Sixteen || Ginema's Leviathan

They were led through the tree-forts, winding their way up and down the paths and walkways, prodded constantly onward by the Gamulians. Mint was trying to make sense of where they were being taken, but the bridges and pathways were so elaborately interconnected that it set her head spinning trying to keep track of it.

"How much further can we go?" Belle hissed. "We must be halfway across the forest."

"The other half," Mint said.

Although by the time they had this exchange, they were coming upon something noteworthy.

Their escort broke and left them with only a few Gamulians, and they were taken out to what seemed like a dead end at the edge of the ramp. One of the Gamulians shouted up into the trees, and suddenly the platform shuddered and started to rise. They ascended for nearly a full minute before the platform came to a shuddering stop, and they were turned around and led out the way they had entered, but this time to a very different place.

The platform was enormous, fanning out between several trees and housing a bevy of small houses, all of them turned to face a single, surprisingly impressive bungalow. There were more Gamulians up here, of course, but their numbers seemed far more manageable when there was so much more space to maneuver. Additionally, there were far fewer spears; the Gamulians were still clearly armed, with makeshift bone-cut daggers, but it was obvious they were not an offensive contingent.

They moved out of the way as Mint and Belle were directed toward the main building. Two of their captors stepped away, guarding their backs in case they decided to run; the third moved into the building, disappearing briefly into its depths. Mint tried to crane her neck and get a better look inside, but couldn't make out any worthwhile details.

Words were exchanged in the clipped delivery of the Gamulians, and then their captor exited the building and trotted past them. Just behind him emerged another figure, apparently the Gamulian chieftain. Apparently because he didn't seem particularly standout; he was short, cloaked in bear skins, his eyes only visible through the holes in the bear skull draped over his head. The fur, however, bore streaks of bright dye, and the chief carried himself with a palpable air of certainty and pride.

He stopped a few feet away from them, regarded them carefully. He looked to the Gamulian guards and said something in the clipped, high speech of their native tongue. They responded in kind, and though most of his countenance was unseen, his lip twitched slightly into a frown. Slowly, his attention returned to Belle and Mint.

"You are... magickers," he said, carefully enunciating the words. "You do not belong here."

Mint held up her hands as best she could. "Hey, that's fine," she said quickly. "I was just looking for something. If I find it, I'm out."

"You come here to take from us, then?"

Belle elbowed Mint hard in the ribs. "Stop talking," she hissed, and turned her attention tot he Gamulian chief. "What she means is that we were looking for something from Ginema. Apparently it's not there."

"You sought to steal from the old magicker," the chief said. "We have already laid claim to what was left behind. You will find nothing."

"You sure?" Mint said. She looked around at the gathering crowd. "Look, we'll– I'm just looking for a set of earrings. If you've got those, maybe we can come to... I dunno... some kind of agreement?"

The Gamulian chief watched her for several long seconds, his eyes hidden in the shadows of his skull-mask.

"What are you doing?" Belle said quietly.

"You want to fight your way through all these guys with that piddly little knife of yours, be my guest," Mint whispered back. Then she turned her attention back to the chief, and spoke up again so he could hear; "What would you trade for them?"

"Nothing," he said.

Mint felt her heart sink a little. "There's... really? No way this can work?"

"We do not possess such an item," the Gamulian said. "Though we would not part with it so easily if we did. You are magickers, humans, and your purpose for coming here is far beyond simply laying claim to old treasure. There are other motivations. What are they?"

Mint shrugged. "I'm really just here for some treasure."

"You're not helping," Belle hissed.

"Magickers coming into our forest to dig up the work of old magickers," the chief said. "Do you wish to see what the old magicker left our people?"

By the tone of his voice, it was clear that the answer was 'no'.

