“Are you sure this is safe?” Edie asked nervously, straddling the Kanmi’s sleek body. The rocky feathers were more slippery than she had anticipated, and she felt like she was going to slide off at the slightest push.

“I’m positive. Well, mostly positive.” Karla assured her. Edie wasn’t allowed any time to doubt her words as they shot off into the sky. The air buffeted her face, and she stayed as low to the bird as she could. They were almost vertical for the next couple of seconds, powered by Karla’s strong flaps, and Edie could feel her legs slip off. She flopped frantically in the air, trying to find another purchase on the bird, but failed.

Then she made the mistake of looking down. It truly was an ill omen for a fish to be in the air, she thought as she saw all of the trees that had been gigantic shrink. As she watched, however, they stopped growing smaller, and started to swell. It was at that moment that Edie realized that she was falling.

She regretted ever listening to a word that accursed bird had to say, and closed her eyes as she plummeted to her death. A couple seconds passed, and then with a jolt she opened her eyes. The landscape beneath her was moving sideways, and remained a consistent size. A voice from above, abashedly said, “Sorry about that. I didn’t expect you to slip off.”

Karla was holding her in a talon, with a grip that was gentle yet firm. Edie went slack with relief and let out her breath, unaware she had been holding it. “Please, for the love of all that is holy, never let that happen again.”

Karla let out an embarrassed huff. “Don’t worry, it’s just that I’ve never had somebody… ride on my back before.”

Edie looked up for a brief second, and decided to not respond. It was clear that this was a tough subject for Karla, and she didn’t want to open up any wounds. The conversation died, which was more than fine for Edie. Now that she wasn’t scared of dying, she was able to take in the beautiful scenery of the Grove from above.

The World Tree, which had always been impossibly high for her, seemed even more gorgeous from this angle. The fairies that surrounded it, normally shrouded by the clouds, were clear to the eye, and shone like multicolored fireflies. Edie spent a while simply studying the different environments and the infinite horizon. She was jolted out of her amazement when Karla asked her a question.

“You said that you knew humans, right? Are they all… monsters?” There was no small amount of fear in Karla’s voice. Edie sympathized with her. It wasn’t like there was anyone in the Grove who hadn’t heard the horror stories about them.

Edie gave a small sigh, and relaxed into Karla’s talon. “I don’t think that they’re all monsters. I lived among them for years and years, and while I certainly hated a few, I think the best word for them would be… unpredictable. They do things that don’t make sense.”

Karla’s eyes glittered with morbid interest. “What do they do?”

“Well, they’re not like us in that they don’t kill for simple reasons. It’s not just because they were threatened, or because they want food, or simply for fun. Some of them are like that, but some of them act on a higher purpose. At least, that’s how it was explained to me.” Edie had never quite understood what that meant, but the human who told it to her seemed certain of himself.

Karla’s posture changed slightly. She opened and closed her mouth multiple times, clearly hesitating with a question. Curiosity won, and she asked, “Did you ever… talk to a human?”

Edie grimaced. “Yes, I did.”

“...What did they say?” It was a question clearly driven by morbid interest, and Edie didn’t see herself dodging the question. She settled into the talon once more.

“I might as well tell you the whole story. Best get comfortable, it’s very long.

“My species is an oddity in the world. I only knew my parents briefly, both being hunted down by humans when I was born. They found me a safe underground river to hatch and grow, before they were killed. Then, I was alone for years and years. As I grew my legs, I gained a false confidence, never having faced adversity. Driven by restlessness and curiosity, I left the lake and went to the surface.

“Needless to say, that was a mistake. It turns out the ‘underground lake’ that my parents had put me in was the water system beneath a human city. I ran around the alleys for all of an hour until I was caught. The human that found me stuffed me into a little sack and took me home.” Edie let out a small sigh. “I suppose I should be grateful that I wasn’t killed on the spot, but I can’t help but feel that what happened next was worse.”

“Worse than being killed?”

“Much so. My newest captor was a fledgeling wizard, without the funds to acquire his first book. Really, that means that he was the equivalent of a hatchling, with no power to stand on his own. He needed money to really come into his own as a mage.”

Karla looked down, confused. “What’s ‘money’?”

A pause. “Imagine that everybody used fish to trade with each other, and the fish didn’t spoil.”

The flight grew a little bumpy. “The fish don’t spoil outside!?”

“Ugh, no, it’s just that… well, it doesn’t matter. The important part is that this man needed money, and he didn’t have any way of getting it. So he made a plan to get it; travel from place to place, showing off oddities that the other humans hadn’t seen before. As it just so happens, I appeared at the exact right time.

