In the soft light of morning, light glistened off the sheen of frost on the front half of a frozen elk. Normally it would have been melting, but if anything it was growing colder with time. A bird flitted down to peck at the meat, but changed direction and let out an irritated squawk when it felt the aura of cold that surrounded it.

A girl, her dog, and a stuffed seal sat on the concrete porch outside a sliding glass door, looking at the elk-cicle. They had been sitting there for over five minutes, and they represented a whole emotional spectrum. The girl was frustrated and confused, you could see it in her expression and body language. The dog seemed quite pleased with himself on the other hand. While the seal– Well, he looked the same as always, but Lily was pretty sure he was judging.

“Star. I love you. You know I love you right?”

He whumfed and groaned.

“I guess I haven’t said those words so you probably don’t. Huh. Okay. Well. Um. You’re my dog, dog. You know?”

Star whined. Lily rolled her eyes.

“But you have to find a way to explain this to me. What the hell? How did you even catch and kill an elk? Why was it soaked in mana? How did you get it home? Where’s the other half? I have so many questions. It’s bullshit that you can’t speak.”

He barked loudly. Lily was pretty sure it was because she said ‘speak’. She leaned over and rested her head on the dog. The steady swishing sound of his tail over the concrete answered her.

“So, here’s what we are gonna do. I’m gonna turn off the spell. We’re gonna take a knife from inside, and cut into it. I’m gonna try to get you breakfast out of this. Because I won’t have your work going to waste. But I want you to know, I’m not good at this. I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know what parts are good and what parts aren’t. And I won’t eat any.”

At that last bit, Star let out a high pitched whistling cry.

“Oh come on! Listen. You have all these natural instincts, and you know how to deal with stuff like this. I’m a human! I’ve almost never eaten anything that didn’t come out of a package from the store, like your kibble. I need my food to be prepared and cooked by someone else. Okay?”

There was another cry, but softer.

“Ugh, Bay, back me up here would you?”

Bay seemed to be enjoying this. So Lily sighed and got up. Retrieving a sharp looking knife from the kitchen, she returned to deactivate her spell. The spell was just cooling the elk and venting excess mana into a number of little lights. As she broke the circle, the lights all winked out.

She went to cut into the flesh of the elk, reluctantly. But it was frozen solid. It was like scraping her knife against a rock! She tried to stab into it with the pointy end. That got her a little further. At least the knife went in! But only about an inch.

“Wait. But. I can’t let it thaw out here to get some. I really should have thought of getting some videos about butchering animals. What do I even DO with this thing?”

She felt a gentle nuzzling at her leg. Lily startled, but saw Star seemed to be trying to comfort her. She gave him an exasperated look, but reached down with her non-knife hand and pet him.

He stepped forward and started sniffing at the elk. Then, he bit. His teeth sank right in, but even he was unable to just pull away a chunk of meat. The dog started chewing fiercely, tail wagging. He looked far more bestial than Lily was used to, and she sat back.

“Huh. I guess that works. I can just turn the spell off for you when you want, and you can just, like, chew on it? Alright. Okay. Let me know when you’re done, okay?”

Lily went back to the porch, and laid out using Bay as a pillow. Even the sounds of Star chewing at the elk were a little much, so she turned her attention to the sky. It was a little unsettling looking up like this, but she was trying to force herself to do it at least sometimes. She remembered how comforting it had been on her first day. The idea that there was just nothing up there was uncomfortable.

Behind the blue lay an endless expanse of nothingness. How was she supposed to deal with that? For all she knew very little about Entity B, she knew even less about Entity A. But there hadn’t been any new information at all. So how was she supposed to learn anything? Whatever it was, it was so far above her that she couldn’t think of anything she could do to even test her hypothesis. But, she was getting off track.

After Star had returned home last night, she had given him a bath. He was covered in blood. It had turned out that some of it was his as well. He was definitely injured in his hunting. Why would he bother? He had food. She didn’t understand. Was it just an animal thing? She wished more than anything he could tell her, but she hadn’t figured out that side of communication yet. What’s worse, she was having a hard time seeing him quite the same as before. He seemed a bit more intelligent since yesterday, which was unsettling but cool. What really made the difference though was…

She looked over and watched him chew a hunk of meat off the elk. He’d already eaten what Lily would have assumed was a meal sized portion for him, but he just kept going. He looked like a wild animal. Beastial. His maw was coated in red. It’s not like he was acting any different really. But seeing him like this frightened her, just a little bit. If she could just communicate, she could get some reassurance.

