“Y’know, I did say the last place she was in was Wataron,” Lochlan said, “but it doesn’t mean she’ll still be there when we reach there.”

“Well, pray to Medusa she is,” Ying replied, “I’m not carrying all of you to Kanch.”

Her great lion muscles rippled. In mythology, a pixiu was a winged lion known for soaring the skies, but Ying wasn’t too shabby at running either. On the pixiu’s back, Asha, Lochlan and Jemi clung on tight as she ran under the cover of night.

Ying continued to grumble. “Why couldn’t any of one of you also be land Beasts? Or air?”

“Jemi’s a land Beast,” Asha chirped.

“Oh, shut it,” Jemi groaned.

“Technically, you’d also count as an air Beast.”

“If you count three metres up into a tree as ‘air’, sure.”

“Aren’t the cockatrices from the myths supposed to have dragon bodies? And wings? It’s too bad the moon didn’t turn you into a full Cockatrice. Like Lochlan!” Asha gushed. “He’s soooo cute as a Loch Ness! I wish you turned into that form more often!”

“Hey, d-don’t call me cute…”

Ying crossed grand terrains, wind and grass rustling past her bounding paws. Asha continued to yammer, while Lochlan dozed off in the back. In this way, morning light gradually crawled into brightness, rosy hues peeking through the dew-laden leaves.

“Say, Jemi,” Asha asked at one point. “Just how did you manage to pull off that trick on the mountain? C’mon, maybe you can’t tell the others, but surely you can tell us.”

Jemi reclined her head. “Can’t. It’s a secret.”

Asha rolled her eyes. “Thought you’d say that. Hey, Ying, you were there, weren’t you? What happened?”

“Can’t,” Ying supplied, “I was too busy being blown halfway to Archizoun.”

“Argh, y’all are just gonna leave me in suspense then? You’re just going to leave me to die of curiosity? Is that what you want?”

“You seem to have a lot of excess energy, Asha, would you rather walk the rest of the way to Kanch?”

At that, Asha zipped her trap.

“Schnorrrr,” Lochlan snored.

Soon, the landscape of trees bled away, and the dots of buildings and bridges appeared on the horizon. Not only that, but Ying came face-to-face with a flowing river. Above them, the canopy had opened up, leaving them in open plains, now baked in the glow of the risen morning sun.

Ying pawed at the grass, then transformed into her humanoid form with a flash of silver sparkles. She nodded at the two water Beasts.

“Think this river leads to Wataron?”

Asha marched over to the riverbank, squatted down, and dunked her head into the river.

Asha’s Beastly form was a makara, a mythological chimera with an elephant’s head and an crocodile’s body. In human legends, they swam the rivers of the undercloud. This made her keenly attuned to water.

She raised her head, water dripping from her green-grey braids, and made a face.

“Blegh. There’s definitely human waste mixed in with this water,” she said. “If we go against the current, we’ll reach Wataron, no doubt.”

“How do you know it’ll lead there and not some other kingdom?” Lochlan asked curiously.

Asha wriggled her nostrils. “Are you kidding? Wataron water tastes way different!”

“Like how?”

“Emmm… tastes like chilli dumplings.”

“Heh?”

“And tons of other worse stuff, ‘course. But I prefer focusing on the good parts.” At that, Asha’s stomach growled loudly, and the girl sighed to herself. “Man, I miss Wataronese dumplings.”

“Alright, sounds great,” Jemi said. “We can catch a meal when we reach town. Let’s get going before Asha starts eating grass.”

“Can’t argue with that one. Just a warning, though. It’s gonna be stinky. Veeery stinky,” Asha emphasised. “Prepare to smell like you’ve been rooming with a Skunk. Personal experience.”

“One problem,” said Ying, looking around the plains. In the distance, some figures moved about in in the long grass: humans, towing wagons along the main road in and out of another end of the forest. “These parts are gonna get more populated the closer we get to Wataron. If Asha and Lochlan carry us, Jemi and I might get spotted if we have to come up for air at a bad time.”

“We’ll just have to find something to cover ourselves with. Some human’s bound to have left their trash along here.” Jemi began to walk upstream, and the rest of them followed.

True to her word, it wasn’t a long walk before they stumbled upon debris. However, a frown flitted across Jemi’s face.

“Is there supposed to be that much?...” she uttered, glancing around. Normally, they would expect to find a hollow crate or two to put over their heads while they rode on the water Beasts of the team, or maybe a leaking canoe. But now, it looked like Wataron’s biggest city dumpster had upheaved itself and reinstalled itself down here. It was a veritable junkyard, strewn fragments of wood, glass, metal, piling in sheets on either side of the river. Walking over it was like tromping through a bed of mangrove roots, and Lochlan would not stop tripping over himself. Within the water itself, the detritus had accumulated so much that it had practically dammed up the flow, preventing more debris from washing downstream. It wasn’t hard to find canoes and kayaks all along the shore, but being made of lightweight wood, they were all mostly smashed beyond the point of any sort of function.

“You haven’t heard of the storms in the east?” Lochlan questioned as he took another wobbling step forward. “This is most likely the storm wreckage, carried down the canals into the rivers.”

“I see…” murmured Jemi, as if this was indeed news to her.

“Oh, hey, lookie!” interrupted Asha’s exuberant voice. “That one looks good!”

It was a motorboat. It was overturned and dragged far out onto the bank of the river, likely washed along by flooding, though its sturdy metal exterior remained intact. From the look of the vibrant layers of river algae and mould encrusting the boat’s crevices, it had been long abandoned.

Together, the four of them grabbed each corner of the boat and heaved it off the grassy bank. Between the combined strength of the Beasts, such a feat was a breeze.

“Gross,” remarked Ying as they rolled the vehicle over finally into the water, clumps of water-logged algae falling out from the hull.

“Come on now, pussycat. The water’s worse,” Asha huffed. At Ying’s eye-roll, she continued, “I’m serious! Do you have any idea the kind of crap they dump in the water? I’m not just talking about poo!”

“My commiserations,” Ying said, eyes still turned skyward. She climbed into the rocking boat and fiddled with the controls. “The motor doesn’t seem to working anymore, though. Should we capsize it and hide under it, while you two swim from below?”

“It would look weird if a capsized boat floats against the current,” Lochlan said. “It’d be better if you guys sat in it and we pushed.”

“Hmm. Sure,” Ying said. From within the sleeves of her tunic, she fished out her headscarf, then pulled it over her head once more. Fuzzy lion-ears flattened and disappeared beneath the material, much to Asha’s poorly disguised disappointment.

Sighing dramatically, Asha waded into the water after Lochlan. The teal-haired teen was already bobbing happily in the water, as if his usual timid, jumpy self had dissolved in the bubbling currents.

Meanwhile, Jemi surveyed the wreckage-strewn river bank once more, as if lost in thought. Then, sensing the concerned stares of her companions, she laughed and shook her head—jumping into the motorboat too.

And so the four Beasts ventured onward, back on the sun, toward the kingdom of rivers.

~~~