The first thing Moon felt as she skipped through the portal was a sudden change in gravity, and then a severe lack of solid ground beneath her. She tumbled through the air for a few seconds before landing with a mighty splash into a multi-colored body of water.

Swimming back up to the surface, she took two lungsfull of air and floated about, searching for the reptilian creature that had brought her to this evidently vast expanse of open ocean (Or rather, she had coerced him into bringing her).

She spun about in every direction, but could not see her makeshift-dimensional guide anywhere.

Finally, she heard the distant shout of someone falling growing louder and louder until it crescendoed with a loud sploosh.

Moon waited for him to come up for air before speaking.

"Oh, there you are," she spoke conversationally, as if jumping into an unfamiliar sea was what they had intended upon. She swam close to him as he bobbed along in the water, not floating quite as well as she. "So... where exactly are we?"

"From the looks of it, I'd say we're in the middle of the rainbow sea of the Dowager Dimension," he answered, running some of the colorful water through his claws for emphasis.

"The Dowager Dimension? Really? Is this where you were planning on going next?"

"Not exactly,"

"Then where-"

"I don't see how that really matters at the moment, princess," he remarked as they continued to float through the sea, at the mercy of the vibrantly turbulent current.

"Oh, yeah," Moon said, "I suppose not." For a moment she watched the rainbow colors of the sea mix in and out around them as she tried to swim while holding her wand (which was harder than it sounds)

"So, this is the Dowager Dimension, my mom mentioned it before, but I always pictured it being full of old bitties drinking afternoon tea."

"Apart from the sea,you're not far off," her guide replied, now eyeing the wand in one of her hands as it stroked the surface of the water. "Pardon my asking, but do you plan on using that at some point so we can get out of the open sea?"

Moon pushed her soaking hair behind her ear nervously. Of course, she hadn't even thought of using her magic. She'd never even attempted anything of the sort before, especially not in a practical setting. But she and her new companion were in need, so she thought she ought to at least give it a try.

She took a deep breath, cleared her mind and raised her wand above her head.

"Foamy floating boat construct!"

With a flash of magic blast the area around them started to bubble and spurt, forming a cloud of foam that came swirling together into the shape of a large sailboat.

It was squishy and a touch unstable near the edges, but the center was solid enough for the two of them to stand on. And they were safely up and out of the water.

Staying firmly in the center of her sea foam boat, Moon began shaking herself off and tapping her wand in an attempt to dry it.

Beside her, her reptilian companion also began to shake himself dry.

"Sea foam?" he asked skeptically, poking at the starboard side and pulling a bit off with a claw.

Moon shrugged. "Hey, it worked, didn't it?" And I'm amazed that it worked this well, she thought.

Now that they were out of the water, Moon could fully take in the breathtaking beauty of the sea as the colors all mixed and swirled about, the golden sun above shining through the thin cloud layer to shine down on the water, causing the waves to sparkle.

At that moment, Moon did not think she could have picked a more spectacular place for her first dimensional trip.

Her lizard companion however, did not seem as impressed, but every now an then she caught sight of him looking to her, as if he were gauging her reaction to seeing the new scenery before them.

Again, curiosity struck her, and she wondered again what this creature could possibly have been doing portal jumping. She asked again, hoping to get a different answer this time.

"So after here, where were you planning to go next?"

He didn't look offended at least, but it did not appear he was ready to answer yet, either.

"Does it really matter?" he asked . "I'm more interested in where you might want to go, since you were the one who threatened me to take you along."

"I... hadn't really thought that far ahead, to be honest," she answered, glancing away from him back out to the open water. "Anywhere, really. I just got swept up in the prospect of having time to myself, and then when you said something about wanting to get away – exactly what I had been thinking – well, I figured I could just leap first and look later."

"That's not often the best strategy," he replied.

"I never said it was. And under normal circumstances I think I would have been too afraid to attempt it, but in the moment I suppose it was far scarier to think about life without any unpredictability."

"Unpredictability? "

"I don't suppose you'd understand, but ever since I was given this wand, " she held it up for him to see, hefting it in her hand. "it seems like my entire life is already written out for me. Master the spells. Take over as queen. Marry so I can have a daughter to pass the wand down to and then groom *her* to be queen. It's just a lot of responsibility to think about when I only just got this thing."

She paused for a moment to look back at him intently, still not quite sure how much she should reveal about her magical prowess, or lack thereof.

After a moment, Moon decided that she might as well, he was being a good listener and he did bring her along, after all.

"I can barely master any spell, so it's simply just overwhelming to think I'll be expected to lead my people. Maybe I just wanted to get away to prove to myself I could, before I have to accept the role laid out for me."