“But, no matter how smart you are, you’re not going to grow vocal chords. Which means it’s up to me to figure it out huh?”

The sounds of meat tearing from the body ceased for a moment while Star listened, and then resumed. Lily sighed loudly, and closed her eyes. Maybe she could find one of those things people had in internet videos? The ones with the buttons that said words, so your animal could step on them to communicate ideas? Would the pet store have something like that?

The sound of something solid hitting the concrete next to Lily snapped her out of her stupor, she jumped up and stared. A bloody face stared back at her. Lily yelped and skittered backwards before she realized it was just Star. He was wagging his tail and presenting her with… Something. It was bloody, and almost perfectly circular. Lily gagged.

“I– I don’t want any. Thank you Star. But you should have it.”

Star tilted his head, and stared at her for a moment. Lily examined the object, and realized something now that she was really looking at it. It was absolutely saturated with mana.

“What the heck is this thing anyway? Did that come out of the elk? Well. I still don’t want it. Are you sure you should eat it?”

Star, sensing there was a chance neither of them would be eating the prize, lunged forward and horked it down before Lily could say another word. She laughed.

“Okay, okay. If it’s that good, thank you for offering it to me. But I’m glad you got it. Besides, it was a ball. Dogs should have a ball.”

Actually, now that she thought about it, dogs should have a ball. Lily rose and reconnected her circle. The lights flicked on, and she turned to go looking. Maybe in the garage? This was a rich house, there’s no way there weren’t tennis balls around here somewhere!

---

It took half an hour, but Lily did eventually find a tube of tennis balls in the second garage. Along with a lot of other sporting goods. Baseballs, a basketball, tennis rackets, baseball bat, volleyballs, and more. For now, she just grabbed the tennis balls and headed out front. Lily called Star over and pulled out one of them.

“Alright buddy. We’re gonna play a game, okay? I’m gonna throw the ball, and you get it and bring it back to me as fast as you can alright?”

Star gave her what she read as a suspicious look.

“Hey, trust me. It’s fun! I could never run as fast as you. But, with this, we can play together. Just, do your best to get it okay? Catch it if you can!”

Lily tossed the ball softly to illustrate the point. To her surprise, Star jumped and caught it with ease on his first try. Lily grinned.

“Good boy! Now, bring it back to me and I’ll throw it for real, okay?”

He gave the ball to her. It was so nice having an intelligent companion. She had thought she’d have to teach this game to him for a while, but he got it no problem. So, true to her word, Lily wound up and threw the ball as hard as she could, aiming for distance.

To her surprise, Star intercepted it. It had hardly gone ten feet! He leapt and caught it like it was no problem. Star spun in the air and landed in what Lily could only think of as way too cool a pose for a dog. He trotted back to her and gave her the ball again, then back to his spot, tail wagging. Lily stared at him, then the ball.

“Huh. Okay. Okay. I see how it is. Fine, that’s my bad. Let’s try this again okay?”

Star barked. Lily knew what to do. She just had to throw it way over his head! She wound up, and heaved with all her might! It flew high! At least ten feet in the air, with plenty of inertia to carry it a good distance too.

Lily’s jaw dropped as Star leapt. He caught the ball out of the air, at least ten feet in the air. His tail wagged and he huffed excitedly as he brought her the ball again. Lily patted him and accepted it, in a daze.

“I– What?”

Star made an impatient sound and took on a playful stance. Lily snapped out of it a little, and smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like a while.

“Oh yeah? Fine! I can see I’ve underestimated you. You’re no ordinary dog, so let’s turn up the difficulty a little, huh? Stay here!”

Lily went inside and dashed up the stairs, trepidation about unexplored parts of the house thrown out in an instant. The upstairs consisted of four rooms that seemed at first glance to be unused bedrooms. What a waste! Well, she knew just what to do. She found a second story window, opened it, and called to Star. She saw him run around the side of the house, and she threw the ball again, this time from her new vantage point. 

