Princess Lila has tried to learn magic.  Fraddir says it's vitally important to his Plan to take back her kingdom.  So if he's right, it's going to be part of her story.

Hopefully the big magic he's forging is going to be easier than the plants she's trying to learn now, because memorizing plant-magic makes her head hurt just as badly as memorizing the Geography her old tutors tried to make her learn.  But things are promising - she loves the invisibility ring Fraddir's given her!  And she doesn't need to memorize anything other than which ways to turn it!

She likes playing in the woods around Fraddir's cottage, but she knows that it's going to have to end someday.  Her kingdom - her people - are suffering under the usurper.  They need her.  She has a Story, after all.

One morning, as she's walking down to the brook to fetch water for cooking, she feels a prickling around herself almost like that time she poked at Fraddir's forge.  Magic!

She's suddenly excited.  Her story's moving on!

And then the forest dissolves around her, to show a much larger cottage in much worse repair.  Or, well, a basement?

Lila looks around herself with glee.  "Hello!" she exclaims.

Lightning coruscates, and Eriape is blown halfway across the room, bouncing off her lectern, which is itself knocked over onto the floor.

If she was living, she'd be hurt. But she isn't so she wasn't.

Eriape pulls herself to her feet. 

She sighs. It's not a badger. 

"Oh, was that me?  I'm sorry!"

It wasn't quite so bad when she disrupted Fraddir's spell, but it's not unfamiliar.  Lila jumps over toward Eriape to try to help her.

(She totally ignores the circle around her - she's not used to summoning circles.  If it blocks her, she'll run right into it.)

It looks like a person. 

She walks up to it, looking at it carefully.

This creature might go away at any time- the spell was intended to last for merely seconds. Eriape's skin is like white parchment, and two orange sparks appear in her otherwise empty eyesockets.  

It talks!

Badgers crowd around, with much interest! 

"Greetings! I am the Great Lady Eriape, the Undying! Princess of Badgers!"

She's... 

Lila doesn't have a word for what this person is.  Not human and not Fay, at least.  A Dwarrow, maybe?  She's heard they live underground?  And Papa sent an embassy to them (before everything went wrong), but they didn't send an embassy back so she didn't see any of them.

"Hi! I'm -"

Wait, Eriape's another Princess!  But Lila still shouldn't give her real name.

"Greetings, Your Highness!  I'm Lila."  She bobs a quick curtsy.

"... and can I pet your badgers!?"

"Yes!" The badger has a squeaky voice. 

"Me first!"

"No, me first!"

"Oh, you're talking badgers!  Er, I'm sorry, I've only got two hands -"

Lila instantly kneels down to run her hands through their fur, one after another.  She's wanted to pet so many of the forest animals, but her invisibility ring's barely helped!

She pulls out a large magnifying glass, and looks at Lila through it. "You appear to be A Human! Are you a resident of some Strange Unearthly Plane or merely a Visitor?"

"Uh, yes, Your Highness.  I'm... not from anywhere unearthly?  From the Kingdom of Maranon.  Er, were you trying to summon me like a unicorn?"

"Yes! I was Attempting the Summoning of the Eternal Badger, an Awesome Critter of the Far Realms, which When, when Slain, Splits in Two New Eternal Badgers, Both of Equal Power and Excellence!"

"I do not Care to Rule a Kingdom myself- it is Too Much Bother! Far Above my Lair, there is All Kinds of Kingdoms, but Maranon is not One of them. I do think Maranon might be Deep in the Far Realms!"

"... Eternal Badger?  Have you seen any of them before?  I've only seen one normal badger - Fraddir doesn't like me staying out at night."

"And what kingdoms are there around here?  Are we down in the Southerlands, or..."

The talk of the "Far Realms" and "strange unearthly planes" is starting to make her think she's been summoned beyond the Gates of Night into some totally different world.

"Why, there's Cheliax! Andoran! Razmiran! Geb! Nex! All kinds, really." 

Eriape has a map up on a stand, with many pins stuck in it, connected with yarns of three different colors, and she shoos Lila towards it. 

Lila leaves the badgers (hopefully she can pet them more soon?) and stares at the map.

There're more pins than she would've ever seen markers in Papa's court, but she gets the concept.

"... This's a totally different world!"

^{"I didn't know humans could go to other worlds."}

"Completely Different!" Eriape is very enthusiastic. 

