"Apparently those details are supposed to fix themselves."
"Ah." Enid neatly curled her tail about her hind feet, folding Henry beneath her wing. "Do you have any idea where you're going at all?"
Escalla threw a length of sausage to a velociraptor that danced along the riverbank.
"Sure I do! Trust me! I'm a faerie!"
"Yes." Enid purred quietly. "And no one touches the faerie."
Thoth's Kingdom was far behind. The nightmare of the afterlife was fading to memory. Enid looked back and felt a little twinge of sadness in her heart.
"You saved me, but it will happen again one day. One day, we'll all have to part again."
Sitting happily in Jus's lap, Escalla polished her new engagement ring.
"Hell no! You guys are with me!"
Enid sighed. "We'll get old."
"Urn, no." Escalla looked at her friends as if they were incredibly thick, then rapped her knuckles against their heads. "Hello? Has it not sunk in that you guys hang with a faerie? You won't get old! No one ages around faeries. Why do you think we're so popular?"
The Justicar raised one brow.
"I'd wondered."
The boat floated onward. Escalla rummaged through loot taken from the temple of Thoth. There were schemes to make, a wedding to plan, and Henry and Enid's romance to encourage- all that any interfering faerie could desire. Escalla plucked out magic scrolls, magic tomes, and scraps of parchment, delighted by each and every find.
"Hey! A shrinking spell! This is going to save me a fortune in potions."
"How?"Escalla whispered into her friends ear, and Enid blushed.
"Oh, I see."
"Hey," Escalla whispered again in Enid's soft fuzzy ear, "I'll promise you a thousand uses of my polymorph spell as an engagement present."
Morag slithered cautiously out of hiding, looked nervously about, then found that the Justicar had made a space for her at his side. She nestled down, unsure whether she was welcome, and then Henry handed her a piece of fairy cake.
Morag looked along the river and asked, "So do we have somewhere to go?"
Everyone looked to Escalla. The faerie rolled here eyes.
"All right! All right! I got rid of the Hommlet deeds! I swapped them for a mansion. A real mansion!
There's a whole private tower for Morag and her boyfriend. We can each have a wing of rooms, gardens, and even a hoopy little village nearby! It's .perfect!"
This was the first Jus had heard of it. He looked at Escalla in puzzlement.
"When did you swap the deeds?"
"When we went through Greyhawk! Some guy called Rump gave it to me." Escalla proudly unrolled the new deed and a map. "It's even got a name, see? Tegel!" Escalla waved her hands to gather in all of her companions. "A few minor vermin to clear out, and the place is ours! Morag, welcome to the team!"
The reformed demon looked a little pained.
"Vermin?"
"It'll be nothing! Don't worry about it!" Escalla patted the woman's scales. "Trust me. I'm a faerie!"
It was a perfect ending: the river, faerie cakes, and a new adventure to begin. Escalla nestled against Jus and sighed.
"Adventure complete. And this time we even got treasure!" The girl scrabbled in her pile of loot. "See? I have this jewel from Thoth! It must be a truth jewel.!" Escalla planted the gem against her forehead. "Hey, Jus! Who has the fairest butt in all the lands?"
The big ranger leaned on his sword in the prows. He looked back at Escalla and smiled.
"You do."
"Hoopy!" Escalla gave a sudden frown. "Hey! Are you under my spell, or are you just saying that?"
The Justicar came and sat by his betrothed's side, spreading Cinders out to make a seat.
"Completely under your spell."
The boat floated past metallic swamps and fields of flowers. No one knew where the river went, or even where it stopped. All in all, the journey was the thing.