They're on a little shelf of rocky beach between a cliff and the sea. The water is shockingly blue, and the plants higher up the slope are unfamiliar to all of them. A strange bird wheels in the sky overhead, shrieking, and a flock of enormous multicolored butterflies floats over the ocean a ways out.

"- where are - we -"

"It cannot be that all England has fallen into the sea and this is all that was left for our landing on!"

"It can't! There would be more people if it was that!"

"Are that bird and those - bugs - mals - or just alchemist projects for, uh, decoration -"

"Alchemist has good taste in decoration, prettier than quattrias, but we are not in any enclave where they would be decorating!"

One of the butterflies breaks off from the swarm and comes toward them. It's kind of unreasonably large and it doesn't look happy.

"- maybe it was supposed to be decorative but actually it is a mal after all. Who has mana."

"I probably have more than either of you." She steps forward and pulls out her slingshot. Her ammo isn't in-affinity, but she's still an alchemist. She whispers a chant for accuracy and loads and releases a sticky-bomb.

The critter gets a sticky bomb to the wing and yells "Vivillon!" Being covered in sticky clearly isn't good for its aerodynamics but it flaps harder and keeps coming. 

Shit. What else does she have left. She used up all the acid ones. There's a fire one? She tries the fire one.

Now it's partially on fire and flying somewhat erratically! Its high-speed collision with Ennis's head is still pretty purposeful, though. It's a bit like getting dive-bombed by a medium-sized dog.

Nia has by this time had a chance to get the dregs of Sean's mana and howl, "DORMEZ-VOUS!"

It doesn't quite fall asleep but it's definitely impaired. It mumbles "Vivivi. . ." and disengages, clearly getting space for another tackle.

Ennis is not fully out of ammo but there are like several dozen more of these things out there. She gives it a swift kick in the eye and then then starts urgently doing squats.

Sean is on wall-sits.

Nia does jumping jacks. Pushups would be better but leave one in less of a state of readiness.

When they have enough to get up the cliff they circle-cast the climbing spell they all learned the time Nia had maintenance on a busted staircase and needed to get up and down the wall. They scale the cliff.

The rest of the swarm doesn't seem to care about their injured erstwhile comrade, and are moving on. Said injured comrade slowly pulls itself together and flaps up the cliff after them.

Ennis and Sean's power sharers are no longer linked, which is a crying shame, if they were one of them could build while the other stood ready. Ennis bends into the most uncomfortable neck stretch she can hold while also keeping her eyes on the butterfly, waiting and waiting as her mana builds and her options open.

It . . . might not be attacking this time? Just sort of flapping woozily in their general direction. "Vivill?" it chirps.

"Running builds mana," Nia snarls, and they turn and bolt.

It flaps along, keeping pace and occasionally emitting more chirps.

They run until Sean trips, narrowly avoiding a tumble, and demands a pause to drink from the decanter. Ennis stands between the butterfly and her partners again.

The butterfly . . . slows down and lands gently on the ground nearby. "Vivillon."

...they are incredibly strapped for mana. If it's not going to try to eat them right now they can let it sit there for a bit.

"I assume that if either of you'd heard of this kind before you'd've mentioned."

"Is very unfamiliar. Is your head okay?"

"I think my hat took the worst of it." She takes off her hat to see if there's mal goo on it.

The hat is a bit battered but otherwise okay. The butterfly waves its wings gently and looks at Ennis with its giant bug-eyes.

They all hang around building mana and passing around the decanter and watching the butterfly. They relax only very gradually.

Nia is back to jumping jacks and knocks the side of her foot into a rock.

The rock reacts to this rather differently than a rock should.

Specifically, the rock pops up into the air, unfolds a pair of wiry arms, opens a pair of angry eyes, yells "Dude!", and goes to take a swing at Nia.

The butterfly gets between Nia and the rock creature and flaps at it, emitting a cloud of colorful dust. The rock creature goes cross-eyed and falls to the ground, apparently unconscious.

"Vivillon!" the butterfly shouts triumphantly.

"Is... the butterfly... our friend now?"

"Do rocks here say 'dude'?"

"...thank you?" says Ennis uncertainly to the butterfly.

Cheerful flapping. "Vivill!"

The team exchanges uncertain looks.

Ennis takes a step toward the butterfly.

The butterfly takes a flap-hop toward Ennis.

In this way they can gradually approach one another and Ennis can make sure her glove is secure and reach toward it.

It doesn't object to this.

...pat pat?

Its wings have the texture and consistency of stiff foam. It waggles its antennae and chirps "Viv."

"...we beat it up so now it's friendly?" Ennis says tentatively.

"Okay, but will that work on the rock one? We should leave before it wakes up."

"Under those trees?" Nia asks, pointing.

They head to the trees. Carefully. Trying not to kick any more notmals.

The butterfly follows along. The trees are weird foreign trees but seem to be inert.

"You should name it."

"All I'm coming up with is 'Margarine'."

"Awful! Do not name it till there is a better idea."

Ennis pats not-Margarine the not-mal as they settle in below the trees. "If I were a diviner I'd figure you out but I'm not at all."