"Through my Skill in Magic I have visited All these Countries!"

Lila is half-distracted from her sense of adriftness from everything she's known.

"Oh... I've never been outside Maranon before..."  Papa was going to take her on a royal visit to Leir, but then things happened.

"Are there humans there?  Or Fay?"

"I was Human! right up until I decided to Become Undying through the means of Expert Manipulation of the Obverse Power!"

(the badgers cheer)

"All the Clever People become Undying!" She points to the map, with large sweeping gestures. "All these Countries have Many Humans. And some Have Fay, but they come from A Different Dimension!"

"Yes!  The Fay came from a different world to my world, too!  And then a lot of them went back, but some of them stayed.  I've met a few of them - wish I could meet more!"

They were very curious and eager to talk, and - unlike most of the other Court visitors - not at all upset to let the very young Princess listen in.  Occasionally they'd even answer her questions!

"... You're undying?  I didn't even know that was possible... Barvid -"

- the evil wizard who's usurped her throne; Eriape might be able to see a momentary expression of distaste -

"- says he's undying, but I thought he was just lying?"

"He Might Be! It's Very Tricky to figure out how to be Undying. This Barvid- is he a Smart Man? Does he have Badger Friends?"

This might be Useful!

"I've never met him - they say he's smart.  He's definitely got new magic nobody else has, especially battle magic.  He says he's invented it... Fraddir says he might be telling the truth there.  That'd mean he's smart, right?

"I haven't heard he likes badgers.  Or any animals, really."

"Inventing new Magic shows some Cunning, it is True, but- If he doesn't like Badgers, he cannot be Very Smart."

(badgers cheer)

Eriape looks at the Girl with renewed interest.

"What kind of Battle Magic does he have?"

She breaks into a smile on that first response.  "Oh - badgers are wise?  Smart?"

"They didn't tell me the whole story - about the battles - but I overheard -

"He cast the whole army into fear and confusion even before anything else.  And then he threw fire over them.  And reached out at a distance to make the catapults misfire.  And - and -"

^{"- and Papa tried to be brave, they said, but the fire burned him -"}

(She's openly crying now, not even thinking about her disguise. Though when she does remember it, she'll remember that any number of girls' fathers died in that battle.)

She nods, listening to the description with Interest.

She is Crying! I should Comfort her. 

Clarabella walks over and leans against Lila, with some of her badger friends. 

"This man seems to have Good Spells. You should Learn Magic even Better than He, and Defeat Him. Since you are a Girl and you Like Badgers, you are likely to be Successful in this Endeavour."

Lila flops down sitting on the floor and cuddles the badgers up around her.

Eriape has the same Plan as Fraddir!

"Yes!  I'm trying to - or, well, I want to - Fraddir's trying to teach me, but I can't do much yet.  And he has to spend most of his time with the forge; he's making something magical for me but he hasn't told me what."

Somehow it doesn't feel right to show Eriape her invisibility ring.  That's something for enemies or the wild.  Instead, she sticks her hand in the pocket of her homespun skirt.  Yes - there're still a few lodeflower leaves there.  And that's one spell Fraddir and Selma both made her practice till she got.

"I could show you a pointing spell if you want?"

"Yes! I would like to See!"

(Editor's Note: Eriape has Permanent Arcane Sight!)

Lila takes out the lodeflower leaf.  It's not quite dried, but not fresh either; Selma had plucked it a couple days ago.  She rips it into three parts, breathes on them, and (with a whispered "pardon me" to nudge the badgers aside) sets them on the ground in an equilateral triangle.

Then she takes out a sliver of wood from her pocket.  It'd come from the door to Fraddir's cottage; Selma had made sure she'd always have it to point her way home -

- and she shakes her head.  "Oh, I'm not sure if it'll work from here.  And... even if it did work, how would it point to something in another world...  Got something I can use?  Something that comes from something else, like maybe a bit of fur from a badger?"

Eriape opens her belt-purse and digs around inside, and picks out a few things.

"This a Little Leather Sack that used to be full of Basilisk Scales, but I keep Copper Wire in it."

"This is a Horse Chestnut. I think they're Pretty. I have Preserved it Magically, though a Clever Spell of my own Devising."

