“I haven’t been here since I was a cub reporter.” Alison glanced at me. “Wasn’t it your first assignment?”

  I nodded, staring into the distance.

  My hair was the sharp silver of a Pluto sunset back then. Only one nose ring and fifteen earrings. Still dating Kylor from RiDFall9.

  Alison’s voice pulled me to the present. “If I remember right, Cray and Dent were from around here.”

  I shrugged.

  Someone once told me you can’t recognize the good ol’ days until they’re already gone. Fifteen years ago, the Kylor days. When are the good ol' days?

  I scratched my chin, walking toward Pinebun Hollow.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Alison asked.

  I lifted an eyebrow, steepled my fingers, and shrugged.

  “That’s stupid,” Alison said. “The good ol’ days are whatever you decide they are. This is the best time of my life. I’ve got family—you, Morgan, River, Riley, Robin.” Her eyes sparkled, “MJ.”

  She thinks it’s a secret, it's not.

  Alison cleared her head and continued, “My archenemy, Thomason, is under my heel. I beat Oceanrim on Dragon God difficulty—and romanced everyone.” She smirked. “Tell me that’s not the good ol’ days.”

  I stopped, looked up, exhaled, nodded—then raised a hand and wiggled my pinky.

  Alison scoffed, kicking a trablit before it latched onto her knee. “Yesterday’s already an old day. The day before? Even older. That makes them the good ol’ days—not the good now days.”

  I nodded, she had a point.

  A goblin ran up to me. I spun my chopsticks then snapped its neck.

  “You know,” Alison said. “Dent and Cray were lovers when they lived here. Cray was part of a bigger adventuring crew. On a dungeon dive—” She kicked a goblin’s knee out, then stabbed it through the chest with a pencil. “—Cray came across a mimic in a treasure room. Never one to pass up treasure, he—”

  Alison hurled a pencil, catching a charging goblin in the eye—the body fell, splattering a pack of gob-rats.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “He tried to open the mimic with a spell. Its tongue lashed out, grabbed him by the leg and—What the—”

  Goblin teeth sank into her calf. My chopsticks cracked its skull as Alison rammed three pencils into its eye.

  She shook it off her leg. “At least it didn’t hump me.”

  I gave a thumbs up and blinked.

  “Right, the story. So the mimic drags Cray in. When their eyes met—it was love at first sight. The mimic spat him out, turned human, and held out a hand. ‘I’m Dent.’ they said. ‘Sorry about the whole trying-to-eat-you-thing.’”

  I raised an eyebrow and closed my other eye.

  “I’m not taking liberties.”

  I sighed, pulled out a grenade, and lobbed it at a squad of goblin riders. Arms, tails, and legs rained down.

  “Cray and Dent kept wandering the caves looking for Cray’s party. Around a cozy fire, the two got to know each other—then they really got to know each other.” Alison winked.

  “When the party stumbled in, they saw Cray naked and Dent, half-human—their concentration had slipped. The party attacked.”

  A dragon swooped low, fire spewing from its mouth.

  I raised a hand and smiled.

  “Hey CP! Just clearing these bodies. I like a tidy forest.”

  “Monty!” Alison bolted over and hugged the dragon’s leg. “It’s been at least fifteen years!”

  I shuffled into the awkward thigh-hug and smiled.

  Stepping back, I balanced on one foot, and touched my nose.

  “Good ol’ days?” Monty scratched his chin. “Don’t have any.”

  Alison rolled her eyes. “If y’all let me finish—I can prove why that philosophy is idiotic.”

  Monty casually fried a goblin, then handed me an arm to snack on before tossing the rest in their mouth.

  “Anyway,” Alison continued, “Cray and Dent were caught mid-afterglow. The party thought Dent was attacking, and in his panic, Cray called the wind and decapitated his party. Centuries of adventuring together—gone in a single breath.”

  Monty clapped. “Love this story! I was living in the caves back then. They tasted like turquails.”

  Alison and I eyed him.

  “What? Everybody eats.”

  “My point is—” Alison stomped a gob-rat before it reached her leg. “Were Cray’s good ol’ days the brief moment of perfect love? Or the centuries of adventures with the friends he killed? The millennia traveling through dimensions with Dent? The endless war after their break-up? Or is it now, postwar—thanks to me—with Dent, in their twilight years?”

  A goblin rider charged. I clotheslined it. Alison stabbed the dog. Monty ate them both.

  I paced thoughtfully.

  “Both of you are wrong,” Monty said.

  We turned.

  “There are no good ol’ days. The past is gone. Memories are rose-tinted. If you’re always wishing it was yesterday, there’s no today.

  “That was my point,” Alison said.

  I quietly popped a goblin’s eye with a chopstick.

  “Who wants to go scare the shit out of some villagers in Pinebun Hollow?”

  I smiled.

  Alison cackled. “Today is definitely a good ol’ day.”

  River and the Bug, River and Friends Part 2 - The Beagle and the Robin, and The Reaper Wears a Scarf on my page.