleeves cuffed up and up until they sat just past her elbows, a cream blouse with a wild ruffle—things her fathers had chosen for her.
She hadn't heard from either of them since she'd left.
If Jo had—back when she was still couch surfing—she hadn't mentioned it.
With a shaky breath, she slipped on her brown dress shoes and pulled her hair back into a quick, messy ponytail before heading through the door and into a place few other humans had ever been.
It wasn't the high, vaulting ceilings that caught her attention first. It wasn't the statuary, delicate in its stone. It wasn't the winding tapestries or standing pictures or cathedral windows with their mottled glass.
It was Dream.
Here, now, he looked so different. Here, dressed in dark and draping fabrics, starry-eyed and tall, he looked right.
There were others, too.
Lute, for instance, wore a nice black suit with pretty gold buttons—another of the attendees had golden buttons, too. A person—Westley wasn't sure how else to call them—in a scarlet suit jacket that flared off into the back of a skirt and draped down even into a train. They wore matching pants and had not bothered with a shirt. Their earrings and buttons matched.
They stood beside—half-draped across—a woman in a track suit. Her face was soft and pretty, and she fiddled with a ring that looked like a fish hook that seemed all too familiar to Westley. Her hair, had it been clean, might've been almost the same shade as her draped sibling's.
The last two stood out in their differences.
One was a girl who couldn't have been more than sixteen with vibrant rainbow liberty spikes down the middle of her otherwise shaved head. She wore a violently neon orange leotard, and her fishnet stockings and sleeves were ripped in places that seemed as strategic as not. She had a tulle tutu that she fidgeted expanding the holes in until she could push her fingers through them.
The other Westley almost overlooked as a statue at first. His brown-gray cloak was nearly matched in color with the twisting gargoyle statue some scant few feet away. His skin was washed out, overexposed, and what little she could see of his face was weather-beaten and worn. He held in one hand a thick book, and upon closer inspection she could make out a chain that cuffed his hand to it.
It was Lute who approached Westley first, all smile and welcoming as she came over to take Westley's hands in her own.
"Hey, there, you," she started, and Westley found herself drawn into her big brown eyes that reminded her of how soil looked the day before sprouts would start popping out. "What's the name of the day?"
"It is Westley," said the cloaked man, gliding past the group of the gathered to a nicely set round table. "Come. Sit. There will be food shortly."
"Will there be pickled string?" Asked the girl with liberty spikes. "I need some to tie up my beetles."
"There will be. Sit." The cloaked man pulled out a chair for himself, then, and settled at the table, the girl following to sit to his right.
Lute let go of Westley's hands after a gentle squeeze, nodding over. "Don't worry—we don't expect you to try to eat pickled string, Wes," she promised, and Westley let out a soft laugh.
"Ask for answers and you get, like, so many more questions," Westley said, though she had to fight the urge to shrink away when Dream made his way over to her.
"My sister," he began, Lute turning her attention to him, "may I speak with you a moment?"
Lute looked to Westley. "Go grab a seat wherever you like, okay? We'll be back in a minute."
With that, the only two people Westley knew—even in passing—were gone.
She looked to the table, and saw a seat between the liberty-spiked girl and the soft-bodied woman and cautiously approached the high-backed chair. "Is it okay if I sit here?" Westley asked, and the blonde-in-scarlet grinned.
"You can sit in my lap if you'd like," they purred, and she couldn't help but feel like a mouse before a lion.
"What I'd like," she answered, seating herself and pushing past the thumping of her heart in her throat, "is to know where I've come for dinner. What is this place?"
The blonde rolled their eyes.
"It's Destiny," the liberty-spiked girl said. "Our oldest brother—right here. This is him. The place—and him."
"We are in the temple at the heart of The Garden of Forking Ways," the eldest—Destiny—said. "You are here because of what is on your arm. We are here to determine the best path of least conflict."
"Your arm?" The liberty-spiked girl asked, reaching over to take Westley's left arm. Her fingers tickled as she ran them over Westley's forearm. "We're here about hair?"
Westley shook her head and unbuttoned her jacket. "No. No, I imagine not," she said, letting her jacket slip off her shoulders to reveal the string of symbols—soulmate marks—that trailed along her upper arm.
In silhouette against her skin they were: a book; an ankh; a bird skull; a sword; a heart; a hook; and a spiral, though the edges of it were tinged blue-green-yellow like a bruise that never healed right.
It was the blonde-in-scarlet who took the first words. They all but leapt to their feet, hands slamming on the table in front of them as they insisted, "Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I will not vie for a human's attention against the rest of you! I am leaving."
"No, you aren't," Destiny said, not moving from his seat. "We will reach an arrangement you will find agreeable. Sit back down."
The blonde-in-scarlet tensed, but their sister—the one with soft eyes and dirty hair—reached up and put her hand on their arm, and the fight seemed to drain from them at once as they dropped back into their seat.
It was at this time that Dream and Lute arrived to the table, with the blonde-in-scarlet settled with arms over their chest and Westley wondering how big of a can of worms she'd managed to tip over.
