Portal Fantasy Connoisseur

Skott’s ‘study’ was more of a movie and game room. The walls were lined with various fantasy movie posters.

As a bona fide, card-carrying portal fantasy protagonist in his youth, he’d collected a mighty archive of genre-appropriate movies and books. Anime, video games, if it involved a lowly Earth-human falling through a portal to another world, Skott had seen it. He was a connoisseur! Strangely, though, these stories so seldom dealt with the translation factor—the heroes just happened to speak the same language as those in the other world.

Come to think of it, Lucy had spoken standard, slightly Nebraskan-accented English. No doubt the fearless half-orc had applied translation magics before reverse-isekai-ing herself to Earth.

The largest poster in his study-slash-home-theater was of a particularly famous American Isekai. Well, Portal Fantasy if you want to be accurate. Shirtless guy with a chainsaw dead center in the poster. You know the one. Skott had it on DVD and Blu-ray, with a streaming copy just for good measure. Skott played this movie just to have some white noise to anchor his thoughts.

“Okay, so you were a teen dad,” he said, pacing in the office. “I’m sure it happens all the time during gap years before college. And I was nineteen at the time, I mean, old enough to pay taxes. It’s not that uncommon.”

He stopped, exhaled, and looked at his television screen. He frowned; he could barely pay attention to the movie.

“I mean, Lucy has my eyes. She’s named after my dear departed grandma,” he said, continuing to pace. “Lamora clearly knew the father. Ah, how did orc mating season work?”

Orcs could have their first litter at age twenty, and then the mating season came again every five to six years. Lamora had lectured him on this in great detail on the eve of that climactic final battle as well. Huh. Skott shrugged. Maybe she really was trying to tell me something?

Lamora had been a year older than Skott, though Aeirun years and Earth years didn’t quite line up perfectly. He did see a great deal of the orc shaman in Lucy, at least in the more orc-ish parts.

Ah, Skott exhaled sharply. Should he have left Lucy-Kignora all alone in that other world? She’d insisted that she knew the way to a friendly camp. Here he was, fussing over this relative stranger. He was already growing into his status.

“We don’t know anything, Skott told himself. “Not until I talk to Lamora.”

Regarding that…

He’d accumulated a bit more than two weeks of paid time off. Saving it for the perfect vacation. It was time to cash in. Getting away from CoopCorp would do him good, and Skott would be lying if he said he didn’t desperately want to explore Aeirun again.

Hopefully, two weeks will be enough. Last time, he was there for a full year!

The ability to travel back and forth between worlds with those blood-magic rings would certainly prove helpful. Dropping off the face of the Earth for a year between the age of eighteen and nineteen was unorthodox, but recoverable. Doing so when he had a mortgage to pay would have consequences.

Skott’s last night in Aeirun flashed before his eyes. The bustling city of Crossroads Ford, experiencing renewed trade following the fall of the Elvan regime. Auron had been dead for a month and a half, and since then, it had been a nonstop celebration in every town they visited.

While there’d been a liberation party of fellow Aeirun-humans, a dwarf, a sympathetic elf, and a goblin, only Lamora traveled with Skott to the crossroads. Rumors of portals popping up in the region had led them here. It only took a query of some traveling merchants to discover that there was a frequent portal site in a nearby glen, just on the far side of the river.

It was that same glen, many years later now, where Lucy-Kignora would summon a portal back to Aeirun.

Back then, though, the hal-orc’s mother and Skott had spent one last day together, stayed in the town’s central inn, then Skott departed with the dawn. He’d found a portal and, without checking the other side, dived right through. He fell ten feet into thick swamp water.

Skott had returned to Earth in a Louisiana bayou. It was miraculous he was even in the same country, let alone the same planet. Who knew how many other worlds were out there? At any rate, he’d made it back. Nearly got mauled by an alligator on the way to the nearest bit of dry land, but within a week, he’d hitchhiked back home, bluffed his way into convincing his family that he’d been backpacking through Europe, and resumed his quest for a college education in earnest.

Neither of us would have known. Skott’s mood soured. Lamora surely hadn’t noticed signs before we left.

The door to his man cave opened. Nessa poked her head in, a silky bonnet covering her hair.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked.

The movie reached a finale on television.

“Sorry, was it too loud?” Skott asked, smiling.

“Been up since you crawled out of bed,” Nessa said slyly. “I can notice when you’re having nightmares. Something up?”

Skott took a deep breath. He liked Nessa, though they’d only been together for a few months. At this life stage, baggage from previous relationships was not uncommon. Still, this would require tact.

“Okay, there’s no easy way around this, dear. But, well, I know we haven’t been together for very long, but…”

He breathed in, then breathed out. Nessa nodded understandingly, but was also tense. Skott knew she was curious and apprehensive about what metaphorical bomb he was about to drop on her.

“I… and I just learned this not long ago. I, ah, think I have a child from an earlier relationship.”

“Really? Like, an ex? It’s not with Susan in accounting, is it?”

Skott did a double-take. “What? No! You, you know how I took that gap year in, uh, Europe, before college?”

“Oh, so she’s European, huh?” Nessa put her hand on her hip.

“Yeah, she’s Swiss,” Skott lied.

What was that dog breed from Switzerland? Skott’s ab-libbing skills had atrophied over the years. “Her name was… Bernice! Yes, Bernice from Switzerland.”

Nessa nodded understandingly.

Europe, Aeirun. Swiss, orc. What’s the difference? He’d have to bluff his way around his paramour having a full litter of five half-orcs at some point. Twins or triplets could be finessed. Hopefully, Nessa wouldn’t ask to see pictures.

“Oh, so this kid is pretty old?”

“About sixteen.” Skott nodded.

Nessa walked up to Skott. “Long before we met. Unless you’ve been keeping a secret family from me, or been a willfully deadbeat dad, I don’t think it’s anything to apologize for.”

“Again, I just found out,” Skott said. “Sorry if I seemed spacey this evening. I was lost in thought. It’s just, if I’d known.”

“You couldn’t have, with the distance and all,” Nessa said.

Skott laughed despite it all. “Y-yeah. Massive distance.”

He went on to explain his plans to cash in his vacation time and leave town to handle the issue. Skott skillfully avoided mentioning any references to fantasy realms or nonhuman creatures. Nobody would ever believe him, not even Nessa.

“Relax. You’re doing the right thing. Going to arrange for time with, what, the daughter you never knew, was it? I don’t think some foreign girl is going to steal my man,” Nessa said with a grin. “Though I do have to ask that you come back to bed. At least one of us has work in the morning. And when’s your flight?”

On the big screen television, the movie was rolling its ending credits.

“Flight.” He chuckled nervously. “Ah, first thing. I’ll be gone before you wake up, don’t worry.”