“He put me in a magical cage, along with some other rare beasts, and soon enough we were in a carriage off to the nearest village. He showcased me off as his possession, and received a surprising amount of money. The other beasts and I were given plenty of food, and praised for our performance. Within a week we were off to the next village.

“Sometimes he would earn plenty, sometimes he wouldn’t. When he didn’t, he would give us less food, and yell at us as though we would understand him.” A small smile came to her lips. “That was actually how I learned how to speak the human tongue. Each night the yelling would get worse and worse, until one night I snapped. I yelled right back, ‘Stop!’, and that shut him up. He looked at me, and all of his anger was gone. He asked me a couple of questions, but I didn’t know enough words to answer him.

“It didn’t matter, because this made me a spectacle like none other. The next day, he put me up on a pedestal, declaring me as the world’s first talking beast. I spoke a word, and the money flowed into his hands. The next time he looked at me his eyes were full of greed, and I became his favorite.

“And that continued for years and years. I performed for him, and he would get the gold. At some point, he forgot that he ever wanted to be a wizard, and instead spent his money and more and more beasts. Soon enough he had a menagerie, but I was still the centerpiece. The staple that humans came from far and wide to see.” Edie pursed her lips with anger, but plowed onwards. “‘The Great Talking Fish!’ I was called. ‘The Fantastic Fin!’” She let out a scoff.”The humans treated me as nothing but a freak, yelling insults and curses at me in hopes I would respond. I hated every single minute of it.

“That was what life was, until we stopped in a small town, very close to the Grove itself. It seemed to be a stop like any other, just long enough to milk the residents of all of their cash. The master of the zoo stashed us in the stables, with strict orders to the stablemaster not to let anybody see us. It only took the man an hour before he was snoozing, not paying any attention to us.

“And that was when he appeared. A man in all black, head to toe, snuck into the barn. I thought about yelling for help, waking the stablemaster, but I found out that I didn’t care. It didn’t matter if I was going to get beaten, or stolen, or even killed. Anything was better than the life that I was living. To my surprise, the man didn’t do any of that. He simply offered me a piece of bread, and left. Not a word was said, nor anything taken.

“I was suspicious at first, but I was starving. I ate the offering, and it was delicious. The next day, he did the same thing, and then the next. On the fourth day, I asked him why he did it. Why did he sacrifice his own wellbeing to feed somebody else’s animals? He was surprised, as though he didn’t realize I could talk, and just told me that he felt like it. He gave me a piece of bread, and then left as though nothing had happened.

“The fifth day, I started a conversation with the man. It was interesting to say the least, and he taught me things about the world I had never known, not in the years I spent in the human world. It was an enlightening experience, and our little chats became my escape from the hell that I lived in for the rest of the day.

“But all good things come to an end. The master grew wary of how large I was getting, and figured that somebody must have been feeding me extra. The rest of the trip, I was locked in a cage in his room any time that I wasn’t performing for him. The days flew by in misery, and soon enough it was the day that the master was going to leave the town. My only regret was that I wasn’t able to tell the strange human goodbye.

“My worries were unfounded. In the dead of night, he appeared in front of my cage, unlocking it with practiced fingers. I tried to ask him what he was doing there, but he threw open the door, grabbed my in one hand, and chucked me out of the window as hard as he could. I flew down the street and landed in a small puddle, unharmed. I don’t know what happened to him, but as I ran away from the inn, I heard shouts and screams coming from behind me.”

Edie shook her head. “I ran until I reached the Grove. I still don’t know how I found it, if it was simply a stroke of luck, but I believe that was the only reason that I survived. I think that the master of the zoo would have hunted me down to the ends of the earth if he knew I was still alive.”

The story was met with nothing but the whistling of the wind. Karla opened her mouth for a couple of seconds, but closed it after a bug flew in. Mid-flight snack aside, she clearly didn’t know what to think of it. Edie gave a small giggle, and shook her head. “You don’t have to say anything about it yet. Just think about it when you have the chance. As scary as humans are, some of them are good people.”

The rest of the trip flew by in silence, and soon enough they had reached the place that Boggy had described. “Alright, I think that this is the place that we should investigate.” Karla fluttered to the ground wordlessly, and soon they stood before the barrier that separated them from the human world.

At least, what remained of it. The normally invisible wall was clearly cracked in multiple places, with a gigantic hole sitting where the hero had obviously entered. The barrier fractured for meters in every direction, with spiderwebs of fissures making it look like it would break to the touch. “What happened here?” Edie asked breathlessly.

“I believe that you said, and I quote, ‘difficult to find a chink in the barrier’?” Karla said snarkily.

“Oh, you can-” Edie was about to respond to the bird’s sass, but stopped mid-sentence, just then realizing the giant dragon that flew straight for them.