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In a bar, there is a girl.
She looks like she has saved up all of her decadent and slothful impulses for a solid decade and is indulging them all at once. She is sprawled on a couch with a book she's only half-reading, and an ice cream sundae, and smiiiiiiling.
kithabel and milan in milliways
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ertia
Today, when he slurps water out of the lake enough to ripple it, a sky-blue reptilian head pokes up out from under the ripples.
"Hey," she says. "Why're you taking water out of the lake?"
"Hey," she says. "Why're you taking water out of the lake?"
first-and-final
"To do that with," he says, gesturing at the slurped water, which is rapidly multiplying into an intricate display. "Hello."
"Hi. Is that a kind of magic?"
"You seem very pleased about that."
"I've heard that. Well, on and off. Sometimes I hear that it's tedious or draining or frustrating instead."
first-and-final
"Mine can be tedious or frustrating on occasion," he says. "But mostly it's fun."
"What kind is it?"
first-and-final
"It's called sorcery, and it involves insistently expecting things to happen until the universe agrees, and the more of it you do the more agreeable the universe gets, to you in particular. As far as I know it's only learnable in the one world."
"Huh. I wonder if that's the sort of thing having a dragon would help with, or not."
"Dragons like me can be had," she says. "I am had, for example, by an elf. I have magic, which I can't do anything with, and the elf has it by transitivity, and she can."
first-and-final
"And there are some sorts of magic that can be... dragon-had... and others that can't?"
"Well, I don't know. All the kinds of magic at home can be dragon-had but that could be for all kinds of reasons. If you don't happen to find me mesmerizingly beautiful I don't see how we'd find out."
"Well then, you don't get to have me, that's how it works, and I don't fancy marching another bunch of dragons into that cramped little bar to see if any of them strike your fancy better."
"I thought so. Anyway, it lets whoever has us do as much of their magic as they want, without the usual energy costs. Or in the case of elves, at all. It's a long story with the elves."
first-and-final
"Very handy. I'm not particularly in need of a dragon, as it happens, but I've got a friend who'd love that sort of advantage..."
"Oh?"
first-and-final
"She's a sorceress likewise, and I for a number of reasons have probably the fastest-growing sorcerous momentum in the world, and she would like some of that but it isn't usually transferrable."
"Oh. Well, we could see if she finds me mesmerizingly beautiful. It's a good idea to have multiple Bonded if possible so that if one dies I don't follow."
first-and-final
"...Perhaps I should hear more about this whole business first. People dying: generally not desirable."
"Unbonded dragons live forever," explains the dragon. "Bonded ones die with our bondmate - one goes, the other's out too. But if we have two Bondmates at once - or I suppose possibly more - then if a Bondmate dies, the dragon needn't, and can find another Bondmate and chain forward like that indefinitely."