But they weren't given a chance to answer. The chief stepped back and slipped into his native tongue, barking orders at their captors, and then at the rest of the gathering. The Gamulians guarding them stepped forward and grabbed the rope bindings, and started once again to haul them along the path. The crowd parted, allowing them to easily slip through, heading toward another walkway. This one, like the one that had brought them up to the center of the town, also seemed to terminate into midair.

Belle shot a glare at Mint. "Anything smart to say?" she asked.

"Nope, I'm done."

As they reached the bridge, their escorts fell back and took up a post behind them. Belle had a half-formed idea to just stop, but when she tried there were suddenly spear-points at their back again and the two were encouraged to continue walking.

"You figure out where they're leading us?" Mint asked.

"How would I?" Belle responded. She squinted, trying to peer through the darkness. "Something's wrong."

"Is it," Mint said. "Was your first clue the guys with the spears, or when our magic stopped working, or– oh, maybe back when it turned out the atelier was completely flattened. Somewhere in all that?"

"No," Belle said, and her voice was without humor and without malice. Mint felt a little kernel of cold crystallize in her chest. "The bridge– the end doesn't have a railing."

Mint turned her attention fully to the end of the bridge, and that sense of cold started to seep out into her limbs.

Behind them, the Gamulians had been conversing, and she stole a glance over her shoulder. Their escorts were right behind them, one of them jerking his spear-tip up to point it a little closer to Mint's face, but behind them the Gamulians had formed a heavy line down the bridge, all of them watching intently. She couldn't make out most of the words, but there was a particular phrase that Mint could hear repeated a few times.

"Vani'tima?" she asked, and looked at Belle. "Does that mean anything to you?"

"Of course it doesn't," Belle said. She refused to look over to Mint; her eyes were still solidly at the approaching end of the bridge. "Although if I had to make a guess it would be 'direct downward descent'."

Mint frowned. "Tell them that," she said. "I'm sure they'll be very impressed by your ability to alliterate in the face of death."

Belle ignored her.

They came to the end of the walkway and stopped. For a moment, the spears were no longer driving them forward. The conversation behind them quieted, then fell silent. The women exchanged a glance, both plainly uncertain of what came next.

"What, they think we'll just jump?" Mint asked.

Belle leaned over, craning her neck to see better. "There's water down there," she said. "I don't think–"

Without further warning, one of the Gamulian's whipped their lance around, sending the blade through a short, innocuous rope. The rope snapped immediately, and the platform edge they were on rattled and collapsed. Belle shouted in surprise and tried to right herself, but too late; she was unbalanced and sent over the edge.

The actual danger of the moment suddenly struck Mint. She wheeled around, ready to crash through the Gamulian hoard, but another spear sliced another rope, and the edge of the platform collapsed. Mint tried to reach up and grab at the edge of the walkway, but it was too far out of reach and she wouldn't have been able to grip it anyway, not with her hands tied. She fell.

Then there was impact, cold, a sense of being smothered. Then an impact against her head. Then, dark.

. .

Mint was aware of a few things; she was cold, she was damp, her head was throbbing, and something was digging uncomfortably into her ribs.

"Hey, hey, ow," she growled. She batted at the presence with her hand. "Stop that."

There was one more deep nudge against her chest, then the presence retreated. "About time," Belle growled. "It'd be annoying if you died."

Mint opened her eyes.

She was on her belly, on hard earth– no, correction, wood. A dock? She twisted herself around, got her hands beneath her, and tried pushing herself up only to crash back down. Something solid pressed against her shoulder, but more gently than she had expected.

"Slowly," Belle said. "You took quite a crack to the skull there."

Mint lay still and closed her eyes, focusing on breathing. She took in a deep breath, then it exploded into a hacking cough, and foul-tasting water spattered from her throat. The attack had set off the throbbing in her head again, and she had to make herself lay down completely, force herself to calm down. Belle took her boot off of Mint's shoulder and allowed the younger girl a bit of space.

Finally, when the dizziness had passed and the pain was a little more bearable, Mint began working herself upright.