He looked thoughtful at her words, and she was immediately embarrassed over her mini soliloquy. Surely he hadn't needed to know all of that. She was probably boring him with her problems.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He shook his head, then thinking better of it, he added. "Well, perhaps if you're apologizing for commandeering my escape for your own little adventure, then I suppose I accept. But for the rest, I should not think you have to."

Moon was surprised by his warmer, friendlier tone, though not unpleasantly.

"I may not know much of your magic or your rules, but it sounds to me like you at least understand the magnitude of your role. And, like anything important, you're afraid of screwing it up. Of that, I can relate."

She wanted to ask how that could possibly be, but given his repeated dodging of any of her previous questions, she decided against it and let him continue.

"So my advice to you - if you'll permit me – would be to forget the big picture for a moment, and focus on the first step, which for you would be the mastering of your magic."

"That's... actually not bad advice," she said. It would be a lot easier in her eyes if she could think of learning and mastering the spells as something she was doing on her own, and not as part of her training to be queen. "And if I'm by myself here, there's less pressure to get things absolutely right on the first go like when my mother is watching."

"Nobody here but me, and I can look away if you find that distracting," he answered. "Think about what we need to accomplish at the moment, and focus your magic on that."

"I suppose I could give it a try," Moon said. It felt nice to be getting some encouragement for a change. "Well, firstly we'll need a way of knowing where land is. So I could maybe call for some assistance."

She lifted her wand and pointed straight out at the rainbow waters that stretched out before them.

With a flick of her wrist and a jab with the wand, she called out, "Creature seeker summons!"

Immediately, rings of light emanated from the wand, growing in size as they were slowly expelled. They stretched out over the open water and far off into the horizon.

When the rings had died down and her wand was glow-less once again, Moon and her companion waited for a moment for something else to happen. She lowered the wand after a minute, fully expecting nothing to occur. She must have done something wrong with it. Perhaps it was different to summon sea creatures to come to her aid, or maybe it was simply a bum spell. She should have known she couldn't come up with them on the fly that way.

Then she heard a splashing swoosh of water coming towards the boat, and she looked over the side to see a pod of dolphins swimming up to them.

Moon couldn't believe her luck, so it had worked. She couldn't help but give a little hop as she smiled over at the reptile, who looked amused by her returned enthusiasm. Moon then called down to the dolphins, who had been squeaking excitedly to each other.

"Excuse me," she began politely."Thank you for coming to my call. We are in need of finding in which direction to sail towards to reach the land Could you please point us in the right way?"

The dolphin at the front chattered and squeaked with his comrades, and then he turned back towards Moon and gave a nod with a spray of water from his blowhole, which Moon took as an agreement.

They then sped off in the direction opposite the one they were currently pointed, so Moon and the reptile quickly turned their sail around and caught the wind to follow them. Well, he did most of the work getting the boat turned around, Moon just tried to stay out of the way and ensure the dolphins were not out of sight.

As they began following the dolphins, Moon noticed a school of pink and yellow fish also following along beside them, and soon after a couple narwhals, and a very large magenta whale. They seemed to all be coming out of the depths of the sea to answer her call as well.

"Wow," she remarked to her travel mate as they sped along behind the pod. "That spell must have been more powerful than I thought."

"It's encouraging when we discover that we're more capable than we originally thought," he answered.

Moon couldn't help but agree. Amazingly, her first few spells she had attempted without her mother's overbearing over-instructing had gone really well. Perhaps she truly did have a handle on this whole 'master the wand' business.

That was when the kraken showed up.

They heard it before they saw it, an enormous, gurgling eruption from the depths of the sea below them that shook the foundation of their sea foam vessel. The moment the roar had been uttered, their helpful dolphin friends – as well as the other sea creatures - all disappeared in a cloud of bubbles.

The wind had died, and they floated aimlessly for a few minutes, helplessly as hundreds of thousands of gallons of froth and foam shot into the air like a pillar as the creature broke the surface.

Its rainbow colored skin was a perfect camouflage, and their screams were drowned out by the deafening sound of its own. With one powerful swipe of its tentacle, it cut through their vessel like a knife through butter and the whole of the boat began to disintegrate around them.

Moon caught sight of her companion as he fell away from her into the sea once again, but this time she was stunned with fear. Fear and regret. This was all her fault. If he got eaten or destroyed by this kraken it would be her fault. This was her only thought as she landed with a crash into the water herself.

Pummeled by the waves crashing in around her from the creature's tentacles, Moon tried to hold her breath and think of a spell – any spell – that might work against a deadly sea beast.

She clutched her wand to her chest and let it light up so she could see, and then formed an air-trapping bubble around herself. There, now at least she could breathe, but she had to find the reptile, and then find a way to defeat this monster.

