“You cannot have the same kind of character again and again in every season or in every stage of your life. You change, people change.”

  Varun Grover, American Novelist

  Coco stared incredulously at the mantis now perched upon her nose. She shook her head to dislodge the insect and, when that failed, contemplated trying to eat it.

  “Coco,” Milly scolded from the edge of the jungle, the capybara’s intentions clear in her mind. “She just wants to be friends with you.”

  The mantis flicked her forelegs towards the capybara, though Milly didn’t know if the gesture was meant to be friendly or threatening. Coco didn’t know either. She stared at the mantis for a solid five seconds before she decided it was clearly dangerous and must be eaten for Milly’s safety.

  Milly strolled over and plucked the mantis from Coco’s nose before she could try.

  “Seriously, Coco,” Milly said, exasperated, as she placed the mantis on her hat. “Don’t be such a jealous little bitty.”

  She bent down and scratched the capybara between the ears. “I won’t leave her here on the island to live her life alone any more than I would leave you behind. So try to get along with her, okay?”

  Coco gave a disagreeable grunt and plopped down onto her belly, pouting.

  Milly sighed at the capybara’s drama. “You didn’t like Enzel at first either, but a few hours later you were inseparable. I’m sure you two will be the same before night falls, if you give her a chance.”

  Coco rolled her eyes and barked. There was no comparison between Enzel and this… thing.

  “Give her a chance,” Milly whispered with a final scratch. “I know she doesn’t show it, but she’s scared. That Tear really screwed her up, and now she’s all alone. Like you. Like me. She needs us. She needs you.”

  Coco gazed up at her witch with wide eyes and gave a faint but accepting bark.

  “That’s my girl,” Milly smiled, placing the mantis on top of Coco’s head.

  The mantis peaked over Coco’s forehead and stared into her eye, and Coco gave a very tentative huff of approval. The mantis flailed her arms in excitement.

  “Do you have a name, new friend?” Milly asked as she overturned a fallen log and watched as the bugs beneath scattered from the sunlight.

  Right leg – no.

  Plucking a large empty vial out of her inventory, Milly created a swirl of air to sweep up the bugs and deposit them inside the vial – food for her new friend.

  “Well, I can’t keep calling you ‘mantis’. Why don’t you and Coco pick out a name? It’ll help you two bond.”

  Left leg – yes. Coco snorted in satisfaction.

  Milly held up the bottle to the mantis. “Which ones?”

  The mantis tapped on the glass several times, picking out her favorite meals like she was a small child staring at the display counter at a bakery.

  It feels a bit morbid, but we won’t find any bugs over the ocean. And if I catch extras, well… I’m sure Rain will be able to find a use for them.

  Milly spent the next half hour collecting an assortment of aphids, grasshoppers, flies, and beetles for the mantis, each in their own vial. She was, surprisingly, able to store the vials in her inventory, as the system apparently saw the bugs as food. Milly wasn’t certain, but the bugs appeared to enter some kind of status when they were in her inventory, in the same way it preserved food from rotting.

  “You ready, little one?” Milly asked as she hoisted Coco into the basket. “We’re not coming back this way, and it’s going to be dangerous where we’re going.”

  Left leg – yes.

  “Then let’s leave this place behind us,” Milly announced, as she untied the lines and leapt into the basket. Coco had already curled up on her blanket, the mantis nestled within the shelter of the capybara’s webbed feet as they resumed their chatter to pick the mantis’ name.

  Milly had no idea how they communicated – the series of barks and arm flails had no discernable meaning to the witch – but she left them to their budding friendship and focused on the task at hand.

  Forming her air current, she resumed their path northwest.

  “I’m going to have quite the story to tell you when I get home, Cally,” she said into the wind. “Rain, you’re going to love all the ingredients I’m bringing. And Passi… I love you, my daughter. Listen to Cally and be a good girl. I’ll be home soon.”

  They drifted on the current, the ocean spread below them and the islands disappearing in the distance.

  * * *

  Calista sat at the table furthest from the stage, enjoying her roasted goose and vegetables as the music wafted over the crowd. The beach was packed with hundreds of people and fairies – an impromptu celebration for the birth of Zita’s son. The player, who’d been eight months pregnant when the God Contest has started, hadn’t stepped a foot outside the tower since they’d arrived. She was now resting comfortably in the medical clinic, a healthy baby boy cradled in her arms.