"What happened?" she asked. She coughed again – no water this time – and tried to settle back down.

"You thwacked your head into a tree root or something," Belle said.

Mint opened her eyes and tilted her head back, trying to look at Belle. "Oh," she said. "That sounds about right." Slowly, she got her arms under her, and this time when she rose she did so much more cautiously; any time she felt a dizzy spell coming on she stopped, closed her eyes, breathed deep, and waited for it to pass. After a bit of doing, she managed to get herself sitting upright, at which point Belle walked back over to her and shoved a knife in her direction.

Mint pulled back instinctively, and Belle grinned. "Relax," she said, although she was clearly taking no small amount of pleasure in seeing Mint's discomfort. "I need you to cut the rope off me."

Sure enough; when Mint focused on Belle's wrists, she saw that the Gamulian rope was still tied there. She reached up and grabbed the knife, and only then realized that she had already been cut loose the same way. "You managed to cut me loose but couldn't do it for yourself?"

"Tried," she said. "No leverage. Stop asking stupid questions and help."

Mint did so; in two relatively quick cuts the rope fell with a wet thump on the dock, and Belle rubbed her wrists. Then Belle reached out and nimbly plucked the knife of Mint's hands, returning it to its place on her belt.

"I could've used that," Mint said.

"And I can use it better," Belle said. "You're still bleeding, you aren't up for knife fights."

Mint raised her hand up to the back of her head, where the worst of the throbbing was coming from, and pressed gingerly against it. When she brought her hand around, the tips of her fingers were stained scarlet.

"That's great," she mumbled. She looked up to Belle. "Now what?"

"Now we get out of here," Belle said. "A pair of magical earrings isn't worth this kind of trouble."

Mint studied her for a moment, but Belle's attention was already turned upward, scanning the trees, one hand over her eyes while she pointed with the other. Mint pressed her hand against the back of her head and tried to concentrate, willing magic to seal up the wound, but it was no good; there was too much resistance. She could probably fix herself up, if she really tried, but the way her head felt she would likely risk bursting a blood vessel in the process.

But it did feel a little bit better – genuinely or thanks to the placebo effect, she didn't care – and she felt okay enough to pull herself back to her feet. She stumbled slightly, righted herself, waiting for the world to stop tilting.

"What are you doing?" Mint asked.

"The Hexagon is up there," Belle said. "I got turned around when they threw us down here, though, so I'm not completely sure of where it is..."

"You're still gonna use that ugly thing?"

"You can go, if you prefer," Belle said. "I hardly need your cheek."

Mint looked around. It wasn't a bad suggestion, but she couldn't help but wonder where she could go to. The dock was floating in the middle of a lake; there was a bridge that connected it back to shore, but Mint was hopelessly lost, turned around by the flying and the running and the being marched and the being thrown in a lake. Still, the shoreline was probably a decent start.

"Right," she said, looking at Belle. "You have fun with that."

Mint started to run toward the bridge but had to stop almost immediately when dizziness and nausea gripped her, and she almost collapsed. She managed to steady herself, waited until the moment passed, and then waited just a little longer in case the churning in her stomach came back. When she was sure she would be okay again, she prepped herself, decided not to run, and almost took a step back toward the bridge.

She thought better of it.

"Belle," she said.

"I thought you were leaving," the older woman grumbled.

Mint pointed down the path. "Not with that thing."

Belle looked down and turned. She stared for a few seconds. Then: "Oh."

The first thing she saw was a light, a shining drop of white flitting in and out of visibility behind the tree trunks; a light that attached to a long, malleable lure that connected it to something much, much larger. The creature drifted out from the trees, almost on its side, its massive pectoral fins spread out to allow it to pass between the trees before they beat once, powerful and slow, and the creature rolled in mid-air until it had righted itself. A huge, heavy tail propelled it through the air, steering its massive body forward and adjusting with the forward fins as it went. It was white, brilliantly and impossibly white, and as the creature swam through the air it seemed almost to leave a ghostly afterimage in its wake.

