Leina Nolan: This way, just a little further.

Lisa Nolan: Do you have any idea where we are headed?

I have a feeling in my gut. Something is leading me out here, it's calling to me.

We are trekking this deep into the Fungiculture, on our one day off, because you have a feeling? What if you just ate something funny?

Yeah, yeah, you are the world's best mom for doing all this.

I know, I have a mug that says it. Wait, you have got something in your hair.

Ow! That hurts.

Oh god.

What?

What's happening? Why are my mushrooms-

It's going to be okay, just connect with me. I'll figure out what's wrong.

I can't feel you, there's nothing coming through.

You're not my daughter.

What?

You’re not my daughter. I can't connect with you. I don't know who, or what you are-

Mom!

Don't call me that! What did you do to my daughter, you imposter!

Get away from me!

But, after a few hours, she realizes she is completely lost. It is more than just missing a turn, she has no memory of a landscape she should know like the back of her hand. She grew up in this Fungiculture, spent her childhood playing there, yet she stumbles around like a stranger.

Days later, barely able to remember who she is, much less what she was searching for, she stumbles upon a clearing.

Salmon: Hello there. Come closer.

Hello, fellow salmon.

What are you?

I am you! We are all you.

I have no idea what you mean.

I am the dissolution of 'you' and 'we', I am only I. I've been calling you! To say, I've been calling myself. Come closer!

I come in many different forms. Sometimes I am alive, and sometimes I am not. Sometimes I am a fish, and sometimes I am a man.

I bring myself comfort and community. Before, you were disconnected, from others, from yourself. Did you feel like you were wearing the skin of another beast? Did you feel like others could only look that beast in the eye instead of you? It's because you are not you, you are me.

My mushrooms…

Were a barrier, blocking me from myself. They cannot take root in me, and so they fell off, and along witht hem, the false and temperamental connections.

Are you talking about my mother!?

I speak of everyone who you through your mushrooms, who loved you because they believed you were like them. You have grown now, matured, and shed the ill-fitting shell of a life you cannot lead.

I am building my house, come closer, dive under, breathe deep, and come home.

The salmon swim deeper into the pond, using their body mass to pull the metal mass with them.

What is it?

It's a flying contraption, the one I will use to protect and create.

It's damaged, but now I have the hands to fix it.

Months pass, almost entirely underwater. Repairs are slow going, but march forward nonetheless.

Hold the wing in place! It needs to be at this exact angle.

I'm lucky I left a few tools in my pockets, aren't I? Or was that psychic fish predetermination?

Not at all, you simply never empty your pockets.

Leina… It's written all over my tools. That was my name, wasn't it?

It was.

I know these tools are mine, I know I am their only owner, but I can't remember that name at all. It's a little sad.

The salmon swirl around, pensive. They all feel the same grief.

It is about time I had a name. I have never selected one before.

Really? Well, what about Sal?

Sal?

Like salmon, but just Sal.

I think it fits perfectly.

The new prop looks perfect!

She looks perfect.

She does, but I don't know what else to do. I've fixed her wings, flaps, elevators, and her vertical stabilizer, but the insides are still shot. The engine is completely missing, and I don't have the know-how to make a new one from scratch.

Oh, she'll fly. Just get in.

I have no idea how to start her, much less fly!

The plane begins to rumble, the prop twitches, then bursts into life as Sal's hands skurry across the controls. She flips switches and checks dials automatically, the knowledge clicking into place in her mind.

With a roar, Sal pulls back on the stick, and the plane bursts through the water and rockets into the sky, only nearly missing the mushroom caps.

Holy shit, holy shit! .

It's beautiful, isn't it? She draws her power from me, from just being inside her. Level out, and I will get to dance.

I'm feeling a little lightheaded.

Grab the helmet from behind the seat, and we'll go even higher!

All of Isledrift, thousands of feet beneath me. Is it not beautiful? Does it not feel right?

Everything makes sense up here.

Salmon Lake, Warfish 40, on final for runway 30, Warfish 40..

Another perfect flight! Got all the way to the outer trashbergs and back in only a few weeks. The mowing shrimp and crabs did some great work cutting back all the shrooms, much easier to land and take off that way!

Hello, hello. It's good to see myself again! It's good to be back home.