Cyg was bored out of his mind.

By Friday, he found the search to be unbearable, as there was nothing interesting about sweeping the forest for things that may or may not be there. Even a few hours were enough to be grueling tedium, and after a few days of it, not even all the silly little swapping tricks he'd been playing with could make it bearable.

He's not the most patient person out there, Cyg would admit, but this was more than that. For two and a half weeks he repeated Merry's exercise, emptying his mana reserves in an attempt to truly feel the essence of the Outer Sea. The only thing that came out of it was mild chills. That wasn't too surprising; if it were so simple then everyone would've figured it out ages ago.

Clearly, the problem must be elsewhere. His route of the woods led him to the creek again, though farther down than the usual spot. He let his legs rest by sitting down on the trunk of a fallen tree, deciding he would not move until he had finally figured something out. Simple practice was a dead end—Merry had described his methods as such at first sight. Doing it faster wasn't exactly doing it better, and there was something wrong with how he used his Aspect.

For the next two hours, he tried everything he could think of. The use of mana was a natural thing, much like walking or talking; letting it flow into objects was no different than breathing out with one's lungs. And just like air, it’s an invisible force that one can only study through the objects it interacts with. He tried using less mana, more mana, shaping it carefully around objects, trying to stuff an object full of it, going on and on until he figured this was just as pointless as before.

The use of an Aspect was inscrutable, and it felt less like interfacing with the Sea and more like a miracle being bestowed upon someone. Using it “wrongly” would merely result in nothing happening, but perhaps that’s what was going on this entire time. What if he was asking the Sea to perform the wrong miracle because it was the only prayer he knew would receive a response?

Watching the creek flow, Cyg's eyes wandered along it and toward where he last spoke with Alicia. Then, recalling their conversation on Monday, a revelation struck him. He remembered the sensation of looping for the first time, of being ripped out—what if his Aspect was the very same? He filled two objects with his mana and they swapped places, not bringing about even the slightest breeze in between. How else could it be possible if they were not slipping out of this world and into another?

Cyg's heart pounded as his mind leapt from one idea to the next as he decided to test the theory out. He grabbed a pebble and pictured what it would be actually doing, and the result was entirely different: there was no wait, no call and response, no tugging as if he was fighting back reality. Instead, his mana circled the two stones, marking the spaces where he would pierce the veil, and with each object acting as tethers for one another, they flung themselves through the gap. Cyg was not privy to the contents of the Sea, but the fact that they managed to reappear meant that they did not collide. They had to be similar sizes and shapes, he surmised, because the openings had to match.

He had no proof of this, but as he used his Aspect over and over and over, it became undeniable that something was correct.

And now that he had found out, how could he just sit around or look for plants? Immediately, he ran for the house, hoping it was already time for them to meet.

* * *

“I have to see the circle.”

“Now?” Alicia crossed her arms. “Are you insane?”

Merry was busy tending to the guard, giving the two some time to talk alone in the house.

Incredulous, Cyg asked, “Didn't you hear what I just said? Can’t you just sketch it out or something? What if we just figured out how the thing works?”

“What would even be the point? You wouldn't even know what the runes do! I've been thinking about it this whole time and even I couldn't tell! It's not just understanding what it's supposed to do; you have to be able to read and follow it. It isn't a puzzle box you can toss ideas at and see what comes out,” Alicia hissed, “And besides, I truly never committed it to memory, and I destroyed most of the papers to make sure Merry wouldn’t find it. The damn thing is buried in dirt except for the bits that were meant to be modified.”

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Hearing this, Cyg rubbed the bridge of his nose and slowly let out a deep sigh. “Okay, okay. I see what you're saying.”

“I'll give it a look myself if Merry's gone at the end of the week like you said, but I can't promise anything,” she adds. “...And good for you, you figured out your Aspect.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled, already deflated. “Well, you’re right that even if we know how the time travel worked in actuality, there's little we can do about it.”

