"In there, it never surrounded us, you burnt off the outer few meters and the rest of it wouldn't have been able to stretch far enough if it tried. What else is on the buffet of horrid revelations?"

"I could see in there, even if it wasn't surrounding me--not, like, physically see, more like--the way I see mals as shiny--anyway. Did you see--either time--the, um, the core." 

"The, rotisserie chicken looking thing?"

"Yeah, that was a person. And then they crushed whatever poor soul that was to death. As--under--" 

Deep breath. 

"The foundation stone of an enclave." 

"How the bloody hell can you have seen that in its shininess??"

"It's--it was--still connected. The maw-mouth, itself, was holding it up. It was like--seeing the way the bones of your hand connect to your wrist under a bright light." 

El takes a minute to digest that, and then, perhaps because of it being so unpalatable, vomits directly into the floor drain after the dribbling goo of the maw-mouth.

That's so valid of her!!!!! Hug hug hug hug.

Bitter, despairing laugh. "I guess I was wrong about whether I can destroy an enclave to stop an atrocity." 

"If the Bangkok kids find out -"

"Oh, fuck, I hadn't thought of that--" 

She puts her head between her knees and screams quietly for a little bit. 

"You know, if we just sit here in the muck forever, we'll definitely die before we have to deal with any of this." 

"Sign me right up." She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes as though trying to rub away a bad dream.

Box breathing. Very deliberate box breathing. "Part of me is tempted to just--dismiss everything I figured out as, as trauma-related delirium--except, uh, Bangkok and the library incident do, in fact, line up. --Golden Stone enclaves don't do this, if we try to publicize it everyone will think it's a power slash business ploy--"

"I wasn't going to charge people! I was going to saunter around being - constructive and benevolent and sticking it to my prophetic bloody grandma, and - she said I was going to be the ruin of enclaves -"

"I mean I bet that happens if we successfully publicize this. I know you weren't going to charge for it, and you know you weren't going to charge for it, but who'd fucking believe that? People barely believe I exist, and I've been existing at them for three years!"

"I'm already the ruin of enclaves! This was the second one! I don't even know who I just cast off into the bloody Void!" El shakes her head furiously. "Is there an enclave sitting on you?"

"...I don't...think so? I think...the thing sitting on me...is me." 

"Well, maybe if we have lead time before the next occasion of running into one of these we can see if we can balance its charge on your head before slaying all its component tormented souls." El shudders.

She makes a face. "Worth a shot. Maybe if you, I dunno, cast the not-evil foundation stone spell on me?" She blinks, and leans backwards, laughing despairingly. "This is such bullshit! Listen to us!" 

"There is one stupid sense in which this is sort of good news!"

"Oh?"

"Well, it completely explains why my mum told me to keep away from you! - I didn't! Obviously! But she said to and if she got mawmouth vibes off you somehow that's probably why. She probably can't know very much, what with us being inside the Scholomance."

"--Oh huh. Well. Yeah, maw-mouth vibes would pretty soundly justify that. I suppose I shall have to explain to her that I am a very weird maw-mouth. And also that the set-yourself-right spell is so useful, like wow." 

"My problem with it is that I usually don't want to be right when I'm not."

"That makes so much sense. But, like, the kind of not-right you tend to be is, like, pissed off at people, who have legitimately done things wrong, which sounds a lot more appealing to not discard than 'oh fuck, I'm a maw-mouth.'"

"Yeah. I know a lot of ways to quit being angry and not a one to want to."