This time there was no way Star was gonna jump that high! She was right, it went way too high for him, and he bolted to keep up with the ball’s trajectory. He was so fast! The ball went far. Lily realized she must have gotten a bit stronger since all this started. At least a little. Star jumped bushes, zigged and zagged around obstacles, and still managed to catch the ball!

Lily was shocked, and shocked too to realize she was having fun! She ditched her plan of getting high up, because another thought had struck her. She dipped into the office and grabbed a sharpie, along with one of the new tennis balls. As she came out the front door, Star was there, ball in mouth and wagging his tail. Lily hugged him tightly, ignoring the smell of meat that was still a little on him.

“Good boy. You’re amazing at this! But, don’t underestimate me just yet. I’m the smartest girl in the world!”

Even Star seemed to think that was a lame joke, but Lily sat down and started in on her new plan. She drew circles on the ball. Six of them, with one glyph each. The same glyph she’d used to levitate a hunk of concrete out of the pit. Finally, she added one more circle to the ball, this one formed of her own mana, and the same glyph.

Lily was slightly tired out, but it wasn’t actually that bad. More like running a short sprint than a marathon. Now though, she held the instrument of Star’s destruction! Lily laughed and held it aloft.

“Think you’re so cool and athletic huh? I’ll show you the powers of a nerdy mage! Get ready!”

Lily found her feet. Her trash talk aside, this was going to be hard. The circles would do nothing if she didn’t feed them with her mana, and she’d never interacted with a moving circle before, or one as far away as this was about to be. On top of that, she was testing a theory. Normally, to adjust a written out circle she’d have to touch it. But the ones made of mana, she could usually just feel out. So, she was hoping the circles written on the ball she might be able to control relative to the ball, where the one in her mana she might be able to point around relative to her.

It was just a thought, but it seemed to track with what she knew. This was going to take some practice. For now, she decided to use just the one made of mana on her first throw. She would focus on pouring mana into it, and pushing the ball up. 

Lily wound up, and threw the ball as hard as she could. As it left her hand, she activated the circle, pouring as much mana into it as she could.

The ball left her hand, and arced up quickly. In half a second it had cleared the roof of the house and was still shooting skyward, accelerating in that direction even! Star bolted forward, following the trajectory. To Lily’s surprise, the fact that it was moving seemed to make no difference to her ability to control the circle. However, as it got further and further away it was more and more difficult to hold onto, and after just a couple seconds she lost contact with it. 

She watched as the upward momentum came to a stop. It must have been a hundred feet in the sky! But it was falling now. She watched as it fell, taking full seconds to eventually land in Star’s waiting maw. Lily swore. But that had been… That was amazing! She realized with a start that this was the first time she’d really used magic for her own amusement and nothing else. 

Star galloped over to her, and dropped the ball at her feet. As he looked up at her with one of the happiest expressions she had ever seen on his face she couldn’t help but grin in return.

“I have a confession. You scared me a little this morning. I feel silly about it now, but I’d just never seen you as capable of violence before now. Of any kind. I don’t know how much you understand of this. But I’m not scared now. You’re the same Star as always. I really do love you, you know.”

Lily realized she was tearing up, and decided to focus on the game. She grabbed the ball and held it in her palm.

“We’re partners. Let’s play this game a lot okay? I’ll get better at it. And it’s so fun! I have a new idea. Let’s see if you can get this!”

Lily held out her palm and activated the circle on the bottom of the ball for just a second. Instantly it launched straight into the sky. Before it started to spin at the top of its arc, Lily felt out one of the circles on the sides and activated that one. The end result was popping it up into the sky and then launching it at practically a ninety degree angle. She could feel it leaving her effective area, and at the last moment she found her mana circle and added a strong diagonal downward force to it.

Star had been tracking its position perfectly, but as it swerved in mid air towards the ground at a different spot, he really had to put on the speed. Lily watched intently, breathing heavily. It was going to be close. It was going to be so close!

The dog dove at the last moment, and caught the ball just before it hit the ground. He rolled to a stop, and found his feet. Then started his victory trot back to Lily.

She couldn’t help it. She cheered her heart out.