It takes her a couple of sightings to work up the social courage to talk to the ice person.

The second time, she first dives in to help squish the monster she's fighting, then says awkwardly once the battle is done, "Hi, I'm Iris."

"Aalis. Good to make your acquaintance." She expands the ice platform so Iris doesn't have to hover.

"How long have you been magic? Has anybody warned you about what happens if you change yourself too much?"

"About a month now. And... no? Who would know to warn me? This is new. It's happening everywhere, but it's new."

"It's happened to me and one other person I know of, and I think I've seen someone else who must've had the same thing happen to them but I haven't gotten close enough to be sure. If you change yourself too much, I mean if you make yourself look too different from the way you started, then you go a little crazy and only care about being pretty and fighting monsters, and mostly can't talk anymore. I have a way to fix it but it's still pretty upsetting. Do you want me to fix you if I see you like that?"

"- I wasn't planning to ever put on - wings or wool or anything as you've done."

"Okay. Um, I started out with the wool actually, I am from very far away and where I'm from it's normal to be a sheep person, it's just the wings and the being so tall* that's new for me. But that's not very relevant I guess. Anyway, it's nice to meet you."

*She is, as previously stated, about 4'3".

"- I met a girl who mimed being from fully across the ocean and she only looked like a person with wings and extra arms!"

"I am from farther away than that. It's a very long and very crazy story but the short version is, I was in a terrible place where awful stuff kept happening, and I had some magic from that place, and I used that magic to leave and go as far away as I possibly could, so far that it should be impossible to follow me, definitely much harder than just flying across an ocean, and when I landed here I got the monster-fighting magic too."

"Huh. That's a terribly strange story but these are terribly strange times. Do they have the Gospel where you're from?"

"I don't know what that is, so I guess not."

Aalis is going to take that as an invitation. She used to be a nun!

Oh wow. This topic of conversation makes Iris kind of uncomfortable but she is going to do her best to be polite about it.

Being polite makes it last longer.

This was a predictable outcome but what's she going to do, tell this nice stranger she's been badly treated by gods in the past? Yeah no.

At the next feasible opportunity to wind down the conversation she says, "I'd better get back to my patrol route if I want to get home soon. If you see other monster-fighters please warn them about the going-crazy thing, and tell them their friends can look for me down the coast if they need to be rescued from it. I have a house on a little island."

"Naturally. What's the nearest town to it?"

"I don't know what it's called but I can ask around and maybe tell you next time I see you."

Aalis nods. "And while you're in town you can stop in at the church for any questions you have! Unless it's a heathen town, you didn't say how far south."

"I don't really know how far south. About two hours' flight from here maybe? But that's a guess, and I don't know how fast I fly." She will not be stopping in at any churches but there's no need to proactively bring that up.

"Well, look for the cross, that's the way to tell. Thank you for the tips!"

"It was nice meeting you," she only slightly lies. "Good luck!"

And she can fly back home, and see if she can find Maria to ask about town names, and maybe also keep an eye out for the sea-Pretty.

The sea-Pretty is breaching beautifully in the low sunshine, hanging out with some normal non-iridescent orcas.

Maria and Catarina have themselves a houseboat these days, with improbable greenery on it to patch the holes and hold it together where it is not especially sturdy. And to decorate it.

"Your boat is really pretty," she tells Maria and Catarina. "Do you know what the name of the nearest town to my house is? I'm trying to tell as many people as I can where to find me, in case they need to bring their friends to be un-Prettied."

"Niñóns," says Maria. "Well, more of a village. Ponteceso is a bit farther on the river."

"Okay, I'll remember that. Thanks very much!"

With that errand out of the way, she can think about approaching the sea-Pretty. It takes her a few days to work up to it (during which, if she sees Aalis, again, she'll pass along the geographic information).

...probably it'll be fine. Right? Probably she's just worrying over nothing?

She resolves to not ask the sea-Pretty to split off their former self until she's had a good try at finding out if the former self would've wanted that. It makes her feel better about the whole thing, if she's... trying to help someone, and trying to only help them if they want to be helped, and not just out to enslave strangers for her own gain.

She doesn't have to explicitly make herself a promise about it, but she reminds herself that if the sea-Pretty seems to object to being a Follower, she'll let them go. And even if they don't, potentially, if she just feels too weird about the situation, she can still let them go.

And then, after considerable dithering... she approaches, and her crown does the thing, and as soon as the glow settles they start reading the sea-Pretty's mind.