Thalanien
an excerpt

Mylanh followed her for a couple of steps. Then logic caught up with him, and he stopped abruptly.
“No, wait,” he said, and Jeanette turned back to face him. “She’s in there? In your... where you live?”
“Yeah, I guess so. That’s where I left her.”
“How long ago was that?”
Jeanette gave a shrug.
“I don’t know. Ten, fifteen minutes ago?”
“Right. Bad idea, then. I can’t meet her.”
“Why not? She’d love to meet you! She’s been talking about you loads! Come on!”
“No, no,” Mylanh mumbled, shaking his head to clear his mind, but the stench and the constant noise blocked him from thinking. One Alina – his Alina, the one he had met – had just returned to Thalanien, hopefully, through the gate of the Second Plane. But there was another Alina, the original Alina who was still writing the story, who had not yet left for Thalanien. When he had met Alina in Thalanien, she had not mentioned ever having met him before. So they had not met. And so they would not meet now. Mylanh rubbed his tired eyes. He was meddling with things he did not understand and should never have been part of. But he knew intuitively that meeting Alina, the original Alina, when she had never mentioned meeting him before, was a very, very bad idea.
“No,” he said again, “I can’t meet her. I haven’t met her, I mean. So I can’t.” He took a deep breath and forced himself to think over his words, for Jeanette’s and his own sanity’s sake. “Look,” he said, more slowly, “I am from the future.” Jeanette’s eyes widened at those words, and Mylanh hurried to add: “Just two days from the future, that’s all. But in that future, I met Alina. She came to Thalanien, and we just went back here together to pick up the book. But the way must have been wrong, somehow, and we ended up two days in the past. Now the original Alina is still here, and she hasn’t even gone to Thalanien yet...” Mylanh fell silent as he realised his words were not making any sense to Jeanette.
“Forget that,” he said with a sigh. “I haven’t quite sorted this out myself yet.”
Jeanette observed him for a moment, grey eyes burning against a grey sky. Then she pushed her arm under his and led him away from where the portal had been.
“Come on,” she said. “No use standing here in the rain. You’ll catch cold. Sit down and get warm, you’ll be able to think better then. Like hot chocolate?”