I built a whale today.

And there it was, floating lazily through the air, a too-solid cloud floating lazily out of the darkening forest. It was headed in their direction, but in a subtle, gentle arc, making its way toward but around them. As the creature drew closer, it listed downward, skimming the top of the lake with its fins, directing itself along the edge of the shoreline.

"What is that?" Belle asked.

"I think," Mint said, squinting against the glaring white of its flank, "I think that's Ginema's guardian."

Belle stared at it, lowering her hand and turning herself fully to keep it in her sights, the edge of her mouth tugging into a frown. Slowly, she lowered her other hand from her eyes, her gaze fixed fully on the whale– then, on the highly out of place lure.

"That's it," she said. "That's the thing that's messing with our magic."

Mint looked at her sideways. "How can you tell?"

"Just feel for it," Belle said. "It's like a... a magic singularity, everything kind of turns toward it."

Mint did just that, closing her eyes and focusing. She didn't even need to feel out what Belle was talking about; as soon as she reached for it, she realized that the whale was almost a black hole, a tangled mass of elaborate magic, so dense and heavy that she could actually feel the Dual Halos trying to respond to its presence, even though they were strapped to her belt and sleeping.

There was more to it, though. The whale was... astonishing. She knew magic, and she had a practiced eye for many different kinds of spells, but the way the whale had been woven put to shame any spell she had seen before. But there was another part of it, too, tangled up in the elaborate spells that had constructed the whale– much more mundane, coiled up and hidden against the blinding energy surrounding the whale's lure. That magic she recognized. It reminded her of when she had briefly possessed the tiara in the ruins, and to a lesser extent of the Prima Doll.

The earrings.

"Belle," Mint said quietly. "I'm gonna need a knife."

Belle shot her an acidic glare. "You've got your own weapon," she said.

"Yeah, because beating this thing over the head with some thin metal hoops is gonna be real useful. Just give me something, I know you keep a couple on you."

"Your impracticality is your fault." After a moment's thought, she then added, "You're thinking of fighting that thing?"

"Yes."

Belle clicked her tongue. "I knew you had a penchant for violence, but that's just stupid." She looked back up to the trees, apparently deciding that the whale wasn't worth watching. "I see the Hexagon. I'm getting out of here."

"It can't fly, remember?" Mint pointed. "Because of this thing."

Belle turned. "I guess that does complicate things."

"So give me a knife," Mint repeated. "We're gonna have to kill this thing if you want to get out of here, no way around it."

The whale had just about completed a full circle around them, and was still floating in a languid, easy arc, although it seemed to have come a little closer. Belle was watching it again, eyes narrow, and finally reached to her belt.

"Here," she grunted, producing a short knife and handing it out to Mint.

At which point the whale let loose a powerful, resounding bellow and suddenly twisted in the air. It lashed its tail, slapping hard against the water. A massive, rippling wave erupted from where it struck, but that was not the immediate concern; the immediate concern was that the whale was now propelling itself directly toward the platform.

Belle dropped the knife and rolled to the side; Mint slammed herself into the dock boards. The whale shot past, its charge just barely scraping over their heads, and was followed only a few seconds later by its wave. The water crashed against the side of the dock, causing the whole thing to tilt wildly and sending a spray of water over the edge. Mint ducked her head against it and held her breath, and managed to come out of it soaking, but otherwise unharmed. Belle had not had quite so much preparation; she choked, sputtered, gagged.

Mint reached out for the knife and found that the water had propelled it further down the dock. She scrambled on her hands and knees, but just shy of reaching it the whale had turned around and was charging back at them, its head tilted down so its broad rostrum was angled toward them.

Mint threw herself flat against the dock again and reached for the knife, her fingers managing to edge their way up the handle. She pulled it closer, closed the handle in her fist, and rolled to the side as the whale's massive body went careening past. She barely made sense of it; the abruptness of her movements left her spinning.

