It did not take long for the locals near Lake Fortune to notice that Wally was missing. Wally habitually came into town once a week. He would sell a few fish off to the market, then stock up on essentials for the week (which for Wally included a generous amount of booze), before spending the night at the pub, drunkenly regaling his latest tales of 'The Golden Fish of Lake Fortune’. The next day he'd drag himself out of the gutter or police station and head back to the lake to do battle all over again. ‘Loony ol’ Wally and his imaginary golden fish’ was a local legend among the townsfolk. So when he didn't show up that week as expected, someone was sent out to the lake to check on him. His body was found washed up on the shore and recovered. After determining that he had died of natural causes, his body was cremated.

He was a weird old man, but his loss still saddened many. A funeral was organised at the lake so that his ashes could be spread over the water. A few people came, tears were shed and people recalled their favourite stories they’d heard from Wally.

“Wally said he then leapt off his boat, onto the surfboard, pants still around his ankles, and golden fish dragged him around the lake like that for an hour. He called the fish a…” Robbo, the owner of the local liquor store looked up to make sure there were no children present before quoting what Wally had said about Destiny that day. The gathering laughed sadly.

Floating among the branches of a tree nearby, camouflaged by telekinetically attached leaves, Destiny Fish also watched and mourned. Tears streamed from his eyes, “I remember that day, *sob*, it actually took nearly two hours to get you off that board. I dunno where you kept pulling those cigarettes from, I saw you put the pack in your back pocket before pulling down your pants.” He looked at the disembodied soul floating beside him, “Don’t you think that.. *sob*. Don’t you think that now would be an epic time to come back to life and freak all your friends out?” He asked hopefully.

Wally’s soul continued to float silently.

“...No? That’s cool bro. Take your time; no rush.” Destiny Fish sniffed back some tears and turned back to the funeral.

Nobody had been more surprised by Wally’s death than Destiny Fish. He had really banked on Wally somehow surviving after the spell had been cast. A small glimmer of hope was that Wally’s soul had stuck about after he died. Souls didn’t do that. Destiny's understanding was that when someone died, the soul separated from the body and would then rapidly break down to become part of the spiritual energy of the universe. Eventually, when this energy accumulated enough it would become a god or a new universe or something. Destiny Fish wasn't really sure. He was pretty brainless when it came to these things so he just counted it as a good sign.

When it came to magic in general he was fairly ignorant. He ‘got’ the basics of everything that came with being magic easily enough. For example, he could fly, breathe in space and so on. But when it came to higher concepts like souls and destiny magic, he had no idea.

He didn’t cast his destiny spells often, as they were confusing and produced no immediate effects. Destiny magic by its nature was vague and obscure. This was only his second time ever to cast [destined to meet again]. His understanding of the spell was that it would force the universe to bend over backwards so that he and Wally could meet again. Kinda hard to do now that Wally was a disembodied soul and his ashes were being spread over a lake. The soul now followed him around like a lost puppy and meeting it apparently didn't fulfil the requirements to end the spell. So all Destiny could do was hope that this was normal and things were going as planned. He wished it worked faster though because he was missing Wally something fierce.

The universe was indeed working on a plan to reunite Wally and Destiny fish. Despite the disadvantageous starting position, it sorted through countless possibilities using cosmic destiny probability calculations and had formulated a step-by-step plan to destine their reunion that was 95.225% likely to succeed. 'Step 1: Mess with all of Fred’s clocks’ was already in motion.

Completely oblivious to all that, Destiny cried through the rest of the funeral and returned to the water after everyone had left, Wally’s soul in tow. Time passed; life went on.

Somewhere far away, a door was kicked in. A young woman marched furiously into the room. She looked ready to murder, “FRED YOU MORON! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO WAKE EVERYONE UP! WE’RE LATE!”

Poor Fred.

Back in Lake fortune:

"Sho you shee," Destiny spoke around the magic wand in his mouth as he added a few finishing touches to his latest work. "Dish's why I turned down Layza Fish,” He finished and swallowed his wand. He swam back a bit and admired his handiwork, “Check it out, bro: There’s only one girl out there for me; Goddess Fish." He had telekinetically carved a stunning, life-like statue of the Goddess Fish out of marble on the bottom of the lake. It was a masterpiece.

Destiny was no stranger to boredom. He had spent thousands of years alive, doing just what he was doing now: messing about and talking to inanimate objects. Wally’s soul had been following him everywhere for weeks now. It was incapable of sensing anything, even the passage of time. For Wally right now, there was only emptiness. This didn’t stop Destiny from talking to him non-stop and telling his entire life story. Destiny was actually glad for the company, even if it was a one-sided conversation.

Snow began to fall on Lake Fortune.

" Whaaaat? Snow?! Let's go check out what's happening up there."

He swam up and breached the surface with his head. Wally’s soul bobbed along behind. The sky was filled with large snowflakes that drifted down gently and collected on the ground. There was a crisp and beautiful silence that comes with such snowfalls. It had been late summer up until a moment ago so this was all quite surprising.

