Ivory sat atop their iceberg as the child stared at her.

Did she just…? No … from where?

The child’s mind was just spinning. While they haven’t paid much attention to looking at the skyline, they haven’t noticed anything on the horizon.

They scanned the horizon of where the bird came from and saw five blackish-brown dots that seemed to get bigger as they floated with the current.

Turning back to Ivory and the mammal that they held in their mouth, the child got her to drop the wet mammal onto the top of the iceberg.

The small mammal seemed stunned for a few seconds before it caught its bearings and tried to scurry away. The child quickly grabbed a mana string, inserted it into the mammal, and made them theirs.

The small mammal, what they now knew as a shrew, was eight centimetres long and had two types of fur layers. The first layer was long and straight, and the second layer was interwoven and dense. The hairs had a type of oil coating them for some reason. The shrew was male and seemed to be an adult. It had small round ears, a long tapering snout, and sharp teeth tipped with red. They didn’t know what to call the mammal yet, so they decided to call it the shrew until they decided on a name.

The child made a tunnel 20 centimetres by 20 centimetres that went directly to the portal. They were lucky that the portal was two-thirds in the water of the first room on the second floor, with a third in the air. Once everything was prepared, the child gently picked up the shrew, brought him through the tunnel and portal, and gently placed him on the soil portion of the floor.

They watched as the shrew sniffed and wandered around the bearded bush and cushion moss. They did notice that the shrew went to take a sip of the water but then seemed to flinch back as if the water disgusted them. The child watched the shrew later jump into the water and start swimming to the edge of the second room before returning and climbing onto the soil.

It was then the child realized two things. The first is that the child figured out what they would call the shrew. Seeing the shrew being comfortable swimming around the room and how the water seemed to be repelled by its fur when it climbed out of the water, the child decided to call it the “water shrew.”

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The second thing that the child realized was that it was not the water that the shrew seemed to dislike but the type of water. So when they realized that it was the water type they disliked, the child made little watering holes for the shrew and any other non-aquatic, land-living creature to drink in.

Underneath the area where the soil pocket lay, the child dug out a ten-centimetre tall and one-metre-wide area. Around the pocket, they removed small areas of soil, all about five centimetres in size, and used ice to make little bowls with small tunnels connecting to the chamber underneath the soil pocket.

Using a water mana string, the child started to melt the ice, turning it into water. As the ice turned into water, it began to fill up the chamber and flow up into the small water bowls.

Once all of the ice had melted, the child took the water mana string and started a slow circulation around the room and up into the bowls. The child also placed some baby grey oysters in the chamber to purify the water and keep it safe to drink.

Once the child was satisfied with the soil pocket and the water shrew’s habitat, they turned their attention back to Ivory.

By the time they turned their attention back to their bird, Ivory had flown down from the iceberg and began feeding on crystal krill.

They had plans for Ivory. They wanted her to go back to the islands and collect more objects, but the child wanted to reduce the trips the bird would take.

With an ice mana string, the child carved out a thin bucket made up of pressurized ice with circular ice links for a chain. The bucket was 50 centimetres high and 30 centimetres wide, and they directed Ivory to try to lift and fly with the bucket. Then, with their bill, they picked up the bucket by the chain and flew around their territory.

It took a bit of practice maneuvering and flying with the bucket. Still, Ivory became a lot more comfortable flying with it. Once they finished practicing, the child started to talk to Ivory.

When you reach the islands, Ivory, collect anything that catches your attention and put it in the bucket. Make sure that you come back before the bucket gets too heavy.

As they directed Ivory what to do, the bird seemed to understand what they wanted her to do. She picked up the bucket and flew out towards the islands, and the child watched as Ivory became a speck on the horizon.

With Ivory gone for now, the child started to look as far as they could see in all directions. They carefully studied the surrounding areas, as far as they could see, in order to see if they had missed anything else.

And they did. The sky started looking dark and ominous in the direction they had originally come from. They could see the once peaceful waves become white and large. Crashing against each other as the wind forced them to battle against each other.

That does not look good, murmured the child.

It was still a ways away, but it was moving faster than the current was pushing them, and the child knew that they would most likely not outrun the ominous storm.

The child stared at the storm and looked at the direction that Ivory went in.

Ivory’s safety was more important to the child than collecting more unknown objects or living things for the moment. They did not have a way to recreate Ivory if they got caught in the storm and died.

Through the pull that the child felt and connected the child to Ivory, they pushed come home quickly through it in hopes of Ivory coming back in time before the storm reached them.