Almost on reflex, she jammed her arm upward, trying to catch the whale with the blade, but it was too late and the whale moved too quickly; it was well out of range by the time she had the wherewithal to try. She jolted herself into an upright position, swallowed the nausea rising in her throat, and then forced herself to stand completely. As the whale swept across the other side of the dock and moved away, she saw Belle doing the same, crawling back to her feet.

Belle accented it, however, by snapping another knife from her belt and hurling it at the whale's hide. Mint didn't see the impact, but she saw the after-effect as the knife spun away from its target and landed with a small splash in the water. Belle snarled something intensely vulgar and grabbed a much heavier hunting knife from her belt.

The whale, although it had shrugged off the attack, did not seem much happy about being assaulted, and whipped around in the air faster than Mint would have thought possible, given its build and its bulk. It turned its attention toward Belle and opened its massive mouth, an odd, warbling wail rising from it. Then it charged for her.

Belle brought the hunting knife to bear, and with a wild scream threw herself at the whale.

And the whale opened its mouth fully and swallowed her.

Mint found herself solidly frozen, staring in numb disbelief as the whale's mouth snapped shut and its body jack-knifed back and in an instant Belle was gone. And the whale was turning in place, angling itself to face her.

Mint was suddenly aware of how very, very tiny the blade in her hand was.

The whale called out again and snapped its tail, propelling itself toward her. Mint threw herself to the deck again, down and to the side, bringing her hand up to slash at the whale's underbelly as she did so. This time she made contact; the knife blade sliced up against the whale's skin, dug a fine furrow into its body, and came away as the whale moved past.

Mint looked up to try and determine the damage. No blood, and the blade of the knife was slightly bent.

Well. Great.

The whale had reached the end of the lake with its momentum and angled around, tilting and propelling itself along the tree line, starting a broad circle that would take it back toward her. As it moved, the water beneath it started to shimmer and boil– not from proximity, but because it was starting to use its own magic. It dragged the water up behind itself, forming an ever-growing wave, and when it was ready it shifted its mass and turned toward her and shot back toward the platform. Mint stayed low and slammed the blade of the knife into the wood, tightening her grip on it as the tidal wave crashed onto the dock. She drew in a deep breath and shut her eyes tight as the water rushed over her, nearly dragging her off the dock with it, but she held fast to the knife and it held her to the dock.

And she had an idea.

Her own magic was useless here, that was true, but she had worked with previously woven spells many times before– reviving the lanterns in the mines had been only the most mundane use of the skill. It wasn't an easy thing to do, especially when the original caster was still alive and influencing the spell. But Ginema had died a fair while ago.

And his guardian was nothing but magic.

She forced herself to her feet. Her blood was pounding in her ears and throbbing through her wound and behind her eyes, and concentrating on magic was going to make it much worse– but it was that or be eaten, and the idea of being eaten seemed terribly unappealing.

She reached to her back and drew the Dual Halos, then reached out to the whale and concentrated. She saw the tight weave of the spell, felt it rippling along the whale's organic shell, tried to feel out a weak point. She didn't have much time, it was already turning around and she could feel it projecting its own magic beneath her. The dock rocked as the water below started to hiss and boil and magic constricted and twisted, but Mint adjusted her stance – feet apart, solid, balanced – and managed to keep herself steady. There had to be something she could use...

From just to her side, a jet of water erupted from the dock, a highly focused and powerful geyser that, if it had hit her, would have had more than enough power to break something. She was too focused to move away from it, which was probably for the best; a similar geyser suddenly erupted from just to her other side, and if she had reacted properly to the first she would have definitely been crippled by the second.

The whale's magic suffused the water spouts. She reached out to them, wrested them with her mind, and slammed the Dual Halos together.

