Departure

The many royal gramma in the area surrounding the rock and The Birbalinda colored the water a fascinating mix of gold and purple. To get a better view of the scene before her, Polly popped herself out of the sea, and onto its surface. The kiwis who lacked the technique to walk on water stayed in the water, bobbing like apples.

From her new vantage point, Polly could see that the group of fish had arranged themselves into a donut-like shape and in the donut hole were the three cult leaders. Polly would have sneaked forward for an even better view, but she doubted she’d be able to make her a-little-over-five-feet-tall self blend into the crowd of colorful fish. However, she wanted to at least be able to hear what they were saying because from what she could tell, something interesting was going on.

“Can any of you guys hear what they’re saying?” she asked her mates.

“Nope.”

“No.”

“Nay.”

“Not I.”

“What do you guys think about getting closer? I kinda want to, but at the same time it’s kinda risky if ya know what I mean.”

“Oh yeah, for sure,” agreed SAT. “But I mean if we’re sneaky enough it should be fine, right?”

“Extremely valid, but it’s not easy to be sneaky on water.”

Polly was a master at the art of tip-toeing on land, but water was a different story. No matter how carefully she placed her foot down, she caused a ripple, and she had tried this enough times to know that there was no remedy for the solution. Swimming wasn’t exactly a viable option either as although she couldn’t tell when something was swimming toward her, she was pretty sure most marine life could.

“Oh to be able to glide like a hockey puck on ice,” sighed Polly mournfully.

“Maybe they won’t mind our presence?” offered Wiki.

“That’s true. In fact if it’s a public trial or that sort of biz, wouldn’t the presence of outsiders like us be welcome?”

The four and the four brain cells they shared formed a square and thought thoughtfully. With minds like theirs, the conclusion they came to was pretty much a given.

“Let’s rock and roll!”

Throwing to the wind any attempt at sneaking their way into the circle because they were bound to be found out anyways, the fellas made their way toward the unfortunately inedible donut.

As Polly had hoped, their presence drew little attention, and as she had guessed, what was going on was something akin to a public trail. All except one of the fish were silent, and if Polly had to make a guess, which she really didn’t but was going to anyways, she’d guess that fish was one of the leading High Offishals. She let herself sink back into the water so she could hear what was going on.

“For your part in bringing about the tragic ending of the esteemed Clan Swole, you are hereby sentenced to exile. The severity of your crimes leaves us no choice but to exile you to The Ocean Beyond.”

Polly gasped. Even she had never been so ambitious to dare dream of traveling to The Ocean Beyond. The twelve islands of Meemonia were located within one ocean that happened to host many seas between its island groups, and The Ocean Beyond was what connected their ocean, the Homecean, to the great unknown. And as adventurous as she thought she was, Polly did not think herself adventurous enough to travel into the world that the travelers of her island had only ever spoken about in hushed whispers.

“We are but one of many hairs on a leg,” sniffed Yellatmi haughtily. “You may shave us now but we’ll be back in no time.”

“We won’t stop with you,” replied the High Offishal matter-of-factly. “We have been meaning to get rid of you youngsters and your trouble making shenanigans for a while. It won’t be long before the rest of your cult joins you in exile.”

“You can try your best, but you won’t succeed,” laughed Qwertyuiop. “You think it’s what you want, but you know it’s not what you need. Lord Pisces is the answer.”

The High Offishal shook their head slowly and sadly. “Where did your clan go wrong, how could they have failed so badly?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Qwertyuiop’s voice took on an even darker tone. “They revealed the truth about Lord Pisces to us and when you found out you killed them.”

That certainly threw Polly for a loop. Her legs were worn out from swimming and she desperately wanted to move to the water’s surface to sit down so she could take a break from treading water to keep afloat, but she feared she’d miss something important if she did.

“They were poisoning clans one by one with their ideologies,” the High Offishal said grimly. “It was for the sake of all the other clans. We did not relish in their demise, but it had to be done. Had you not been innocent young fries and had we known that you would follow in their evil trail, we would have eliminated you alongside them.”

“Wait, how do clans work,” Polly asked Fethar. Up until now she had assumed there had simply been two clans and each clan had their own High Offishals, but clearly this was not the case.

