At one point in their journey, the sea serpent breached for more than just to refresh the air in their bubble. It lingered in place and started to twirl around in the water to keep them afloat.

“Why are we circling?” Val asked, looking around and around at the sea serpent’s trailing body beneath the surface.

In its lurching swim, it appeared to be buffering like a broken audio player.

“This is as far as our sea serpent friend is willing to take us,” Tavras announced on its behalf.

“I thought that you could order them anywhere.”

“Yes, sure, but it would be rude of us to keep the sea serpent any longer. While serpents migrate to tropical waters for the winter anyway, we need to let this fellow find their mate now.”

No more sea serpents were necessary in the world, so Val would entirely support holding it hostage and preventing it from partaking in its mating season.

“Can you feel how much warmer it is getting already?” Tavras asked this with a big sigh and faked a swoon against the sea serpent’s fin. “This is some lovely weather that we’re having here.”

Her gaze cast out all around them, nothing but the sparkling sea as far as the eye could see. “We are not going to swim on our own from here, are we?”

“Don’t worry, Val. I have called another friend to take us the rest of the way to the Bibashie Reef!”

Per Tavras’s direction, they all slid off the sea serpent so that it could begin its journey back to its native waters.

“I’m so excited,” Tavras said, spinning and splashing around in the water. A wide circle of water splayed outward on all sides of him by his outstretched hands.

“I can tell.” Val treaded water calmly in place, while Foofy doggy-paddled in a restless circle.

Since he struggled to stay afloat with the added weight of his drenched doggy jacket, Val took him into her arms. She treaded water by only her legs. Thankfully, her strength as a demigoddess made this task less arduous than it would be for a mortal woman.

“We should have gotten you a life vest,” she murmured down to Foofy’s ear.

Attention drifting back to Tavras, who bobbed to and fro with great animation, Val decided to ask, “What are you so excited about, exactly?”

“Our new friend is here! I can’t wait for you to meet it!”

Val scanned the surface of the water in search of a new sea creature. When she looked down, she noticed that a massive, round shadow rose upward.

“Ah!” she cried. Though she tried to swim away, not enough open water existed to escape the creature’s ascent.

At the very least, this new sea monster did not appear as terrifying as the many-headed hydra nor the many-tentacled kraken that Tavras could have summoned. In stark contrast, this creature had a broad, circular body or perhaps its immeasurable size spanned large enough that this was but a smaller part of a horrendous fish. Val doubted that anything of this plane could come anywhere near to the proportions of Leviathan.

She had no idea what rose up from the ocean beneath her.

Water drained off the surface of the sea monster. When its body rose above the water for Val to stand upon it with Foofy in her arms, she noticed the scaly features in the shape of pentagons. Each plate spanned the length of a yard stick and formed the recognizable pattern of a shell.

“Could this be a turtle?” Val asked with delight.

“I would like you to meet the serpent snapping turtle. The name comes from their ability to take a nasty chomp out of sea serpents like the one that we rode in on! Good thing our first friend is long gone, or the two of them could have a ferocious fight.”

Val spun around on the top of the serpent snapping turtle’s shell—the single largest turtle in the world. Even the elephant tortoise could not achieve the same epic proportions on land as the serpent snapping turtle reached in the water.

“Wow! Foofy, follow,” Val sang and ran over the curvature of its shell.

Her feet had to be sure to land on strong footing, not to slide off of the large plates that made up the turtle’s shell. Up a long incline then back down the decline, Val skipped so that she could find the turtle’s head.

Dark, wrinkly skin bunched up and folded around its thick neck. At the end of its face, monstrous jaws jutted out of its face and ended in a rather beak-like in form. Those jaws looked like they could snap a ship in two and take a bite out of a sea serpent.

That must have been the species namesake.

Looking back to her, the serpent snapping turtle gave a slow blink of its eyes. Where serpents had piercing, yellow irises, the snapping turtle had a dark, calming gaze.

A smile could not help but climb to her lips. Her fingers waggled in a little wave back to it. “Foofy, look. We’re on a turtle.”

Already, Val much preferred the serpent snapping turtle in comparison to the sea serpents in which they snapped.

The high tone of a whistle called out through the air. Behind her, Tavras pulled two fingers away from his lips, smiling. He stood there under an innocent ploy.

A whip of water swung around for her head.

Her reactions were barely quick enough for her to duck and feel the slashing water drip some moisture onto her head.

A second whip of water came out of the ocean as quickly as the first. It swiped for Val, this time bringing her to jump over it like a rope.

“What is this for?” she asked Tavras.

A broad gleam entered Tavras’s smile. “Our new friend forms a natural arena—a platform in which to train. We ought to continue your training!”

His element encased them on all sides of the serpent snapping turtle, an endless ocean to besiege Val. The lapping waves sounded against the sides of its sturdy shell. The vastness of the sea turtle’s back left her feeling small, as well as particularly vulnerable so close to one edge of the shell.

At the same time, her heart lifted with excitement at the prospect of training with Tavras again like they used to. The expansive battlefield helped Val even the playing field; all she needed was to center herself at the serpent snapping turtle’s shell on the high ground.

Currently, Tavras stood there looking down to her. “What do you want to do?” A wall of water rose up behind him, towering over the slowly swimming form of the turtle.

“I’m going to take the high ground from you,” she replied.

“I bet you can’t,” Tavras jeered in return.

Already, they had another fun competition to follow up the first that they had done today.

As Val charged straight ahead with a devious, uncontrollable smile, the wave came crashing down.