Heathcliff could not figure out why Mistrial had taken the loss of the Canary so badly, it was a purely natural thing. Kids get lost, they die all the time. That’s why people have a lot of them. Hell, the essential animating science of transvection, which they were currently so happily enjoying its modern convenience, was dependent upon it - but she wasn’t about to get into all that. What she really wanted was a quick ‘O’ and enough liquor to puke herself into a fresh start tomorrow morning. So she flew out around looking for someone to rip off and failing that went out to the flooded coastal cities to maybe scavenge something out there. In the old harborside town of Silverside there remained some mournful residents in the waters, their skin waxy and unfinished, watching from the dark mouths of their underwater dwellings before drawing away into the shadows. Mistrial spat down at one of them and it floated up, drawing the white puff into its dark maw and swallowing it. “That means it likes you,” Heathcliff teased. All around the sky had broke out more massive columns of water, and Mistrial and Heathcliff thought they saw dark shapes moving above the swollen masses of clouds. As they watched, the sky groaned and the entire horizon to the west collapsed, a huge wall of water now roared along the entirety of its span. “I feel like I’m partly to blame for all this,” Heathcliff called out over the winds and the rain. Mistrial shrugged. “Really was hoping for some other outcome.” Mistrial drew her arms around Heath, too exhausted to be a hug, and mostly just leaned her weight on her, “I don’t care,” she said, “I just want to lie down somewhere.” They headed back inland where, with rising waters, their destinations were limited to the Shakes and Castle Mooth. As was everyone else’s.