The drones zipped and transformed the tavern into a medieval hall with stained glass windows and mosaics of gem-studded chalices, with archways over torch-lit hallways that stretched out into forever. The crowd around us huzzah-ed as a knight in black armor and one in white—because fuck subtlety—rode in on horses and pummeled each other with wooden lances. The white knight knocked the black knight off his horse and the two slammed at each other with swords until the black knight dispatched his foe with a blade through the chest. Then Gwenhwyfar was at my side, pulling me up whispering about just follow his cues and most of all have fun!

I looked at Yusuf, who just shrugged.

The drones flew around me so close that I felt them as a swarm of bees, fairy-godmothering me into a knight with rune-carved armor and a long, shimmering sword. When a sword appears in your hand, even if it’s made of light, and a guy in black armor is charging at you, you know what to do. I swung the sword baseball-bat style into his shoulder.

We parried for a while—moving and grunting—and in my head I was saving the realm or something. I probably looked like an asshole, but I didn’t care. Because I should stop worrying about everything and just, you know, live. Tomorrow we could go to Little Eridanus and I’d be an astronaut surfing on the edge of a black hole or whatever else I wanted to be. Everything was opening to us, now. I stole a glance at Yusuf, who was clapping in that way that he had to look around first to get a hint about what he should be doing.

I reared back and slashed at the black knight one last time, sending him staggering and clanging to the ground in an over-acted death scene. With how the cheers of the crowd lit me up, I was pretty sure I could slay a goddamned dragon if one busted through the walls.

Still sealed inside my suit of armor, I clanged over to our table and knelt in front of Yusuf, saying something about how I fought for the honor of my king. I was so high off my victory that I didn’t really know what I was yammering about. Gwenhwyfar swooped back in—she really was on her toes with the improv—and tugged Yusuf to his feet. She practically had to drag him, now in a long, furred robe with a crown made of captured rays of the sun, to sit at the throne that appeared in the center of the room.

“All hail King Yusuf the Glorious!” she called out with a bell voice.