“It would also imply that you're pulling copies of yourself from another time or world into your doomed situations to swap places with.”

Cyg frowned deeply. “...Maybe we should stop talking about this.”

“Agreed,” Alicia said, nodding. “Besides, since you’ve managed to steal me away from Merry for a little while, why don’t I quickly teach you a bit of alchemy?”

“Huh? We have time for that now?”

“Only an explanation of the methods; the best ways of extracting essences are time-consuming and tedious,” she explained, “First, you need to know how it all works...”

* * *

By Sunday, they hadn’t even covered a fourth of Merry’s domain. Granted, they couldn’t search all day and all night, but their findings were still frustratingly scarce—two fistfuls of sedatives and a single patch of something actually toxic. It was more than enough to knock out and kill a human, but a basilisk?

“We’ll just have to try it,” Alicia had said with a shrug.

When the witch left, Alicia went back into the study, waiting about an hour before finally entering the basement. Of course, Cyg couldn’t follow, lest the witch notice and sic Bassy on him. So instead, he went outside to a setup he left near the creek, one that he prepared yesterday following Alicia’s instructions.

The process taught to him was uneventful to say the least. There was supposedly another method that took an entire week while this one only took a day. On Saturday, he had to grind the plants into a fine powder before stuffing it into a metal tube and lightly soaking it with water, and only after waiting twenty-four hours could he begin dripping the extract into another container. It was difficult for him to gauge whether or not he was doing it efficiently, but he didn’t feel there was much he could mess up.

What cumulated from all this was a pitiful amount, no doubt awfully diluted too. He swished around the muddy tincture, wondering if it would even do the trick. It wasn’t as if he could test it that very moment. More importantly, how was he going to sneak it into the food? In the past he never bothered to pay attention to what the treat even was, and there wasn’t any way he could brazenly sneak it into the cauldron Merry used on Tuesday.

With these ideas swirling in his mind, he stood up, ready to return to the house, only to see a sitting basilisk in the distance. It watched him languidly, holding a clean line of sight despite all the trees between them. This whole time, Cyg had just assumed Bassy wouldn’t be interested in whatever he was doing. He was wrong.

“...You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Cyg took one step to the side, waiting for any response, then another. When he saw that it didn’t seem to care, he began walking in earnest only for Bassy to stand up and shake its sleepiness off. Its head tracked the thief as he began to pick up speed, soon matching with its own gait. How much of human language can it understand? Well, it hardly mattered; the beast was aware Cyg was holding poison and planned to use it.

The thief switched directions, running back into the creek. Then, he jumped as far in as he could but he was soon forced to slow down with how deep it went. It was a poorly thought-out plan as Bassy could easily wade through faster than his human legs were able, but he wasn’t thinking at all. He was doomed and decided to run in the opposite way—there was nothing more to it. Halfway through he realized his error, and Cyg turned around to see Bassy cautiously walking along the bank.

Why wasn’t it following him? Was it afraid of the water?

And just as Cyg asked himself this, the beast tentatively entered, lifting its head high. The thief didn’t leave the stream but instead went down it, watching the basilisk wide-eyed. In the middle of the creek, the water reached its belly, causing it to growl.

“Oh, could it be?” Cyg began with a grin, “You don’t like a good bath?”

It snarled while Cyg threw the container as hard as he could at the basilisk’s tendrils. It dodged preemptively only for it to vanish mid-air, replaced by a small stone that fell straight down. Flying from the side, the tincture violently spun through its arc and spilled its contents everywhere. The little cup entirely missed the mark, but some of the fluids managed to rain down on top of Bassy, causing it to cry out in fury.

Cyg laughed at his success, a moment of joy that lasted a single second before the creature shook its head and began galloping at him.

“Oh sh—!” he exclaimed, right as the beast’s massive jaw slammed down on his upper half.

— ! —

Cyg’s eyes opened while he gasped, and in surprise Alicia momentarily withdrew her hands from his arm.

He grumbled, “That has got to be the worst one so far.”