"Whooooaaaa! Bro, why’s it snowing? Trippy! What's going on?"

Destiny loved snow! It didn't snow in outback Australia so destiny hadn’t seen any in ages. He was very excited. He danced around and tried to catch some snowflakes in his mouth, waiting for enough snow to accumulate so that he could make a snowman.

A dark purple vortex opened up in the water a few metres away. Out of it swam a fish. It was a butterfly goldfish, scales so black, that they absorbed all light. It looked like an empty black void within the water. In its mouth, contrasting its body, was a pure white, magic wand.

It swallowed the wand and spoke, catching Destiny’s attention "Hello Destiny Fish."

Destiny turned to the new fish in surprise, "Gate Fish?! Dude! What's up? Long time no see!"

A tear ran down Gate Fish’s face, "Sorry Destiny, I'm here with bad news.” He gestured to the falling snow, “Weather fish is dead. She was killed. I came to get you for the funeral. This portal leads to Siren, please go through."

Destiny Fish felt a horrible cold chill run through him, "Weather Fish!? Oh no! What? Why? What..."

"Not now, Destiny. It’s going to start soon. Please ask for details there." Gate motioned towards his portal, clearly not in the mood to talk.

"Yeah, alright. Yeah.. “ the stunned Destiny read the mood and swam forward.

"Wait." Gate Fish noticed something and stopped Destiny before he could go through. "What is that?" He gestured behind.

Destiny looked back to see what he was talking about, Wally’s soul bobbed behind him. "Oh, that's my bro, Wally. Is it alright if he comes with?"

Gate squinted, "No, I don't think that's a good idea. Leave it here. Is... Is 'Wally' a soul? What the heck have you been up to Destiny?" Gate Fish Knew Destiny was weird, but a pet soul was a whole level beyond what he had expected. "You know what, never mind. Don't answer; I don't want to know. Just leave it and go through."

"Ah, Right-o. Welp,” Destiny turned to Wally, “Later Wally, bro. Take it easy. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." He finished his goodbye with an awkward smile and then left through the portal.

Gate Fish took another look back at the soul and shook his head before following through the portal. It closed behind them, leaving the soul behind. After some time, it finally floated away from Lake Fortune, guided gently by the strings of destiny. Thunder crashed in the distance.

Destiny appeared through the other side of the portal on ‘Siren’, the home planet of magic fish. He was the last one to be collected apparently. Including him and Gate Fish, there were now 20 magic fish gathered around an intricate stone coffin set upon a dais of coral — Weather Fish’s resting place.

The mood was heavy. This was the first time a magic fish had ever been killed since their creation. Some fish looked sad, others confused, and some looked out for blood. Magic fish personalities were as varied as their powers.

Destiny swam up between Metal Fish and Kinetic Fish and bowed his head to the coffin. Metal Fish was an iron barracuda, Kinetic Fish, a sporty red Arowana.

"Oh, so you do care enough to come to her funeral.” Kinetic Fish snarked.

“Kinetic,” Metal Fish admonished, “Don’t take your pain out on him.”

“Whatever.” Kinetic clicked her tongue and zipped away with enhanced speed.

“Don’t mind her Destiny. That's just the grief talking. It’s good to see you, It's been far too long.” Metal Fish had always taken the role of ‘Big sister’ to the other magic fish. She was mature and level headed.

“It’s good to see you to Metsy,” Destiny called her by her nickname. He tried to smile but couldn’t hold it, “I can’t believe it. How could this happen to one of us? Weather was such a… energetic chick. You know what I mean?”

"Yes dear, she was wonderful. No one wants to believe she's gone. Divination Fish and Time Fish combined their powers earlier and saw the whole thing. I know you want to know what happened, everyone does. But, I told them to wait until after the funeral to tell everyone else. We should focus on her life now, not her death.”

“I understand,” Destiny Fish looked forward as tears rolled down his face.

The funeral began. Dream Fish and Pain Fish led the ceremony. It was their first funeral but it went well. Music Fish sang and Gravity Fish read a poem. Despite their differences, magic fish really came together to support each other when it was needed. Destiny Fish had been away in self-exile for hundreds of years. He got overwhelmed by the political power plays and magic competitiveness that usually went on, on Siren. So now he swam around to greet his magic brothers and sisters and catch up on old times.

“Why’d you leave this time, Destiny?” Time fish, a black and white sunfish with a clock motif covering his body, asked. "You were gone for such a long time."

“Dude, it's hard to explain. I kinda just needed my own space, you know?”

“We missed you, buddy, had Divination checking in on you from time to time to make sure you were ok.” The hairy white Yeti Fish smiled and glanced behind Destiny, “Speaking of…”

Divination Fish was an emerald green angler fish. She swam over to the trio and greeted them, “Yeti, Destiny, good to see you both,” then he looked to Time fish, “Shall we?”

“Yes, it’s time.” Time fish excused himself and swam in front of weather fish's coffin with Divination. The chatter of the fish died down and everyone turned to look at them.

Divination spoke loudly, “Everyone, we’re going to tell you what we saw now. This is what happened to Weather Fish:”