"No dragons. That'd be too complicated. Besides, the guy I love owns a wheelchair, not a dragon," Ilya says, pausing in his pushing the chair to lean down and kiss the top of Dolemeck's head.

On some level he knows that the true trials and tribulations have yet to come, but Ilya can't see that far into the future. He can't picture the future past the next few days, not anymore when this sense of uncertainty has been forced into him by how his life fell apart completely twice before out of the blue. It's dangerous thinking, to plan for a future he doesn't know for sure he'll have.

He'll settle for each day with Dolemeck, each little moment, and that'll be enough. "I don't want to put any of my old memories on there. So no rivers, mines or trains. Just new memories, and the important things and people in them."