Magic roared through them, directed by Mint and ignited by their phantomite cores, and that was what she was counting on. Alone, Mint was an accomplished spell-caster, but hijacking active magic would be all but impossible. Even with the Dual Halos it was a dicey proposition, and if the whale had been a true sorcerer, with human intelligence and spirit behind him, it would probably have been impossible.

But Mint took hold of the magic and commanded the jets of water to turn back on their progenitor. And they did.

Kind of.

The jets turned and spat water in the direction of the whale, but their power petered out far short of their target, and when the whale disengaged the spell they collapsed into useless strings of water at either side of Mint and splattered sadly on the dock.

Not exactly a roaring success, but she had an idea.

The whale was picking up speed again, gathering another tidal wave with the clear intention of knocking her off the platform. She saw the way it wove the spell, netting it around the water and drawing it up behind itself, and Mint reached out to the gathering spell. She nested one of the Dual Halos inside the other and concentrated. They ignited with light – she actually felt the heat of the power they were generating – and she pushed that energy out toward the whale's gathering wave. She caught the threads of its spell and started to re-wave them, shifting the core of its power to a central location. If there was enough there–

It exploded.

The mass of water erupted from behind and beneath the wall, causing a sudden swell of power that caught it from behind and crashed into the back half of its body. The energy sent its tail up into the air, and the rest of the whale followed suit, flipping over entirely backward. It didn't have time to readjust itself before it smashed back-first into the lake, its fins desperately flapping at the water to turn it over.

Her arms fell, then her knees buckled, then she sand to the dock and started to dry heave. Too much; her whole body was shaking, she was covered in sweat, the pounding in her skull had transformed into an ice pick being lodged in her frontal lobe, her head wound was dribbling warm blood down the back of her neck, and all she had done was flip the stupid thing over. She couldn't keep this up.

She looked up, her vision blurring slightly, and saw that, of course, the whale was managing to spin over in the water, righting itself– but, she realized, not ascending. It was floating on the lake, still for a moment, then started to thrash its fins and lift its head. It smashed back into the lake, sending another waver of motion beneath the dock, but it was becoming progressively more apparent that it could not actually rise.

Had she managed to injure it somehow? Break its magical air-swimming bladder?

Wait.

She closed her eyes and reached out to the magic again, and realized that something was different– pieces of its spell were starting to come undone, sliding apart from each other. The spells were powerful enough that this didn't cause them to dissipate or even fray, but something was causing it to abruptly and neatly come unwoven. Like snipping threads. Or slicing them.

With a knife.

Belle.

Of course. The whale was pure magic; it was held in place by an organic casing, but its whole structure was sustained through spellcraft. It didn't need to eat; therefore, it didn't need to digest; therefore, Belle was alive and furious and attempting to carve her way out of its belly with a knife.

Mint slowly got to her feet again. The whale was crippled and only growing more crippled as Belle continued to eviscerate it internally.

Just a little more, Mint told herself. Just a little...

She didn't bother standing up. She brought the Dual Halos to bear and touched them to each other, closed her eyes, and concentrated. She felt for one of the severed spells, wrapped her mind around the two edges that had been torn through. They were trying to come together again – a few of the others already had – but Mint couldn't allow that. She gripped them, bit her lip, and dragged the Dual Halos across each other before snapping them harshly apart.

The whale bellowed and thrashed against the water. Mint's thoughts were getting hazy, but she knew what to look for now. She found another severance and did the same; halos together, grip the edges, then tear apart. Another bellow, and when she dared to open her eyes she saw the whale starting to falter, sliding to one side. One fin was still lashing at the water, its tail still trying to keep up, but its other side almost seemed to crumple on itself.

She closed her eyes. Her magic projection was feeble now, but it was enough. One more band of spell-work, just one more severance, just one more tearing apart–

Mint looked up.