“Ah, there are many clans that live in Twelfth, and any fish can start their own clan if they wish, they just need to have enough other fish willing to join. However, all clans, and therefore all fish, must answer to the High Offishals. Clans have their own Offishals, and qualifying Offishals are chosen to become High Offishals.”

“Interesting system. Are all the fish here from the same clan?”

Fethar tilted forwards as if that would help it spot any distinguishing characteristics that would set the fish apart.

“I believe most of them are. There are a few who’s upper scales are a tinge closer to pink than others, and so I suppose those fish are from clans that just so happened to be in the area and were drawn in by the scene.”

“Looks like we aren’t the only rubberneckers rubberneck-ing.”

“I suppose so.”

The short-lived discussion between Polly and Fethar was apparently long enough for the cult leaders to have decided they had heard enough from the High Offishal and begin their retaliation.

Polly watched with no small degree of awe as Clowngician conjured a pink net and cast it over the High Offishal and as Yellatmi conjured scales and sent them flying in the direction of the spectators.

“We don’t need necessarily more bodies for the performance in honor of Lord Pisces, but the more the merrier,” hee-haw-ed Clowngician.

Qwertyuiop conjured figures that looked eerily similar to himself and set them loose on the nearby fish to wreak havoc.

“Summon the others,” cried the High Offishal while thrashing violently against Clowngician’s net.

A blur of yellow and gold zipped past Polly’s feet, and with her limited knowledge, she guessed it was a member from Clan Vroom.

“Sh...should we do something?” asked Wiki to Polly.

“Um, to be honest I don’t know. To be really, really honest, I don’t even know what’s going on. We know that the cult leaders killed Evangeline’s clan, but it turns out their clan had been killed by the high ranking fish? It’s a sticky situation, that’s what it is.”

“I mean, I think the reason the cult leaders killed Evangeline’s clan was a lot more unreasonable than why the High Offishals killed the cult leaders’ clan,” Wiki commented. “Evangeline’s folks had nothing to do with anything.”

“That’s trueee,” replied Polly, her hesitation to rally against the cult leaders diminishing by the second.

“So then what’d you recommend.”

"Uh...um...err...well...ahh…well, plans take time to make.”

Chaos was spreading from the donut hole to the donut’s edges like a forest fire in a hundred degree weather, and it didn’t look like the member of Clan Vroom would be returning with support anytime soon.

“Right, looks like it’s fight or flight lads,” said Polly. “Up to y’all but no take-backsies.”

“We fight,” replied the kiwis with determination burning in their eyes.

Polly rose out of the water with all the grandeur of a whale breaching and charged forwards. When she at last was in the circle’s center where the three fish were, she took a deep breath to prepare herself for what she was about to do, and then plunged her hands in the water and scooped them up.

What she had done came so out of the blue that the three didn’t even have time to think of escaping. They almost had the chance to though, for the feeling of live fish in her hands was so icky that Polly almost dropped them on the spot.

“Alright, that’s enough of that,” Polly declared, her tone making it clear that the decision was final.

Like the fish out of water they were, the three flopped about in her cupped hands. Clowngician made an especially grand flop out of Polly’s hands, only to end up in Wiki’s waiting beak. As much as the fish wiggled, there was no escaping that.

“I don’t want to hold onto you guys any longer than you guys want to be in the air, so why don’t you guys just let yourselves get exiled. Sure your people were killed, but was that really justification to murder an innocent clan that had nothing to do with that so you could use them in a dance off? I think not. Though of course if you guys were going after the High Offishals, we’d be having a different conversation...maybe.”

“Someone like you who’s never known pain would never understand,” hissed Qwertyuiop, who looked ready to launch himself from Polly’s palms and risk being caught in the beak of a kiwi.

Polly was about to retort, but was interrupted with an interjection from Yellatmi.

“What now? Are you going to become a murderer just like us by holding us up here, huh. Is that what’s going on?”

“You may think you’ve outsmarted me, but I’ve outsmarted your outsmarting. My brain isn’t as smooth as your scales just yet.”

Polly opened her hands, and as the fish fell, SAT and Ed snatched one each, and then dipped them in the water.

The three fish began chattering away in their native language.

“Oh so now they pull this card on us,” huffed Polly. “Hey do all the clans speak the same language?” Polly was suddenly curious as to why the High Offishals had been delivering their decree in Mimglish.

