Exhausted by the fight she slumped down, the dead bird still punctured by her arm. Four cold eyes stared back at her, full of spite. A pungent scent oozed out of its feathers. She retracted her blade, and pushed the warm body away from her. It was light for its size. Maybe only weighing about ten kilograms.

She dragged it towards her backpack. Then she went on to collect her precious bucket.

Instead of feeling victorious an empty feeling had taken residence in her mind, body, and soul. She had never taken the life of anything, other than swatting a couple pesky insects.

Hollowed out she tumbled towards her makeshift container that she’d been carrying all this time. It was laying at the bottom of the sloped dune.

She noticed right away that the integrity of her bucket had been compromised. The resin lid had shaken loose. The slippery content had largely spilled out, sand had happily stuck itself to it, going into places where it didn’t belong.

Thulla eyelids twitched at the sight. Her teeth clenched while she forced air out of her nose. “All this effort for nothing” She sighed, aggrieved by her situation. The futility of her past journey lay before her in all its disappointing glory. Glistening under the luminous bulbs that floated in the air.

Was it salvageable? She kneeled down beside it to turn the bucket upright once again. About a third of the contents was still inside of it. Her hands scooped through the gelatinous mass, trying to separate it from the grains of sand that had infiltrated her sacred slime. The slick liquid slipped through her fingers dragging whatever was mixed with it along for the ride. “Yeah this isn’t going to work without a filter.” Thulla concluded. She wiped her wet fingers off her pants, coarse grains scrubbed underneath her skin.

She lifted the now much lighter wooden cask under her arm. Ready to climb back up the shifting slope where she had left her backpack, and the carcass of the giant bird. while fighting against the slide downwards she heard the muffled ‘mips’ of a certain sand cretin rummaging through her stuff. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” she seethed through her teeth. “Oi, you cheeky cunt. what do you think you’re doing?” She shouted at the rapacious rascal.

Thulla tried to speed up her ascend. Scrambling in a hurry to get to her loot. She was just so damn slow. In a desperate attempt to scare off the blatant thief she flung an explosive bubble at the top of the dune. It burst apart in a rain of sand. She heard the little bugger ‘eep’ as it sped off.

The contents of her backpack lay scattered out in front of her, half covered in sand. “Well isn’t this just grand. Turn my back for one moment only for that thieving, cowardly little shit to violate my possessions. And here I thought we had bonded over the short time we spent together slogging through this dreadful sandbox…” Thulla shook her head in disappointment. “Sir miplo, nothing but a common scoundrel after all.”

She forced herself to collect her strewn about things, not without grumbling non-stop about it. Some of her yams were pecked at. The dead bird also wasn’t left unbothered. Miplo must have hated the flying fiend.

A while later she was hoisting her backpack over her shoulders. She cringed when the straps pressed on her collarbone. She had been trying to ignore the parting gift she received from her newly deceased bird-friend.

Her tongue gently prodded her cut lips that were slashed through all the way to her chin. A scorching pain repelled her from examining it any further. Frederic was slowly mending her back together. She could feel him fill up the gash, and slowly pull the parted flesh back together. She sucked in air through her gritted teeth to endure the slow dulling pain.

Thulla glanced over her silvery scars on her right shoulder. She winced at the idea of having one of those run through her face. “Please don’t leave a scar Freddie! I already look like a villain without my eyebrows, I don’t really want to complete the look.” She tried to bargain with her silent companion.

“Oh darling, without Frederic your head would have been sliced in half. You are aware of that right? The ‘voice’ of Pebelot inserted himself in the conversation.

Thulla grumbled some more. “Allright, Just slap me back together Fred, but try to make me look fabulous, pretty please?”

~

Genik arrived at the imposing gates of the Opalis institute of magistry. An army of youngsters were lounging around on the park benches near the school. Herbal aroma’s permeated in the air. Smoke seeped out of their nostrils. Cackling laughter rose from their ranks as Genik passed them by.

He swallowed his saliva. Somehow these school kids were making him nervous. Who knows what kind of unpredictable stunt they would pull. He could feel their eyes stare at his back. “I’m 41 years old. Why am I getting intimidated by these little shits.” He reprimanded himself internally. He consciously fixed his posture to walk with a bit more confidence. His stiff neck kind of helped with that aspect.

Nothing really happened as he crossed the courtyards into the main hall. Genik looked around lost by the overwhelming scale of the building, and its hectic atmosphere of students passing by in droves. His eyes fell on the reception. With a determined stride he walked over to the middle aged ladies behind the desk.

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“Hi, I need to talk to the headmaster, where can I find him?” Genik asked politely.

Arbora Helise looked the man up and down. Scanning the person with a mastered gaze of someone that does this every day, thousands of times. “Do you have an appointment with her?” She had enunciated the last word with extra emphasis.

Genik hadn’t missed her passive aggressive attempt at correcting him. He felt his patience unraveling. “No Arbora, I do not have an appointment with her. I do have an emergency to report, that involves the safety of one of your students. So tell me where she is.” He was now talking with a much more commanding tone.

