Etinnei sat on the seashore and looked at her dog-girl friend, who lay next to her with her eyes closed. Noru had spent all her energy and was now sleeping so that even the crabs, which crawled en masse on the sand and sometimes pinched her toes with their claws, could not wake her.
"It's good that dinosaur left," Etinnei looked at the forest. "Without Noru, I wouldn't have been able to defend myself."
The arctic fox girl turned her gaze to the sea and suddenly felt bored and lonely.
"I used to come to the shore and try to talk to the animals. But they didn't want to talk to me. Then Minniges appeared, but now he has gone somewhere in the middle of the brain. He will no longer appear, call me refrigerator girl and offer his ice cream."
Etinnei felt relieved, but the view of the endless grey-blue sea made her feel lonely again.
"Minniges probably has no one to talk to. Maybe he walks around my inner world the same way I walked, trying to find at least one talking creature, but he can't. But he is worse off than me. I was there where the animals didn't talk and ran away from me, but at least I could leave there, but Minniges can't. He can't get out of my head. No one can see him except me. And now even I can't see him, because he doesn't come without ice cream."
Etinnei lowered her head, because she could no longer look at the sea, which made her sad, or at the forest, which made her afraid. The arctic fox girl felt sorry for the ice penguin, despite the fact that she had recently tried to get rid of him.
"Minniges, if you can hear me," a few drops fell on the sand. "Answer something, please. I will eat your ice cream, just say something."
Etinnei wiped her tears with the sleeve of her fur top, and then covered her arctic fox ears with her palms so that they would not interfere with hearing that very bird's voice that would ask her to eat ice cream. But in response there was only silence.
"The ice cream is gone," the arctic fox girl decided.
A few more drops fell on the sand. Etinnei wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her fur top again, but it didn't help. The drops kept coming.
"Tears are flowing like water in a river. Although I don't think I'm crying."
Etinnei licked a drop of water that was running down her cheek with her tongue.
"This is just water. These aren't tears."
The arctic fox girl looked ahead and saw many drops falling from the cloudy sky onto the sand, leaving dark spots on it.
"It's just rain. It's like regular river water, only without the taste of the swamp."
The arctic fox girl looked at the sky, closed her eyes and opened her mouth to taste the clean water, but there were too few drops.
"What are you doing?"
Etinnei shuddered, released an icicle from each sleeve, then jumped forward a few steps and turned around.
The voice belonged to the dog girl, who was kneeling and squeezing water out of a lock of hair.
"Ahh, it's you, Noru," Etinnei hid the icicles in the sleeves of her top. "I thought it was Minniges."
"This Minniges is probably scary," Noru looked at the strand of hair at her temple that was squeezed out of the water. "Let's get out of here before I go out completely."
Etinnei ran up to her friend, grabbed her by the "paw", looked at the forest, but then turned around abruptly...
"Where should we go?" the arctic fox girl asked.
"I don't know," Noru tucked her tail between her legs. "This rain is so disgusting. I can feel it seeping into me and extinguishing the fire inside me!"
Noru tried to activate her elemental aura, but the most she could do in the rain was create a barely noticeable smoke that came from her skin and hair.
The animal girls reached the forest, after which they hid under the leaves of tree ferns. Noru began to dry out, and she felt better. First she smiled, after a few dozen moments she created a spark in her hand, and then jumped in place.
"Let's go," the dog girl suggested.
"Where shall we go?" Etinnei wiggled her arctic fox ears.
"Let's go fight the rain! I'll take revenge on him for extinguishing me!"
"She first does it, and then she is surprised at what happened. Noru doesn't know how the world works at all."
While Etinnei was thinking, Noru grabbed her hand, and only a lack of energy forced the dog girl to abandon the stupid idea.
"If I had a little more energy, I would take revenge on him," Noru leaned against the trunk of the hated fern. "But that's just now. Next time... When will it rain next?"
"I don't know. But it seems to me that rain is impossible to defeat."
"Eh?"
Noru looked at her friend with a face distorted with anger and surprise.
"He can put out me, but I can't put him out?" the dog girl asked.
"You can, probably, but how can I say it..." Etinnei moved her fox ears.
"What? Tell me!"
Etinnei really didn't know how to explain to a creature that had lived its entire life in isolation on an island and knew almost nothing about the world why it was impossible to fight water falling from the sky.
"Answer me!" Noru got on all fours and stuck out her tongue. "Aw-au..."
Etinnei was saved by the squeak of an incoming message. The dog girl began to look around, and even stuck her tongue back in her mouth.
"You got a message," Etinnei said.