The whale had stopped moving completely, its mouth sagged open, its eyes staring at nothing, the light of its dangling lure flickering out. Its side, facing Mint, had a long, ragged hole in the side, and even as she watched another one formed over it. The two connected, and the whole slab of the whale's body fell into the lake. The magic unwove itself; on contact with the water, it vanished.

And behind it emerged Belle. She was sopping wet, covered in the dank moisture that had built up inside the whale over the years, but she looked largely unharmed.

Also angry.

She looked angry.

She shoved herself out of the whale's hollow body and into the lake, submerging for several seconds before re-appearing above the surface. She looked over her shoulder, raised her hand, and flicked her wrist, hurling a small ball of flame at its side. It struck the whale with an impudent little hiss, and Belle, apparently satisfied, swam the short distance back to the dock. She dragged herself up on the side, took a couple of steps forward, and then flopped face-first onto the dock.

Mint waited for her to respond, but nothing happened. Slowly, as Mint's own limbs stopped shaking so badly, she dragged herself over to Belle and gave her a once-over. The older woman was breathing, and without apparent complications; her pulse was strong and steady. But she was very clearly unconscious.

Mint looked over to the whale, closed her eyes, felt for its magic. The core of the spells had given up when the whale had died; the spell holding its body together was still there, but she could see the edges of it were crumbling. Without life, there was no reason for the whale to keep its solid form.

Mint sat up, very carefully, and leaned back, using Belle as a makeshift cushion. She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing, and after that was done she tried not to concentrate on anything at all. She didn't know how long she was there like that – she felt she fell asleep a couple of times, although in very brief bursts – and when she finally felt her strength properly returning, the sunlight she saw through the trees suggested it was still strong daylight, not a hint of afternoon or evening colors. It must not have been terribly long, then.

She needed a proper rest, of course, but she had gotten enough of an energy boost to finish what she had started. She shoved herself up to her feet, did one last check on Belle – still alive, still out of it, all good – and stepped toward the edge of the platform. The magic decay on the whale had accelerated at some point; nearly half of its body was gone, and the rest of it floated on top of the water like some bizarre cast-away blanket.

She tied one of the Dual Halos back into place and raised the other one. She concentrated on the breeze, tangled her magic into it, and flicked the ring. The wind blew back against the water, drawing the thinning remains of the whale back toward her until the end of its lure – still thick, still strong – bumped up against the leg of the dock.

Mint replaced the second halo at her back, retrieved the knife from where she had lodged it in the dock, and returned to the whale. She knelt down, fished the lure out of the water, and sunk the knife blade into the bulb. It felt like rubber; and resisted her cutting and slicing, but with a little doing she managed to form a cut large enough that she could reach her hand into the bulb. When she pulled her fist back out here, she brought with her two small, golden hoop earrings.

She stood up, stashed the earrings immediately into her money pouch, and looked around. Down at the remains of the whale; over to the end of the docks; over again to Belle.

Mint contemplated. Then she moved toward Belle, caught her by the arms, and dragged her to roughly the middle of the platform. With a little more expense of magic, she forced the remainder of the water out of the older woman's clothes. She checked her over quickly for any apparent damages, but Belle had gotten out of the whale's belly with surprisingly little damage other than exhaustion. And that was good enough.

"Sleep tight, Belle," Mint said genially. Then she sighed. "I'm sure I'll see you again."

Mint was halfway across the bridge when she finally had to stop and do a quick self-assessment. Mostly she was tired, and a little bruised; that crack to the skull was still there, but now that she had her faculties about her she could properly repair the damage, and did so, sealing up the wound. The expense of energy left her somewhat light-headed, but after a few seconds she shrugged it off and carried on.

Off the docks. Out in the forest. She walked straight forward – it was as good a direction as any – until she saw the clearing where Ginema's shattered atelier lay. She walked out into the middle of it, briefly basking in the sunlight, getting her bearings, and heading out in the direction of the beach. Before she had quiet left, though, she kicked one of the remaining pillars.

"Such an asshole," Mint snarled, and then went on her way.