Moon used a quick non-verbal speeding spell to propel herself out of the water and summoned a flying fuchsia cloud to ride above the waves as she searched for her companion. She weaved in and out of the beast's appendages and the continuously turbulent water in search of him.

All the while the kraken roared and shot water into the air. Finally Moon spotted him, he was wrapped firmly in one of the tentacles and seemingly unconscious. Moon flew up higher on her flying cloud to get a netter view. He was caught by one of the shorter, lower tentacles. If Moon could think of something to get the kraken to drop him, she could scoop him up and they could fly away for as far as this cloud would last, for it too would surely end up disintegrating just as her flimsy boat had done.

But now wasn't the time for doubt or self-pity, someone needed Moon toact,and there wasn't anyone else who would do it for her.

She flew high above the kraken, aimed at the tentacle holding him, and stood atop her cloud, raising her wand and beginning to dance.

She tried with all her might to perform each step accurately, each pose with a determined punch.

At last, she aimed for the tentacle and shouted, "Crystal lightning cascade!"

What shot down directly at the kraken's smaller tentacle was exactly what Moon had intended, a lightning strike filled with shards of sharp crystal hitting the creature and causing it to give another roar – this time of pain – as it dropped the reptile and he landed again in the water.

Moon rushed down to catch him before he could sink to the bottom or be grasped again by another tentacle. She grabbed him by the shoulders and used her cloud to scoop him up. He was semi-conscious as they flew away. For good measure Moon sent another barrage of lightning crystals at the creature, sending up a flash of light as well to blind it so it wouldn't follow them.

"Are you alright?" she asked over the rush of wind around them. It was harder to hear on the cloud than on the boat, but she thought he could hear her over all his coughing and sputtering.

"Yeah, I think so,"he choked,still trying to get the water out of his lungs. When he could breathe again, he looked back up at her, confusion turning to a kind of awe she had only seen him use when he had first seen her wand. "Did you just fight a kraken?"

"Yup."

"And did-did you just save my life?"

"I'm as surprised as you are!" she laughed, and she was. She really hadn't known what she was capable of, but she really had done that. By herself. Of course, she had been the one to summon the rainbow kraken in the first place, but that couldn't undo the fact that she had saved him, and they had gotten away safely.

Even the inevitable dissolving of her cloud did not dampen her spirits,they were low enough to the water that she practically dove in, losing sight of the reptile but still knowing that they were safer than they had been. At least they were leagues away from danger.

She felt pride as she resurfaced, even though she was – again – soaking wet. She swam along now intending to find her companion, but her good mood was – again - short-lived.

For this was when she realized that she was swimming along quite uninhibited, when in the back of her mind she knew that there was something that should be weighing her down slightly, something that she should probably be holding onto...

"Wait," her stomach dropped at the sudden realization. "Where is my wand?"

Scanning the surrounding surface frantically, Moon splashed about in search of it. She took a breath and dove back underwater, eyes straining to see in the various colors of water. Oh, how on Mewni could she have held onto it through such a long fall into the sea AND while fighting a kraken just to lose it now?

That was when her eyes landed on the lizard, who floated near what looked like some of the remains of their boat, surrounded by the stray sea foam, clutching a very familiar object in his claws.

Relief washed over her as Moon made a beeline swim for him, calling out to him as she approached.

"Oh, thank goodness, you found it! I was so worried that I would never see it again! How in the multiverse could I have faced my mother without it? Oh thank you, thank you, thank you."

As she approached she stretched out both of her hands towards the wand, so she could even more easily reclaim it (or give him a hug, which the thought did cross her mind,she was that excited).

But as she got closer, she noticed something odd about her companion, and not only because he wasn't immediately handing it over. Because, he wasn't. He just floated there for a moment, holding the wand in his claws and staring down at it intently. He didn't look up at her immediately, either. He simply held it in such a gentle way, as if it were the most fragile thing imaginable, but also like it might explode at any second.

"Um, hello?" she called softly, sending a tiny splash his way when he didn't respond.

Finally, he looked back up at her, for a moment looking at her like he didn't recognize her. Moon was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable now, he'd been staring so long. But she smiled warmly at him anyway as she held out a hand for him to give her the wand.

It took him another moment, but hand it back, he did. He did not return her smile, however.

"I think, maybe we should be going," he said distractedly as he pulled out his scissors and cut a portal just above their heads. He climbed up through it with little difficulty, and for a second Moon worried that he might be leaving her behind, stranded in an unfamiliar sea. But his head and arms came back through and she grabbed hold of him as he pulled her through to yet another dimension.