With the help of her friend, Noru opened the messenger. The dog girl's face instantly changed. She was no longer interested in the rain.
"Sis…" Noru sighed heavily.
"What?" Etinnei asked.
"Nothing, she asks me to help her. Let's fly!"
Noru managed to activate the aura, but it soon went out.
"Your sister is on another continent," Etinnei reminded. "She's too far away."
"What?"
Noru looked at her friend in surprise.
"You can't fly there," Etinnei explained. "It's still raining."
"So, we need to deal with it first, and then fly to my little sis!" She's waiting for me."
"She doesn't know that you can't just fly to another continent?" Etinnei was scared.
The arctic fox girl thought that Noru would now turn into a big dog, catch fire and carry her to an unknown place where that very scary creature with a carrot nose was hiding...
Etinnei closed her eyes, and when she opened them a few moments later, she found herself in a narrow valley surrounded by forested mountains. The river, although it made a murmur, was not visible because of the dense vegetation.
"I seemed to be in a different place," the Arctic fox girl looked around and thought. "There were no mountains nearby. Maybe Noru brought me here somehow without her noticing?"
Etinnei took a few steps forward and saw water flowing through the rapids and making a murmuring sound from behind the fern leaves.
"This is a river," the Arctic fox girl thought. "I'm definitely in a different place."
Etinnei summoned the interface and entered the map through it. The point that showed the location of the creature was in the green mountains near the thin blue line.
"The sea is not visible here. Where did it go?"
The arctic fox girl moved her fingers to zoom out, but the sea did not appear. However, the blue line gradually became thicker, and the mountains retreated further and further from it.
Etinnei was frightened. She realized that the sea was somewhere far away, but then she noticed the blue line and recognized it as a river that flowed nearby.
"Rivers flow into the sea," the Arctic fox girl rejoiced. "I need to look further."
But the joy was short-lived. After moving away from the map section, the sea appeared, but only at the edge, where the blue line ended.
"Noru flies so fast that I didn't notice how I ended up so far from the sea. But why don't I remember flying on her? Last time I saw fire, but now I saw nothing."
The arctic fox girl began to doubt that she was here because of her friend. This confirmed that the dog girl was not nearby.
"Noru fell into the water," Etinnei looked towards the river, partially hidden by the vegetation. "Maybe she just fell in there and then got carried away by the current?"
Etinnei released icicles from her sleeves. The fern leaves fell to the ground and revealed a narrow, shallow river flowing over rocks.
"Noru won't fit here. Maybe she fell in the forest?"
Etinnei turned towards the forest and soon realized that it was impossible to check this – too many trees would have to be cut down.
"If I was Noru, I would freeze the trees," Etinnei scratched the arctic fox's ear with her hand. "Then I would feel the cold and run out of there. But I won't be able to do that. I would have to freeze the entire forest, and it doesn't end."
Suddenly, a strange but quite obvious idea came to the Arctic fox girl's head:
"Should I call her? Noru has ears almost like mine. They hear well. Noru will definitely hear me if she falls in the forest."
After a few moments, Etinnei realized that no one would hear her near the river because of the noise of the water.
"To scream, you have to go up somewhere high. There is definitely no water there. There is only water below."
Etinnei looked at the steep slope of the valley and remembered the crater of the volcano, into which she, together with other creatures, descended on a gazebo along an energy rope. Then the arctic fox girl was interested in whether she could walk on such a surface, and now she had the opportunity to check it.
Etinnei took a few steps away from the river and found herself in front of a thicket of bushes. The arctic fox girl waved her sleeve, but nothing happened to the plants.
"Why doesn't the icicle cut them?" Etinnei was frightened, but then she looked at her sleeve.
The icicle was gone. The arctic fox girl released another icicle and even gave it an electric aura, but it was only enough for a few steps, and then the icicle shrank, although the current remained on it.
"It's too hot here," Etinnei looked at her sleeve, from which a fragment of the previously "formidable" weapon was sticking out. "I can rise through the air, but then I won't be the one to check if it's possible to climb up the slope."
The arctic fox girl felt sad, but for some reason tears did not come to her eyes. Apparently, because of the high temperature, her brain blocked them.
Etinnei raised her leg to chest level and then brought it down sharply. A circular flow of wind appeared around the animal girl's foot, which threw her to a bird's eye level.
The area seemed to have turned upside down. Dark green mountains, like hills, stretched to the horizon and turned blue from the moisture in the air. The valley with steep slopes now looked like a ravine, and the river itself only showed up in some places as blue spots.
"Aaah! Why didn't I use this skill before? This is so cool! Maybe I can see the sea from here?"