“Actually, no,” replied Fethar. “Though there are a few clans that share a language, there are many regional dialects. Twelfth is quite large, especially since Twelfth really only refers to the landmass that marks the territory and not the water around it which is the home of its residence, so something like this should be expected to say the least.”

Polly glanced down and noticed the fish looking at her expectantly. It didn’t take a genius to understand what had to be done, which was fortunate because Polly wasn’t one, and so the traveller of islands relaxed her muscles and let herself sink down under the surface of the sea.

“We’ll do as you wish,” said Qwertyuiop.

Though it was glaringly obvious that the fish had something up their sleeves, she was willing to take whatever win she could get.

“Yay, that’s great. Love that for us,” she responded. “Now I’ll just get one of those leaders over here and have them do what they need to do.”

“But of course.”

Polly made her way over to where the High Offishal, still trapped in a pink net, was and since she didn’t know how to dispel Clowngician’s magic or free the fish without causing permanent damage to one of its fins, she pulled the net and by extension the High Offishal inside it toward Qwertyuiop, Clowngician, and Yellatmi.

“They’ve agreed to be gone with the wind,” informed Polly.

“Excellent news. You will be rewarded heavily for your service as soon as we dispel these foul cretins.”

Polly wasn’t one to say no to a boon even if she had mixed feelings towards the party rewarding her, so she merely nodded in response.

“But first that heathen must remove his magic net so that I can cast my chant.”

“Fire away,” said Clowngician with not an ounce of care as they dispelled their magic net.

And so, with some foreign incantations, a waving of fins, and a great poof of purple light, the cult leaders were gone. That it only took a few seconds for such a crisis to be resolved was a little jarring to Polly.

“Thank you so much for your service, kind human and kind birds,” the High Offishal said with a deep bow.

“It was no biggie. Just, um, glad I could help.”

“Is there anything we can do to repay your kindness?”

By now, a new donut had been formed but this time Polly and the kiwis were in the hole. Polly spotted Evangeline watching them from the donut’s edge, indescribable emptiness clouding her expression. Polly felt guilty for having robbed the fish of her chance to get the revenge she so desperately craved, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

“Thanks for the offer, but right now we just want to leave. Only problem is our ship is a bit roughed up because of the lightning storm that struck a while back. If you could do something about that, that’d be great, but it’s totally fine if you can’t. Actually, wait. We’re kinda hungry because me and the kiwis here really haven’t had a chance to eat since the start of the whole fiasco. Anything you can do about that?”

“It would take a while to repair your boat even if we harnessed the powers of all the High Offishals because of its size, so if you and your crew are okay with it, perhaps we could teleport you to a nearby island. I was thinking Sea-Island 6. We have someone there who can help you with your boat.”

“Ooh good idea,” nodded Polly, popping both thumbs up to emphasize her approval. “We’ll for sure be able to find something good to crunch on there too.”

“Once again, thank you so much for everything you have done for us. I’m glad I can assist you with at least this, teleportation magic is my specialty after all.”

“Right, we’ll just load ourselves onto the boat and then you can whisk us away.”

Recreating the kiwi-kebab that Polly had originally used to bring the kiwis down the boat, Polly gathered her feathered friends and shot herself back to The Birbalinda. A few seconds after she had touched down, she noticed the air around her taking on a purple sheen. The intensity of the purple began to increase until Polly felt like she was looking at the world from the inside of a giant purple pillowcase. Then, as if she were on an elevator that had just malfunctioned, she felt herself plunging downwards.

Polly shut her eyes, threw her hands up, and screamed. She had never been a fan of those roller coasters that sent you plunging down. She’d never had the stomach for them.

“You can stop now, thank you very much.”

Polly tentatively cracked open an eye to see a relatively cross lad frowning at her.

They were at one of Sea-Island 6’s natural harbors, and it was a beautiful sight to behold. The water had not a trace of pollution in it and sparkled like a glittering blue jewel. The harbor itself was full of life with both boats and people packed together. Polly almost felt like she had returned home, save for one thing: the unmistakable smell of bread in the air.

Yes, they had arrived at Sea-Island 6 all right, the land that baked only the best of breads.