Arbora unwittingly adjusted her name tag. Her demeanor shifted slightly when she noticed something serious was going on. “May I inquire into the nature of this emergency you speak of? She tried to remain professional.

“It involves space anomalies here in Kamanut, and a missing person.” Genik stated factually.

Barbora's eyes opened wide for a split second. She tried to suppress her shocked expression. “Very well sir.” She cleared her throat. “I will arrange a meeting.”

“At least that got through to her.” Genik thought, relieving some of his unease at the interaction. Why did Ramon have to go off on his own like that? That greasy son of a bitch slimed his way through just about everything. He could have really used his social lubricant right about now.

~

Beliss Monsar escorted the man into the station. He went along easily, eager to be in the place that most regular people prefered to avoid.

“You seem like a kind, and caring person, so, eh, would you be willing to hear me out, before you chain me up in a dark dungeon.” He asked with a playful smile on his face. The innuendo not slipping from her notice.

“This guy.” she thought. “I brought you in for questioning. We need your testament, on all the paperwork that you’ve created with your shenanigans. Don’t worry, you’ll likely walk away with a slap on the wrists. So there is no need to chain you up, however much I’d like to see you suffer.” Beliss patiently explained. “Why did I have to add that last bit? Don’t encourage him.” She groaned at her own slip up.

“Oh bummer, say? Hypothetically speaking, what would a man need to do to get in trouble with you?” Ramon asked, carelessly going against social conventions.

“Keep talking, maybe you’ll find out.” She responded ambiguously “What am I doing? Get a grip.”

A faint smile pulled at his lips. He rolled his eyes away from her in a knowing look.

Beliss guided him in a small square room where she let him wait extra long.

“Hey, Perrein, can you interrogate the man I’ve just brought in.” Beliss asked an older colleague of hers. A gruff looking, heavy set man looked up from his desk. “He’s a bit of a handful.” She added.

“Aah your back, finall- oh hi there.” Ramon said when the door opened, And a bear of man entered the confined space he was inhabiting. “It’s getting real cozy in here all of a sudden.” He added.

The man grunted. “Hello, would you like some tea before we begin?” His voice was uncharacteristically gentle.

Ramon blinked at the mention of tea. “Why yes, that would be lovely.” he responded habitually.

“Just a minute, I’ll be right back.” He said quickly before he left the door frame.

Ramon's leg was rocking restlessly. He was reflecting on his past actions; why did he have to create a mockery out of everything? It was stupid to have seperated himself from Genik. His level headedness could have saved him a lot of trouble. He never would have turned this situation into an unnecessarily complicated mess.

“How do I maneuver myself out of this?” Ramons thoughts churned. The picture of Thulla burned in his pocket.

Moments later the man came back with 2 cups of steaming hot tea. “There you go, we only have one flavour, hope you don’t mind.” The man explained.

Ramon nodded: “it’s perfect, thank you.” As he reached to grasp the beverage. The two set back down at the square table that was in the middle of the room. An uncomfortable silence was setting in. The officer petted his pockets looking for a pen that he placed on a stack of papers, after he’d finally found it. Ramon observed the animated man with his brows raised.

“Aah, excuse my manners, I haven’t properly introduced myself, I’m Chief Perrein Maninoppo I’ll be handling your case.” At long last he broke the ice.

“I’m Ramon Bardeabu, nice to meet you.” The two men nodded at each.

“Right, Mister Bardeabu, please explain to me how you’ve ended up here.” Perrein began his questioning.

“Oh, where do I begin… Do you have any kids, mister Maninoppo?” Ramon started off.

Perrein bopped his head back slightly, a little taken aback by the personal question: “I do actually. I don’t see how this is relevant?”

“It is, but I’ll start at the beginning..” Ramon began to explain what had transpired: “... They started to follow us when we flew through the outskirts of the city. So I turned it into a game, it was quite harmless really.”

“Was it really? We’ve been getting reports from citizens about damage to their properties. A trampled flower bed, knocked over fences, even a kid that nearly fell off a roof trying to get to you.” Perrein summed up.

“What can I say, I’m an impulsive man, and seeing their gleeful vicious faces made my day a bit better. I will admit that it got a little out of hand.” Ramon sighed. “Look, honestly I really wanted to find you lot a bit faster, because I have something of importance to report. I figured drawing attention to myself would do the trick.”

“You have an unusual way of handling things, mister Bardeabu.” Maninoppo commented.

Ramon placed the photograph on the table. “What’s more unusual is the disappearance of my daughter 4 days ago.” Ramon paused dramatically, he swallowed a lump in his throat, before he continued. “She was on her way to Varwick to start her magic studies, while on the road she got trapped in a space anomaly.”

Perrein frowned: “How are you so assured that she is in there, and not lost somewhere in the forest?” he raised his question.

“That’s easy to answer unfortunately; we found her severed hand at the edge of the cut out.” Ramon divulged.