The butterfly doesn't voice an opinion on either names or the feasibility of figuring it out, unless "Vivill viv" is an opinion.

The sun is starting to set over the water, red and gold and purple with little wisps of cloud like drops of paint swirling into each other.

"I'll take the night watch since I'm the one the critter's attached to, if you can spot me, Nia?"

"Ugh. Yes." She does more pushups till she can incant over Ennis for wakefulness and herself and Sean for sound but not impenetrable sleep.

Ennis will attempt, during the long boring night, to see how smart his new pet is.

It doesn't respond to "flap twice if you understand me" but will reliably look where he's pointing and can be persuaded to fetch a stick.

Will it fetch sticks in a specific order? Will it fly in a circle? Will it sit on Ennis's feet while he does situps?

Yes; yes with enough repetitive hand gestures and encouragement; yes for about three seconds before it gets distracted and hops over to his head to see what he's doing.

Well, he stops doing it when it does that! Will it do it properly if he puts it back patiently every time?

Its attention span remains terrible but he can get it to sit for ten seconds with enough patience.

Something pink and blobby is snuffling around near Nia's head.

- how the shit did it get that close without Ennis noticing?

...levitating, probably.

He pinches Nia's leg.

"Fuckingbabyjesus'snappiesontoast," shrieks Nia, rolling out from under the pink thing and kicking it in the nose.

The dark grey spot on its head abruptly switches to pale pink. It shrieks "Naaaaa!" and does--something magic? The shriek reverberates painfully in their ears, making it hard to think for a moment.

"Dormez-vous!" Nia snaps at it.

It flops over unconscious, which makes it clearer that it's hovering a few inches above the ground instead of using its tiny vestigial legs for anything.

Nia stuffs some things from her backpack into Sean's and then shoves the creature entire into the bag and zips it up.

It wobbles and bumps around in there, in more of a "trying to get comfy in its sleep" way than in a "fighting to get out" way, then falls still again.

"Yours is best behaved?" she asks Ennis.

"Yeah. Maybe yours'll be a model citizen. Do you want to swap shifts now since you're up anyway?"

"Yes, yes," she sighs, and she does some stretches and puts Ennis to sleep and keeps an eye on her backpack.

Nothing else goes bump in the night, though some things flutter far overhead or chirp a long ways off in the trees.

When it's been long enough that she can wake Sean for backup if she needs it, she opens the bag and has a look at the floral critter to see if it too is now mysteriously tame.

It's sitting there, apparently cheerful. "Munn."

"I don't think you are a mun at all. You are a strange and wondrous and definitely not mundane floral beastie."

"Munna na na na." It attempts to boop her with its snoot.

She will tentatively allow this to see if it is a hostile boop. When it is not she will pat it. "What is with you creatures here and the Stockholm syndrome? I have seen no Swedish anywhere whatever." Pat pat. "I shall call you Teacup."

Not Margarine comes over to investigate the new arrival.

Teacup postures at it, probably aggressively. "Naaaaaa!"

Affronted butterfly. "Vivivi!"

"Be nice, Teacup, Ennis's new friend is also from Stockholm you see."

Teacup pouts for about three seconds and then gets distracted nibbling a nearby leaf.

"Huh. You eat a leaf. I guess it's good you eat something that isn't me." She picks a few more leaves of the same kind for it and puts them in a pile.

Monch monch monch. Contented little "Munmun".

"You are a very cute Swedish beastie, Teacup." She keeps half an eye on Not Margarine in case she's going to need to wake Ennis.

Not Margarine has flapped off to sit on a bush near Ennis and investigate its flowers.

Maybe they're all herbivores, that would be convenient.

When she's been up for about the right amount of time she wakes Sean.

"You have one of... the things... too?"

"I have called it Teacup. It seems tame now like Ennis's butterfly. Maybe by the time I wake up you will have one too."

"I hope not, I could stand to have a very boring next few hours."

"Well, do not be bored to the point of sleep." And she proceeds to see if Teacup will let her use it as a pillow.

It squirms around getting comfortable more than most pillows do but a mutually agreeable arrangement can be reached.

Cuddly Stockholmy beastie.

Sean sits around trying to get his wrists past his toes without bending his knees.

They are not further bothered in the night.

Sean doesn't wake them. The sun will do that for him.

Ennis sits up first, looks for his butterflything.

Dozing on the ground with its wings folded up and its antennae gently bobbling in the air.

Aww.

Well, he's hungry, but if he wants to do anything about that he needs mana first of all. He sets about situps with Sean helping while they wait for Nia to get up.

Nia, cozy with her teacup pillow, is awake a bit later, joins them in the morning calisthenics, and says, "We need something to eat."

"Also ideally we wouldn't keep funneling our mana supply into the decanter, and water might be easier to find than food. Plus being handy for me, if we run into more stuff we need to swat."

"Follow the coast looking for a river? And then follow the river looking for civilization?"

"Both of beautiful and brilliant." Smooch.

Smooch! And then a Sean-smooch too for good measure.

Well now they're just asymmetrical, can't have that. Sean-smooch.

Sean blushes a little. "Uh, pick a direction, and if we go far enough that we need something to drink I can try dowsing before we go for the decanter."

And off they go, along the coast.