“They need help.” Neil decided. He managed to take three steps before the fox cut him off with a sizzling crack of her fur. Glaring at her, he attempted to move around but was stopped again. “Val, what are you doing?”

“Woah! What am I doing? What are you doing? Are you a fool?” That wasn’t rhetorical, but when he didn’t answer her, she went on anyway. “That looked like magic to me. Every mage in Gramore is trying to kill us. Do you honestly think that now would be an appropriate time to help a random stranger?”

He cocked his head. Val was right and he knew that. But just as she said; they were likely to die adrift at sea. God forbid, though, he actually admit that to her smug little face. Their only hope of getting back to land were the two people who seemed to have the power to freeze an entire ocean - or rather, the part of it they were standing on. However, his scheme was not to perform an act of kindness, but rather, an exchange. “I know what I’m doing. Out of the way.” He shooed her.

“But-”

“Val!” He snapped, getting tired of her constant disobedience. The firefox was a demon and while most of them (all of them, actually) did not speak, this one didn’t seem to shut up.

Finally, she looked down. Amazingly, the fish and plants had all stopped moving as well. A smaller, orange-colored fish was halfway down the throat of a larger predator, which reminded her of the circle of life. The laws of the wild. Reluctantly, she kept her mouth shut and followed quietly, and obediently, behind.

As Neil walked he folded his tan trench coat over his drying bag. The charm placed upon it was meant to keep both the exterior and it's contents from getting damaged. Thankfully that seemed to be true of sea water, as well.

He stopped in front of the girl.

Now that he saw her properly; her face, hands, and black cloak were stained in blood, yet she didn’t appear to have a single scratch on her. She was young, he realized, a mere child with a certain quality to her he couldn’t quite place. Long, golden locks flowed from the hood of her dress and her eyes, already crimson in color, reddened with smeared tears. Tightly in her arms was a young man, who matched the same perfect features as the girl, with the same golden hair. The blood on him was darker, almost black, with cuts burrowed deep into his skin.

When he kneeled down to the pair. The girl flinched and moved back. Her body shook violently. And he could swear he felt the rapid of her distrusting heart. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He spoke calmly, reaching out to the injured man. With just a single touch, he twitched and writhed in pain. Neil’s green eyes met with the girls. “If I save him, you help me. Alright?”

Hesitantly, the young girl seemed to consider his offer. She glanced around. Considered their current situation. Then turned back to the stranger before her. Despite the shaking, though, her voice projected strong. “Fine.”

He threw his coat onto the water and opened his bag to locate the proper materials. Healing magic was among several few symbols he’d already memorized. Onagi would have him practice on the household plants. Every morning, when the sun was exactly half over the horizon, he was required to restore a wilting Waterloop flower before breakfast. If he couldn’t make the spell work or experienced a rebound, he was given extra homework to study. A painful, childish, memory at the time. Now one that brought a smile to his face.

Among the tools in his bag was one that Onagi coined a compass. But not of the traditional North and South. This one, with a needle on one end and a coalpen on the other, folded in on itself, was used to draw perfect circles. Which wasn’t always necessary, he came to learn. A lot of spells weren't as strict as others. For those few, as long as the symbol was cohesive, the spell would not rebound. Healing spells, on the other hand, were very strict.

Careful, as he didn’t have that many parchment remaining, he drew each circle very carefully. Sure to intersect each overlapping circle with the very center. The eye, as Onagi called it. Each symbol told a story. Balance in symbols was the balance in spells and without that balance, things would fall into chaos. Perfectly symmetrical designs; as much art as they were a tool.

In any case, Neil was sure to draw the symbol just right to the very last detail. Lest he accidentally explode his patient from the inside out. Just like the waterloop all those years ago.

He finished the symbol. “There. Step back from him or it’ll affect you too.”

“What is it?” She asked, her voice growing nervous. “What are you doing?”

“A healing spell.” He pressed his fingers into the symbol gently and felt as the paper warmed itself. Magic tingled his fingertips as it transferred from the paper to his command. Then he touched his thumb onto the man’s forehead, with his index touching his nose. When it came to healing magic one had to know the pressure points as well as the symbol behind it. Just as with the symbol, touching the wrong pressure point had troublesome consequences. Neil just counted his lucky stars he was confident enough on humans as he was on flowers.

Once the white light of his magic faded and the warm feeling turned cold, Neil felt a bit sick. He leaned back to stare directly into the sun, feeling the heat of its rays breath in him the energy he’d lost. Val grunted and sat closer to him. She looked away as if not caring, but the warmth of the flames engulfing her fur helped him some as well.

“Did it work?” The girl asked, wiping her tears away. “Edmund?”

The man twitched. He turned stiffly as his pain quickly faded. As his vision became clearer, his eyes lay upon a firefox sat beside a man he’d never met.

“Who are you!” He gasped, his voice cracking. Pain pierced through his body at the sudden movement. Yet it faded just as quickly as it had appeared. “Where the hell am I?”

“Edmund!”

He turned to the voice. “Serra?” Without a second thought, his arms were wrapped tightly around her thin frame. His arms trembled just as violently as hers. “By the Gods. Are you alright?” He pushed her away to carefully examine her, then sighed. “You’re alright.”

She gasped. “They almost killed you!”

“But I’m fine now.” He turned to the fox and the strange-looking man. “I’m fine but what did you do?” His eyes glanced down at the strange tools at his feet. “What are these devices?”

Neil collected them quickly before Edmund had a chance to touch them. “Not to worry about. Anyway, deals a deal.”

Edmund blinked. “Come again?”

“I saved your ass, man. The girl and I made a deal. You get us,” he gestured between him and Val. “Out of here.”

“What are you talking about? Where are we?" He tried recalling what he last remembered. Muttering, "we were at the gates of the Sanctuary and then we…” He honestly didn’t know. From what he could remember, there was a bright flash of light before everything turned black. Then he woke up here, in the middle of the ocean.

Now, wait.

Ocean?

He glanced around. Just below them was a large palado. An aquatic mammal with a long snout filled with razor-sharp teeth and three fins, each the size of ships on either side, was paused mid-meal of about a hundred smaller brightly colored fish. One brow of his cracked up. Was this dream? Perhaps they died after all and this was the afterlife. He turned back to the fox and the man. He felt a bit disoriented. “I didn’t do this." He paused. The frozen ocean was enough to spark questions but, “more importantly, what happened to the-?”

The hold of the ocean suddenly broke. Neil grabbed Val quickly, as did Edmund with Serra.

Once a blistering heat, now as chilling as the Winter Forest. They were nearly swept away by the current as a large metal vessel emerged from the same bright light.

Neil recognized it immediately. Val growled on top of Neil, careful to control her flames.

A figure donned in the traditional color and dress of the mages army stood at the front. His glare settled on Edmund. It turned to disgust when he eyed Serra. “Hello again, Azbien.” The general spoke the name as if it were acid rolling off his tongue. He turned to his men. “Kill the girl. I want the boy alive.”