The arctic fox girl turned in the opposite direction and began to look carefully into the distance, but saw only blue mountains on the horizon.
"There is no sea, oh well. I wanted to do something, but I forgot what exactly."
While the Arctic fox girl was remembering, her body began to fall down. The mountains gradually became larger, the valley turned from a ravine into a canyon, but Etinnei did not notice it.
"I have to..." the animal girl took off her hood. "It's something important. I was down there and I climbed up so high for some reason."
The blue spots in the middle of the green valley suddenly grew larger. The treetops became more detailed, but only on the mountain peaks.
"I've never used this skill before," the thought in Etinnei's head suddenly changed to another. "It's called something... I forgot what it's called, something to do with the wind. Stop. I was thinking about something else. What was I thinking?"
Etinnei saw the tops of tree ferns in front of her and only then realized that she would soon meet the land, although she should meet her friend...
"Noru..." Etinnei remembered. "I must call Noru!"
A scream escaped from the Arctic fox girl's mouth and echoed throughout the area. Moments later, Etinnei landed on the mountainside.
"I fell," the Arctic fox girl looked around. "But where am I?"
There was a forest of tree ferns all around, but not as dense as the one near the coast. There were no more lianas, and there were almost no bushes. Only mosses and common ferns occupied the empty space between the trees.
"I can walk in this forest," Etinnei stepped on the moss. "But why did it become like this? Maybe Noru was here and burned the plants she didn't like?"
But soon the arctic fox girl realized that her friend had nothing to do with it. The fern trunks looked like new, and there were no signs of fire in the forest itself.
"Something's wrong with this forest. I need to check. If it's okay to walk here, I can go".
The animal girl walked up the mountainside, which was no longer steep. She hoped that Noru would definitely hear her there.
The forest gradually became less dense. There were no bushes here anymore, and the usual ferns became less and less. The orange ground was often left uncovered, and this made the forest seem somehow artificial.
"Does this ground look like this because it burned?" Etinnei stopped at one of the tree ferns and looked at the ground below it, since her chest prevented her from looking at her feet. "Maybe Noru was here after all?"
The Arctic fox girl continued to rise. Suddenly the forest ended along with the slope. A view of a clearing opened up, in the middle of which the skull of a three-horned dinosaur was "hanging" in the air, filled with blue energy, which made its eyes and mouth glow.
"What is this?" Etinnei shuddered, causing the hood to fall off her head. "A flying head, like on the island?"
The skull slowly moved around its axis and did not notice the creature that stood in front of it.
"It does not look like something alive. It is something incomprehensible. But it is better to leave here. What if it is a creature that pretends to be a thing?"
Etinnei turned back to leave the clearing, but she couldn't take a single step. Something stopped her.
At first, the Arctic fox girl thought that she was simply stuck in the vegetation, but then she pressed her breast with her hands and looked down...
A hand stuck out of the ground, holding the animal girl's leg in the narrowest place, near the foot. The other leg was not moving either, although nothing was holding it.
Etinnei shuddered. Icicles emerged from her sleeves, with lightning running through them.
A second hand came out of the ground and grabbed the Arctic fox girl's second leg. Etinnei released the icicles down to free herself, but they simply crumbled from contact with their "enemies".
"Why?" the Arctic fox girl stuck out her tongue and then bit it. "They haven't even melted yet. Minniges, help."
A bird's cry rang out in Etinnei's head, after which the level of fear increased to the extreme, like when meeting a person with a carrot nose. But this time the animal girl's eyes remained open, and she could see what was happening in front of her.
Two black sharp objects appeared from the ground, similar to spearheads. They gradually moved out of the orange earth, like lava, which made them seem very creepy.
Etinnei looked at this, but understood little. The bird's cry no longer sounded, although her thoughts were blocked by something from within.
… The black objects "came out" of the ground completely. They turned out to be bull horns, and under them something round, which also protruded outward.
Etinnei's level of fear decreased a little, which is why she regained the ability to think. But the animal girl still could not move.
"This isn't that scary creature with a carrot," was the first thought of the arctic fox girl. "This is something familiar, but not very scary."
"Something round" partially climbed out and continued to move upward. It was a black helmet with horns attached to it.
"These are cow horns," Etinnei thought. "I've seen them somewhere."
The helmet raised little higher, causing red glowing eyes to appear on the surface. Etinnei's fear intensified, because of which the animal girl again lost the ability to think. But as soon as the creature's face appeared on the surface, the fear dropped to its minimum. Now Etinnei could not only think, but also speak.
"So these are your hands..." the Arctic fox girl lowered her gaze.