"Well, then," Lute started, dropping into her chair as Dream slowly took his own seat, eyes fixed on the string of symbols on Westley's arm, "when's the food getting here? I'm starving."
"Presently," Destiny answered as a line of cloaked figures slipped out from between two gargantuan pillars. They moved smoothly as though they were pulled on a rolling dolly, and their faces were shrouded in gray and shadow. There were seven figures, each carrying a single plate, and as they approached the table the previously-empty goblets filled themselves—some with wine, some with mead, one with champagne, one with mustard. Westley's goblet filled itself with grape soda, purple and bubbling and smelling of concord.
"Ooh, good choice," the liberty-spiked girl said, and reached a finger over to dip it into Westley's drink before taking a taste.
"You could have more than that if you wanted," Westley said, offering the glass-and-gold goblet to the girl who happily took it with both hands and took a few big gulps before handing it back no less full than it had been before she'd drank.
At Westley's confusion, the girl said, "Dinner isn't over, yet. Nothing's empty 'til it's over."
"Oh. Well, that's clever."
Death let out a soft laugh from where she sat between the blonde-in-scarlet and Dream. "He's clever enough, sometimes," she teased, and both of her neighbors allowed themselves small smiles they did not share with one another.
The figures came to stand between them and set down plates. On the liberty-spiked girl's plate was a neat mess of reeking string that smelled strongly of vinegar, a ramekin of fish eyes, and a single scoop of slowly-melting ice cream that Westley couldn't stop herself from thinking smelled like a whale song.
Beside her, Destiny's dish was simple, but no less elegant for its simplicity. Three different porridge types took up equal portions of his bowl, stopped from meeting in the middle by a small container of bits of bread. Westley wondered if it, like the goblets, would not be empty until after dinner had been had.
Dream and Lute had similar meals. Meat, sauce, vegetables, fruit. They looked tasteful and wholesome, though Westley did notice to some soft amusement the herbs Dream's dish was decorated with—sage and lavender, and chamomile blossoms floated in his mead. On Lute's plate were herbs Westley could not identify quite as well, though the mushrooms on her plate were white and delicate looking with gills that made her wonder quietly if they might have been destroying angels.
Mycology had never been her greatest forte, though, and when cooked many mushrooms looked alike.
The blonde-in-scarlet's plate didn't have much, but what it lacked in contents it surpassed in presentation. On petals of flowers Westley could not identify (nor would she have been able to on the blossoms; these flowers had been gone for many millennia now) were the hearts of some small animals simmered delicately in sherry and dressed with a musky yak's milk cream sauce.
The woman in the track suit who had not said a word to Westley since she'd arrived had the plate that looked most appetizing to her aside from her own. Gleaming sweet potatoes in a cherry wine sauce, three heavy, smokey ribs, a portion of macaroni-and-cheese with nearly—nearly—burned spots on its crust, and a basket of flaky rolls glistening with honey glaze was set beside her plate.
Then there was Westley's own plate.
The first time she'd ever sneaked out of her fathers' home, she'd gone to a chippy. It wasn't the best chippy she'd ever been to—certainly not now with nearly a year of independence under her belt. But it was special. It was the first time she'd ever talked to someone who didn't know whose daughter she was, or how strange and different she was (not intentionally, not by choice, not for any reason other than that her father Alex thought the soulmate of Dream should be hidden away careful as could be).
On her plate, now, was fish and chips. Cheap tartar sauce. Cheaper ketchup. A little bun to the side lightly warmed and soft except for the little hard spot on its side.
Westley's heart caught in her throat.
"How—" she started, eyes widening as she looked over at Destiny, then back at the figure who'd brought her food.
"It is what you wanted," he answered, and did not look at her as the others began to eat.
Dream, though, watched on a moment as Westley fidgeted with the roll before speaking.
"You drive your dreams there often," he said, voice slow and smoother, now, than it had been when last they'd talked. "It was the first time you'd felt free."
"The chippy's closed, now," Westley said in soft awe. "I thought it was just… gone."
"It is," said the woman beside her. "Has been for years. There's an electronics store there, now."
"Oh. Then… thank you, I suppose. I've never been able to find anywhere that did the same seasoning blend in their fish. Destiny, do you know what seasonings they used?"
The table stilled in that slight way that gave away how each sibling had turned some attention to Destiny. The blonde-in-scarlet laughed.
"You think you'll get answers from him? Good luck," they said, taking a bite of a little off-red heart.
"To be fair," Lute parried, "we're usually asking things like 'when will someone realize they're cursed' or 'how many sprigs of the Tree of Knowledge are left?' I imagine something small like this probably isn't quite as weighty."
"Can I have some of your chips?" The liberty-spiked girl asked, already helping herself to a handful to dump over her strange ice cream.
"The recipe is on your kitchen table," Destiny said, earning a raised eyebrow from Dream and an indignant look from the blonde-in-scarlet. "Watch your oil temperature. Watch it carefully."
For her part, Westley lit up. "Thank you. I will, I—I will."
The word 'promise' sat behind her tongue, but like a sturdy gate her teeth did not let it pass; promise had to mean something. Promise had to mean something.
"Can I ask another question, then?"