  On stage, Cosmo Shufflebottom and his band ‘The Radicals’ belted out classic rock hits one after another. Samson – the Farmer turned dockmaster – pounded away on the drums while Melvin and Sandy Johnson, a married couple from Legal Eagles, played backup to Shufflebottom’s lead guitar and vocals. It was the first concert they’d held since Shufflebottom had finished reconstructing the stage. Unlike the crude one the dragon had destroyed, this stage had all manner of bells and whistles.

  Shufflebottom stomped down on a lever as he reached the apex of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, and a small orb launched into the air. It exploded with a brilliant flash of golden yellow, forming into the shape of a lightning bolt and raining harmless sparkles down upon the humans and fairies dancing around the stage.

  Calista saw Rain laugh and clap her hands. The magical firework had been one of her concoctions – an unnecessary luxury, but one that brought a smile to everyone’s face, including hers. She pointed at Passi and the other fairy children trying to catch the sparkles as they danced amongst the crowd.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Calista couldn’t help by smile at her daughter. Ever since the shadow of Xavier had been lifted from Passi’s shoulders, the fairy child had started to flower into the playful little girl that Calista knew was dormant inside. Passi swirled around Tentongue and Flutterwing, her enhanced agility making her look like a ballerina.

  For a moment, Calista was worried the dance would give away Passi’s secret and she almost intervened. But, in the end, she let the fairy child play uninterrupted with her friends, deciding the fun was worth the risk.

  As Thunderstruck ended and they moved into a rendition of Every Breath You Take by The Police, Rain returned to her energetic debate with Billy and Ying, who sat cuddled together in the sand.

  It turned out yet another child would be born at the Castle of Glass in nine months’ time. Ying had found out this morning that she was one week pregnant – one of the advantages of magical scanning abilities – making her the fifth players to be expecting. Three fairies were also pregnant, as their small community began to grow.

  Billy, being the misguided gentleman that he was, had immediately proposed to Ying, which earned him a slap and a lecture about buying into chauvinist nonsense. As always, they’d made up on the spot and spent the rest of the day arm-in-arm. Even now, Billy beamed like a man who just won the lottery, and, although she didn’t show it, Calista knew Ying felt the same way.

  Sapphire, the fairy chief of the Kinship of the Eastern Waves, plopped herself down next to Calista on the table and casually snatched a slice of goose meat from Calista’s bowl.

  “Hey,” Calista playfully protested, as Sapphire went in for a second slice. “The grill is right over there. Get your own.”

  “There’s a line,” replied Sapphire. The Chief of the Eastern Waves, who resembled a human woman except for her fish scales, webbed feet, and a row of gills, had fought alongside Calista in the Arena of Protection. Widely acknowledged as the strongest fighter amongst the fairies, she could stand toe-to-toe with many of the players, though that number grew fewer every day as the players leveled up.

  Calista slid her bowl over to Sapphire, who started devouring it in earnest. The fairy ripped at the goose with her pointed teeth as Calista withdrew some fruit from her inventory to add to the meal.

  “You’re hungry tonight. Busy day?”

  Sapphire grabbed a coconut from the pile and split it open with a single strike of her trident.

  “We were busy planning,” Sapphire told her cryptically, drinking the refreshing water within with a smack of her lips. “Any success in the mountains?”

  “No,” Calista answered, dejected. “We’ve found nothing but caves and monsters too stupid to tell me anything useful. We found a new waypoint – the Cave of Infinite Emptiness – at the base of the Division Mountains this morning. We spent half the day wandering in that cave, only to discover its name is very, very literal. Complete waste of time. And…”

  Calista gave a hefty, defeated sigh. “And the monsters beyond that mountain are strong – stronger than we can handle right now. Level fifty and sixty.”

  Sapphire placed a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You’ll find her, Calista. Or she’ll make her way back to you on her own. Don’t think for a second that your witch is gone. If she can fight off a dragon, she can beat anything this world has to throw at her.”

  “I know,” Calista said softly, as the music stopped as the band took a break. Calista glanced over at Passi, who had just playfully shoved Tentongue into the sand. “But it’s nice to be reminded sometimes.”

  “Perhaps I can do more than that, if you are tired of searching the mountains,” Sapphire suggested.

  Calista started to ask what she meant, when Cosmo and Samson sat down next to her, both men drenched in sweat from their energetic performance.

  Calista stared at the former CEO, still decked out in his motley purple and pink jester outfit and circlet of woven flowers – the combination of which made him look like an elderly hippy. They’d barely spoke two words to each other – ever – and although Calista had heard stories of the man’s dramatic departure from the CEOs on the eve of Milly’s trial, it didn’t mean she’d forgiven him.

