Mace and Tria finally pulled the seal loaded wagon up the hill. The grave was completely flooded as they guessed. Water was pouring down the hill, which made the base wet and swampy. Really, they could have waited a day or two before the flooding got moderately bad, but their minds were focused and their bodies wouldn’t collapse until the job was done.

They didn’t speak as they began sealing the grave. Stuffed seals were nailed to the ground and cherry tree, wooden seals were lashed to its branches, puppet seals were stuffed with rocks and sunk to the bottom of the grave. Mr. Frost had thrown in a complementary bnox of crayons, and the two girls covered any smooth surface they could find in poor drawings of the sea creature. When they had finished, it looked like a very specific shrine in a nightmare circus. The flowing water stopped.

“We’ll have to put something up to keep people away. Something like ‘Do Not Touch, Dangerous Magic’.”

“Already on it.” mace had flipped over the wagon, leaned it on the tree, and began to write. “What do you think?” she asked as she finished.

Tria read the scrawled sign. “Educational Exhibition. Please interact to learn about Cobpleton’s fascinating history of limestone production. Sponsored by the Sea Lion Historical Society.”

She looked at Mace and back at the sign.

“Yeah…I guess that’ll keep people away.” If you put up a warning sign you’d have a pile of drowned teenagers who don’t listen to their parents much less a sign. Put up an educational installation begging for your attention, you’d have an invisible exhibit.

Mace, her body finally giving out, sat down on the wet grass. “Now that the bandage is on, it’s only a matter of time before it closes.”

“They close on their own?” asked Tria, sitting down next to her.

“More or less, it’s really people on this side or gods on the other that try to keep it open. Reality doesn’t like holes in itself.”

“You really know a lot about pull magic,” said Tria, eyeing her.

Mace shrugged. “Well I can’t use one half of magic, so you take what you can get.”

“With your knowledge, and well, experience now that you’ve been to other worlds, you should be at least a level three goetic.”

Mace scoffed. “Tell that to my uncle, maybe he’ll actually listen this time.”

Tria was silent for a moment.

“I’m guessing your uncle wasn’t always…the kindest to you?”

“He was…” Mace couldn’t think of the words. “A complicated man. Not the worst uncle. But he could get angry, or sad, or frustrated like the rest of us. Most students can’t imagine him as anything other than the kindly old wizard.”

Mace plucked a few blades of grass as she spoke. “I never really hated him, still don’t. But I guess I’m just glad to be away from that school. And I guess he’s glad about that too.”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with him,” said Tria. She had nothing but positive experiences with Mace’s uncle, but she didn’t make excuses for him.

“Thanks,” Mace mumbled. “And if it’s anything, I’m sorry for making your freshman year hell. I was jealous and arrogant and immature and-“

“A total ass?” finished Tria.

“A total ass,” Mace agreed. “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

Tria was silent for a moment. “Apology accepted,” she said coolly.

Mace but her lip. She really had a knack for making a nice moment awkward.

They watched the sunrise from the hill. Cherries glowing in the early morning light.

“So um…you grew up around here right?” she asked Tria.

“Not here here, over in the Kelpiewood.” It was visible as a distant green carpet from the hill. It was beyond the small villages that orbited around Cobpleton.

“Or more accurately, I was adopted in the Kelpiewood when I was seven. I wandered in after running away from Miss Dewney’s Home for Wayward Girls.”

“Wait, I thought only behemoths lived in the Kelpiewood?”

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Tria smiled as realization. Washed over Mace.

“No, really? You were adopted by behemoths? I don’t think I’ve even heard of them adopting a human. How did that work?”

“Better than you think,” said Tria. “The ‘talk’ was more confusing than awkward, given that we have different anatomy. But they tried to make me feel included. For one birthday, they made me a mud cake made from river clay. Nutritious for them, but not exactly my taste in cake. Gods I remember crying so much. Looking back, the gesture was very sweet, it’s just that the cake wasn’t.”

“So your master?”

“My dad. Gorganthal, Wizard of the 20th Level. Or Gorganthal the Inexorable if you like.”

“I don’t remember seeing any behemoths back at Aethowix.” said Mace.

“Some go, but most don’t. Behemoths have their own way of teaching.”

“I’ve heard they don’t really…um, like humans.”

Tria shrugged. “Can you blame them? I mean they seem to like me just fine, it’s just the humans…well…”

“Had a long history of hunting them?” finished Mace. Tria nodded. Some humans would say that they only hunted behemoths in the far, far, distant past, back before they realized they were intelligent. But Mace knew that that pain would never go away for behemoths, and for Tria who was brought up by them. Mace tried to be understanding, but quickly realized she couldn’t understand, not fully.

She thought back to those exhibits she saw in the museum as a kid. They were only changed recently. In terms of social progress, human historians had moved from their ‘proud history’ phase to their ‘don’t talk about it in polite company’ phase. She had always wondered why those exhibits suddenly had white sheets covering them. Only now did she realize it was quite obviously the least they could do.

“Do you have a mother?” asked Mace, trying to turn onto a lighter note.

“I do!” beamed Tria. “She’s a knight errant. Down south on a mission right now, but she’ll be back by next Winterkiss.”

Mace pictured a behemoth knight. A six ton mass of armor and chivalrous fury charging at you on the battlefield. She was very glad she and Tria made peace.

“What about you? What are your parents like?”

Mace breathed out. “Growing up it was mostly my mom and uncle. My dad was some nobleman she met at a party. Then I came as a surprise, and he skipped out when I was eight.”

“Oh gods, I’m so sorry,” consoled Tria.

“Don’t be. I’ve had a long time to come to terms with it. I haven’t even talked to him in years, and he wasn’t exactly present before he left. I think he resented my mom and uncle for being so naturally gifted.”

“But wait, isn’t Perovay his last name?”

Mace shook her head and smiled. “Perovay was my mom’s pseudonym. She had that long before she met my father. She came up with it when she went to Aethowix so she could get out my uncle’s shadow.”

“I guess neither of us had particularly good childhoods,” said Tria.

“I guess that’s one thing we have in common,” replied Mace.

“By the way, how did you cheat the entrance exam if you don’t mind me asking?”

Mace gave her a sly smile and rummaged around in her sleeves. She pulled out her middle finger.

Tria glowered at it. “Real mature Mace, I thought we were actually getting somewh-ah!” She yelped as Mace ripped off her own finger! Revealing her real finger below it.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Tria gently slapped her on the shoulder while Mace grinned. “A fake finger?!”

“A fake finger,” said Mace casually. “Filled it with salt before the test and fiddled my fingers around until it poured out.”

The Aethowix Academy entrance exam was deceptively simple. Simply alter the basin of water in front of you, but the catch was that it was held in an empty room, in a white robe you were naked under, with five proctors watching your every move. Most students made the water more metallic using the bowl that contained it. Some changed its state. She heard that one student accidentally turned it into hydrogen peroxide. Mace went for simple saltwater.

“But how did you get it past security?”

“That was the fun part,” she said, leaning back. “ I kept it in my mouth until my exam started. Then slipped it on when I pretended I’d accidentally slammed it in the door. Fingers went right to my mouth and they didn’t look twice. The hard part was keeping the salt inside the thing and not spilling over my tongue.”

Tria sat there, still as a rock and a look of confusion plastered on her face.

“You fooled the greatest magic academy in the world, during their most secure exam, with a joke shop trick?! That has to be the dumbest, most insane-“

“Brilliant?” said Mace with a grin.

Tria folded her arms. “I was going to say clever, but sure. The most brilliantly dumb thing I’ve ever heard!”

“Most cheaters try to use goetics, but that’s what they’re looking for,” said Mace. “So I had to go with something more material.”

Tria was quiet for a while. She finally spoke, “Well a promise is a promise, I’ll let you see Cornsilk’s belongings.”

Mace was stunned. “Oh…thank you!”. She was stunned again because the thanks was genuine. She thought a snowman would sooner vacation on the sun before she thanked Tria Durana.

“I’ll have to get my father’s written permission. He’ll give it, it just might take a few days.”

They sat in a peaceful silence for a while. Neither sure what to say next.

“I don’t think we’re exactly friends now,” Tria began. “But I do think this is the start of something…interesting.”

Mace picked up the empty rubbing alcohol bottle and raised it in a toast. “To something interesting.”

“To something interesting,” agreed Tria.

The pair laid back onto the warm, dry grass and slept. They didn’t exactly sleep together, nor apart, but any onlookers would have had something to gossip about.