uninvited guests are welcome here | Glowfic Constellation

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With the second half of a startled yelp, a short boy with several prominent scars falls out of the ceiling. He yelps again, this time in full, when he hits the floor.

powerispain

Teleportation accident: good enough! She slides out of her seat before the teacher can regain control of the situation and darts over. "Hey, are you alright?" she asks. "Need anything healed?"

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"Uh," he says, and then some things in an unfamiliar language.

powerispain

He doesn't speak Genoshan? Where the hell did he come from, then. She repeats herself in the other languages she knows.

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Nope and nope. He shrugs apologetically.

powerispain

Oookay then. This is maybe slightly bordering on mind-reading but precedent is on her side, so she gently queries the world, what did he say?

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He said: "Sorry about that; I don't suppose you can tell me where I am?"

Now he's looking at her with wry amusement.

powerispain

She gestures around. "Genosha." She points to herself. "Odette." She gestures to him.

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"Milan." He hops to his feet and gives a charming little bow.

powerispain

She cups her ear and snaps her fingers, making an illusory spark at the same time.

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He blinks quizzically at this display.

powerispain

She points at him, makes a "talking" hand motion, points at her ear, and nod. She points at herself, makes the gesture, points at his ear, and shakes her head.

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"You can understand me but not make yourself understood? What kind of cut-rate translation magic is that?" he laughs.

powerispain

She raises an eyebrow. He thinks a random student can do real translation magic? Whatever, she can deal with that later. She waves around. "Genosha." She points to herself. "Odette, Genosha." She points to him. "Milan...?"

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"Pleased to meet you, Odette of Genosha. I'm Milan Kosorin of Laefair. I apologize again for rudely falling out of your ceiling."

powerispain

"Zavier. Odette Zavier," she adds absently. "Does anyone else know what the hell language he's speaking?"

No one does.

"Does anyone speak any languages other than Genoshan, Anglic, Germanic, Hebrew or Ashkenazi?"

A handful of people are fluent in languages other than those, and more know a few word or phrases. Assorted languages are tried, once Odette prods them enough.

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"It's Pax," he says, "I'm speaking Pax, the language of the Imperium. But I'm pretty sure that was the Interplanar Studies building, so I doubt we're going to get anywhere trying random languages on each other."

powerispain

...

Odette translates this.

"He's crazy," someone snorts derisively. Odette gives him a look. He shuts up.

"Er..." the teacher says hesitantly. "Perhaps we should find someone with more authority to deal with this."

"Good idea. I'll go do that," Odette says. The teacher looks like she's considering arguing, but ultimately doesn't. Odette opens the door and gestures for him to follow her.

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He smiles and follows Odette.

powerispain

Odette brings him to the headmaster, who tries half-a-dozen things he won't explain before admitting that he can't find anything to contradict Milan's story and this is also way over his head and would you mind dealing with him, please, while I see if I can get our illustrious Great Mage's attention.

Slightly exasperated, Odette gestures to the papers as best she can to indicate, bureaucracy.

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"A universal constant and then some, I see."

powerispain

She giggles and nods.

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"And who am I being escalated to next?"

powerispain

"Atennesi Cohen," she says. She can't think of how to explain 'Great Mage' through gestures, but--she waves a hand and sparkles fly out; maybe such a frivolously wasteful use of magic will get it across?

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