  “Did you ask her yet?” Samson asked, as Cosmo pulled a flask from his inventory and took a sip. The man offered it to Calista, who just stared him until he put it back in his inventory.

  “I was getting to it,” Sapphire answered, irritated. “You two are so impatient.”

  “I’m impatient?” Samson countered. “Just this afternoon, you were…”

  “We finished the ship,” Cosmo interrupted, as he pulled out his enchanted cards and shuffled them absentmindedly. “According to the lobby map, there’s an Arena on one of the nearby islands, a two-day sail from here. We’re going to take it out. You in?”

  “We agreed I was going to ask her,” Sapphire said, slapping the cards out of Cosmo’s hand. They scattered across the sand, but the former CEO turned music headliner simply snapped his fingers and they returned to his hand. He smiled at the fairy chief, enjoying their game.

  Calista knew Sapphire and Samson had built a friendship over the past few weeks. The handsome young dockmaster with a thick beard and bald head spent as much time fishing in the bay as he did on land. After her morning drills with her warriors, Sapphire had started spending her afternoons alongside him, helping catch enough for supper. Calista suspected there was something more than friendship developing between the two, but she hadn’t yet pried.

  Even though I really, really want to. How would that even work? Does Sapphire have fish parts, or people parts?

  Sapphire’s connection with Cosmo, on the other hand, caught Calista completely off guard.

  How did that even develop? Unless the man was building his stage or singing at the top of his lungs, he was nowhere to be found.

  “Calista, the event timer is ticking down,” Samson said seriously. “The added time we’re getting from just exploring isn’t nearly enough to keep it from triggering again. We need that Arena taken out to buy us more time, and we could really use the Huntress and the Alchemist at our side.”

  “And…,” added Sapphire. “My scouts tell me its guarded by a race of shark creatures. Intelligent creatures. It’s your best shot to get word out about Milly in the ocean terrain, like you did with the wolves.”

  “I’m in,” Calista said without hesitation. She’d been searching for another intelligent monster species for days, and the ocean terrain was a major gap in her network. She’d even boarded a ship with Jacob Stone, Xavier Holloway, and the corpse of Edna Brass if it meant finding an intelligent species to help find Milly.

  Samson let out a relieved sigh. “Thank god, because I didn’t want to do this without you. We’re meeting down at the dock at sunrise. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Thanks Calista,” Sapphire added, finishing the rest of Calista’s supper and heading off across the beach with Samson.

  An awkward silence fell between Cosmo and Calista, until Cosmo abruptly let out a powerful laugh.

  “Tell me you know if there’s something going on between those two. Because I can’t figure it out. They’re so damn secretive,” Cosmo chuckled, dealing out his cards like a game of solitaire.

  Only his cards had no numbers or suits. Each held a pencil sketch of something simple and unique – a shield, a sword, a fish, a catapult, and dozens more.

  Calista glowered at the man. “What’s your game, Shufflebottom?”

  Cosmo laughed again. “Solitaire. Well, sort of. I just sort of make up the rules as I go along.”

  The former CEO snapped his fingers again and the cards flew back into a neatly stacked and shuffled deck. “Fine, I guess you deserve that much. You should know I don’t regret aligning Energy Wave with Stone and Brass. They were our best hope to keep people safe. Until they weren’t. Until they started playing games they couldn’t win.”

  The man was somber – a stark contrast with both his outfit and his usual eclectic demeanor.

  “You don’t pick a fight with the biggest kid on the playground,” Cosmo said. “Your girlfriend was that kid. I knew it. They knew it. It was painfully obvious to anyone with two eyes. The day you returned from the wilds, when we met on the beach to negotiate terms – the same day I lost a dozen of my employees in the Arena of Domination – I just didn’t see the point of fighting her anymore.”

  I remember. He just gazed off into the distance or stared at Lightpaw that day. I thought he was creepy, but was he simply… shellshocked? Defeated?

  Cosmo rose from the table, the smile suddenly returned to his face, as if their conversation had never happened. “Well, this crowd isn’t done for the night. I think it’s time for another set. See you in the morning, Huntress.”

  With that, Cosmo leapt onto the stage, yelled to the crowd, and launched into a rather strange rendition of ‘I wanna dance with somebody’ by Whitney Houston.

  Calista just stared at the former CEO as he belted out the lyrics and danced, wondering what the hell she’d just gotten herself into.

  The Non-Canonical Aftermath: