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Isibel has never seen an odder collection of fauna. She has not traveled extensively, but she is sure that creatures of this size - lizards as heavy as ten elves together, beavers eight and nine feet long, turtles with shells the size of small houses - are not customary. Yet the island is riddled with them.
The creatures have no particular fear of elves, but nor do they seek them, and none of her party have been attacked; she feels safe enough traveling through the forest on her own, stepping lightly, looking for the sweep of the treeline and any springs that might be useful for settlers if elves settle here. Besides, she is a student of the small magics, some of which may be cast quite rapidly if there is need; she could frighten away an animal that took too much interest in her. The ribbons tied around each of her knees and ankles (blending seamlessly with the rest of her travel outfit) are some of her finest small magic, guiding her steps so that she may place her feet as elves ought to be able to and bring no embarrassment to her House. They don't make her truly graceful, but she can walk, and care will do the rest.
She's deep into the forested part of the Unknown Island when she starts finding statues. Old statues. The trees have grown up around them, it looks like, they've been here that long; they're worn and weathered and have lichen growing on them.
And they're all of unicorns.
The oldest sculptures are none too skillful, but as she proceeds inward towards the center of the island, they become newer and better and it's plain to see that they're not of unicorns, but a unicorn. A unicorn with a broken horn; this is not, it soon becomes apparent, random damage to early statues. Someone has carved a specific unicorn, dozens - hundreds? thousands? - of times. And the art has been made with such intense love, and the newest of the statues are so delicately done that they look almost like real unicorns, with all the magic that implies, though they hold still and are on closer inspection all still carved from stone.
Someone loved this unicorn, and lived on this island, and made a thousand statues of her, and now the place is inhabited only by giant animals that certainly could have done no such thing. Isibel wonders what happened to the sculptor. To the unicorn, too.
On she walks.
small_magics
small_magics
She shakes her head. "I don't." And this is hardly a secret, because it's always clear at home who the unicorns avoid: "Unicorns still come near me."
small_magics
"Unicorns can do things they don't like if they have to, if it's important. If they'd die otherwise."
small_magics
Isibel swallows. "You know what sounds the letters make," she says, gesturing at the word she wrote for him. And then she decides to start teaching him shapes. Circle, triangle, square, etcetera.
small_magics
Shapes and then locations! She points out the Nine Cities, and names Silverbranch too, and then she draws her family tree and names family relationships.
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"My mother's name is Rania. My father's name is Cariel. I don't have any brothers or sisters."
small_magics
Isibel blinks. That's a familiar name, but she can't quite place it. Maybe that was one of the demon kings. Maybe this demon was a demon prince, before there stopped being demons to be a prince of.
Well, time to draw little elf doodles in crowns and explain kings and queens and princesses and princes.
Well, time to draw little elf doodles in crowns and explain kings and queens and princesses and princes.
small_magics
Isibel nods. "I thought I recognized the name." Hmm, examples of the word recognize - "I recognized that you were a demon when I first saw you. I didn't recognize this fruit when you brought it, because you didn't draw it."
small_magics
"Yes, I am," she laughs. "Isibel the elf. Isibel the small-mage." She touches the paper and focuses and makes dots of each of the basic colors - far slower than he did - and writes and speaks the names of each color under each dot when she's completed the row.
small_magics
She grins and turns the page and now she's drawing weather. Clouds, rain, snow - she's not sure if it snows this far south, but it may, and he may have seen it, and in ten thousand years the weather patterns could have changed. Wind. Wind is made of air. Winged creatures fly in the air.
small_magics
Rain falls, sun shines, clouds can go down and become fog. The sun makes the air warmer; it is cooler at night. Snow happens only when it is very cold. Things with water on them are wet. If they sit in the sun they will become dry.
endragoned
The demon gets up off the bench and reaches into the pond to dip up a handful of water, which he sprinkles on Isibel.
"You are wet," he informs her.
"You are wet," he informs her.
small_magics
She looks at him witheringly. "Yes. You made me that way," she says. "Please don't do that again."