‘...Lord Hebo!’ I cried as I exited my deep trance.

The first thing I knew was that I had to stop him.

I tried to rise immediately to my feet, but stumbled in the ensuing backlash of my visions.

The world wobbled before my eyes, and I coughed red as I forced myself upright.

I carried myself all the way to the great hall, hoping to find Lord Hebo.

‘I need to talk with Lord Hebo immediately!’ I shouted with urgency to the guards in the doorway.

Who only gave me a stern-faced look as he said: ‘Lord Hebo is out on important business.’

‘Where to?’

‘That is classified.’

‘When will he return?’

‘That is also classified.’

‘Why aren’t you telling me anything?!’ I shouted impatiently. ‘Am I no longer your Lady and Mistress?’

His face softened with pity, as he hesitated. ‘…Lord Hebo has instructed us to only treat you as a guest within the River Palace from now on.’

His words sent a pang through my heart, and I immediately turned back into the hallways.

‘Are you unwell?’ one of the guards asked as he noticed my uneven gait. ‘Do you require any assistance, Milady?’

‘I’m not your Lady’, I bitterly spat at him.

I could hear the sound of guards saying that they had found traces of blood and strange items in the mirror room, and I realized I had left behind the shells my sister had given me.

‘There must be an intruder!’—‘A spy!’

I couldn’t remain in this palace for any longer.

It all would be too late then!

I staggered along the corridors of the palace, hoping that I would not be discovered too soon.

The guards sounded like they were closer and closer upon my trail.

I fell into a part of courtyard Lord Hebo had recently made off limits, and hid myself.

Before I could be glad that the guards had yet to muster the courage to enter the forbidden area after me, two mermen spoke.

‘Will these truly be enough to take us to join Lord Hebo in his conquest of the heavenly realms?’

‘That’s what these whippersnappers are saying about their thingamajigs!’

I followed the familiar voices, and saw the armored and robed advisors again. They were standing before—or underneath—some large, shiny objects that resembled ships. They seemed far too heavy to float, however.

Some younger mermen were standing before the advisors, bowing.

‘With all of the energy that the Solar Realm is supplying us with, interdimensional travel will no longer be a mere puffer-dream!’

‘All you need is one of these artefact-ships, and even non-gods like us can go anywhere we want at a click of a shell!’

My eyes lit up as I listened to their words, and my body seemed to get lighter.

‘Then why aren’t we loading all of our troops into these ship-things already?!’

‘Because, Sir, we still haven’t finished all of our tests yet…’

‘What tests?’

‘Tests to make sure things all go according to plan’—‘To make sure nothing at all goes belly-up, or puffer-pop, as they say.’

‘Well what’s keeping you then!? Flop to it!’

‘Yessir! We’ll be conducting a test run into the ocean for starters…’

As they were talking among themselves, I climbed into the hollow chamber of one of the strange ships. I hurried over to the place where I believed the steering wheel would be, but only found a board of shells.

They had said something about a click of a shell…

As I puzzled over which shell to click, the group of guards finally mustered up the courage, and entered into the limited area. They were asking for permission to search for a possible intruder.

I didn’t have much time left, and began pressing the shells at random.

Immediately, red light shone from above me, and a loud unpleasant sound like someone blowing out of a conch rang out.

I frantically continued pressing, and the door I had entered through closed up, locking me inside and keeping the guards from entering to capture me.

A projection of a map of green and blue appeared in the middle of the room, but I had no need of that.

Closely fitted, uncomfortable looking beds popped out and in from the walls, boxes of bandages and medicine ejected out of nowhere, and an indistinct voice kept telling me that it didn’t understand what I was doing.

Error: Unable to register directive.

‘Open up!’ the mermen shouted from outside of the ship. ‘Open up immediately or we destroy the ship and you along with it!’

Error: Sequence not within design.

I knew that!

Nothing I did was ever right!—all I did was make things go astray!

I was the imperfect snowflake!

…

...

I thought of Lord Hebo…

It turned out I wasn’t the one for him after all…

All I did was make things worse for him…

Which was exactly why...

I couldn’t allow him to do something so horrible…

‘All right mermen! Prepare to dispose of this vessel.’

At that moment, an image of spheres rotating around one another appeared in the middle of the room.

Please select destination.

And out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of one of them, that was very tiny compared to all the others, but was color-coded with a familiar, shining Whiteness.

Course set for the Lunar Realm.

Yes!

Warning: Please brace yourself.

The entire vessel shook, as I tried to grab onto the steering board.

A mirror appeared before me showing what was in front of the ship.

A rip was forming inside the mirror.

I had seen that kind of rip before.

In a sudden, unannounced movement, the ship launched itself into the portal, and the screams of the mermen of the River Palace shrank out of recognizable hearing.

The ship travelled through the dimensional corridor in an even greater speed than when I had come from the moon to the Earth, and Whiteness appeared before me in no time at all.

The vessel landed with a surprising gentleness upon the cushion of snow below it.

Opening hatch.

I tumbled out into a landscape of pure White.

Before I knew it, a crystal voice had called out to me.

‘Yu’er?!’

I had missed that voice even more than I had ever imagined.

‘Sister!’ I cried as I tried to stand up to leap towards her.

But before I had even erected myself, she threw herself around me, and embraced me tightly.

We lost our balance, and fell onto the bed of snow.

I giggled at the familiar sensation taking over me, and sat up to take in the image of the woman before me.

She truly was the most beautiful woman in the world.

‘I missed you, Sister.’

‘Fool!’ she shouted.

Then she brushed a finger up my nose.

And she embraced me warmly again.

‘I’m the one who missed you.’

At that moment, tears fell from my eyes like a fountain, and I bawled like I had never bawled since I was a mere kitten.

‘Welcome home, Yu’er.’

It felt great to be back.