"We are the Endless," Destiny said, as though he knew already what she would ask. Westley supposed he likely did. "We were here before, and we will be here after. I am the first, but we are, all of us, infinite."
"Different sizes of infinity, then?" Westley asked, and he nodded. "Infinity minus one, or two, or—enough to differentiate. At least on a cosmic scale."
"Just so," Lute chirped. "He's Destiny, I'm Death. But I think you might've put that together already."
"I suspected," Westley admitted. "Why do you all share the same first letter? English can't actually be that special, can it?"
"Not special," Destiny said. "Coincidental. There are plenty of languages wherein our names share similarities. In the tongue of a planet in the North of the Hammerhead Nebula all of our names are identical. In the flashing light languages of Verdemna—a planet your species will never interact with—our names are each a different, distinct shade of orange."
"Huh… so aliens are real. I think I kind of figured, you know?" Westley said, pushing her plate toward Delirium as the not-girl began building a house of chips and commandeered her fish to use as walls, smearing the edges with bits of mustard to keep them in place. "I can't imagine something more awful than the idea that… that Earth was all there was."
"I'm Delirium, by the way," the liberty-spiked not-girl said, now laying bits of pickled string over the little house as rainbow-shelled beetles began to slip out of from under her fingernails to nest themselves in the string.
"So Destiny, Dream, Death—and you're Delirium. Can I ask your names, then?" Westley asked, turning to the blonde-in-scarlet and the soft-faced, pretty not-woman.
"We're twins," the blonde-in-scarlet said, taking a sip of their champagne. "She's Despair, Queen of Misery, and I'm all that you or any other little living thing could ever Desire."
Dramatic, Westley thought briefly, might fit better.
"Well, today I'm Westley. I… might keep the name a while. I don't know. It's a little big for me, so I don't know if I'll still have it tomorrow."
Delirium nodded beside her. "You should try Harold. I think you'd like it."
"Harold, hm? It sounds cubist; I like it. Alright. Tomorrow, I'll be Harold," Westley said, and Delirium hummed a happy sound as she watched the little beetles skitter around their house.
Westley glanced down at her arm, then, and around at the table, and with a realization she went to ask a question.
"Destruction," Destiny headed off, "will not be joining us tonight."
"Oh. Alright. I suppose they would be the last?"
"He is," Death said, sliding back into the conversation, her plate nearly empty. Most of the plates were—as were nearly all of the goblets. Dinner must be coming to an end. "Which works out well for you, I guess. You get one day to yourself a week, and the rest I guess we can divvy up."
"Can I have Growlsday?" Delirium asked, and Death nodded.
"I'm alright with that. That's Thursday to the rest of us, right?"
"Nothing interesting happens on a Thursday, anyway," Desire said. "You can have it. I'll take… hmm, I'll take Saturday."
"I thought you didn't want my attention," Westley said, looking to them with a tilt of her head.
"I don't want to fight for it; not the same thing. I'll take Saturday and have you all day."
"Unless I have work. Then you'll have me when I'm done."
They pouted, but Despair cut in before they could fuss. "I'll take Monday. I like Mondays."
"Okay, then I want Wednesdays. Dream, Destiny, is that alright with you?" Death asked, her brothers nodding amicably.
"I will take Friday," Destiny said with certainty.
"Then I suppose I could have Sunday or Tuesday," Dream said, and looked over to Westley. "Which would you prefer off?"
It was hard, now, to talk to him. Hard to bare the guilt that gnawed down through a bloodline she wasn't even a part of. But bare it she did; it was her guilt and her guilt alone.
"Tuesdays are busy, usually. Would you be alright with Sunday?" Westley asked, and Dream nodded.
With that, Destiny stood from his chair, starting away from the others.
"Where's he going?" Westley asked, looking to Despair.
"For him, the important stuff's already happened," she said, Desire giving a disgusted look beside her. "He doesn't care once the thing that had to be done has been done."
"How you're going to find a way to enjoy his company for a full day is beyond me," Desire chimed in, rolling their eyes as they finished off their champagne. "Lucky for you, I can make up for it on Saturdays."
"He's Destiny, right? Does that mean he knows—can he see the future?" Westley asked. "Or is it Destiny in, like, a more amorphous way? Like in the 'life persists' kind of way?"
"I don't know," Dream said, "that there is a difference. His tome is the sum total of all that has ever happened and all that ever will happen. It is true and perfect. It cannot be contradicted."
Westley paled. "But—if someone knew what was going to happen, then, could they change it?"
"If they wanted to destroy the Universe, I guess," Death answered, though the way her eyes watched Westley made her wonder how much the not-woman really knew. "It's why he's so careful about what he tells people. Even what he tells us."
"That must be so lonely," Westley said, and Despair turned slightly in interest. "I can't imagine knowing something bad would happen to someone I cared about and knowing, in equal part, that there was nothing I was allowed to do about it. Is he afraid of it—the book, I mean?"
"I've never asked," Despair admitted, and Westley missed the confusion that settled over the table as she got to her feet.
"I'm—if it's alright, it's still Friday. So I'm going after him."
And she was gone, hurrying after Destiny before anyone could stop her.