"This is piece of Adamant, that I broke off a Ruined War Golem with a Mighty, but Well-Known Spell"

"This is a Rock I found on the Beach. It is Interesting, because it has a Natural Hole Straight Through."

"This is an Orb. It is Magic. I do not know whose it is, but it is not Mine."

She hands Lila a black glass ball, very heavy for its size, with tiny white sparks zipping around on the inside

She looks at the girl. "Would any of those do?"

Princess Eriape has so many fun things!

"Fun!  I think the rock and the sack might work - but I know the adamant will!"

She takes the piece of adamant, breathes on it, carefully touches it to each of the three parts of the leaf, and sets it in the middle of the triangle.   Then, she says - in another language, if Eriape notices that beneath her spell - "Find what it's from!"

The leaf-parts quiver on the floor, and then all three of them rush - like in a very small and precise wind - to cluster together at one point on one side.

"And that's the way to the war-golem!  What's a war-golem?  Do you have any of them?"

The magical flows are more like the filings drawn to a lodestone than any Golarion spell. It's a shape of magic so strange, one could not even call it sorcery, and Eriape looks closely. "A Good Spell," she opines, judiciously.

"And it is is Right! That is the way to Absalom, the greatest City of the World. I visited it as part of my Grand Tour, after I got Teleport. Outside the Walls, one can still find Great Artifacts from its many Wars, and the War Golem was one Such."

"The Golem, you see, is a Creature made from Magic and Elemental Earth. I do not have Any, because they Cannot be Enchanted to Talk, and are therefore Not as Splendid as the Badger, which can be Enchanted to Talk."

She grins, showing the black void inside her mouth. 

"Now it is My Turn. I will Cast a Very Impressive Spell!"

She [Levitates] up to a chandelier at the top of the Lair, and casts [Extended Daylight] on it.

"Behold!"

Everything suddenly gets very bright. Directly below the chandelier, there's some potted plants, in glazed black ceramic pots, decorated with little badgers playing along the rims. 

"What did you Think of That?"

Lila can't see any of the magical flow, but she likes the part she can see!

"Wow!  You can actually climb up into the air!?  And - you made the badgers Talking?"  She pets a nearby badger.  "Is that with that Obverse Power you mentioned?"

She's seen magical light - not often, but sometimes.  But she's never seen anyone flying or climbing through the air before!

"Here in Golarion, badgers in general regrettably cannot Speak as men do. I myself Enchanted my Friends here to have Mental Abilities far beyond those of the Common Man! They are all Priest-Rich in Wisdom and yet have all of a Wizard's Cunning! The one you are Cuddling is Clarabella."

Eriape pats her head, casting a spell. "And now you can [Fly]"

Lila flaps her arms like wings, testing - and her feet are off the ground!

Laughing triumphantly, she leaps into the air, circling around the top of the book pile and jumping off the blackboard and doing somersaults in midair.  Her hair is waving in her face and her skirts flapping ever which-way, but she doesn't care at all; she's FLYING!

"Thanks!  And - hey!" she calls down at Eriape and the badgers from somewhere near the ceiling.  "Wanna come fly with me?"

"I have work to do! The Eternal Badger isn't going to summon itself, you know."

Also she most certainly hasn't prepared two of the same spell. That fly is a less essential part of her personal defence kit. 

Lila hangs in the air above Eriape.

"Oh, you're still summoning it?  What're you going to do with it?  Where does it live?  And what're you going to do if you end up summoning another Pri -- uh, girl instead?"

"Oh, and - badgers, you wanna come fly with me?  I can scoop you up!  Well, one of you!"

"Me!" Harià's small enough to be picked up, and even if she's the senior wizarding badger, she's a long way away from fly. 

"Oh, summoning is Tricky. I got a Snake earlier, with a Mirror, but it just left Without Telling me where it was From! Rude if you ask Me!"

Lila swoops down and snatches up Harià, with a two-handed grab around her waist.  She flies a circle around the room, and then twirls in midair back-down, with Harià sitting on her belly.

She's not paying any attention to how long the spell might be lasting...

"Huh!" she says over her shoulder to Eriape down below.  "I know magic's tricky, but this seems like you've got so many stories!  At least if they'll talk to you!  I've never heard of any mirror-snakes like that; I wonder where they're from and what that one's doing around here!

"Is that why you're summoning them?  To hear everyone's stories?"

"I'm Honing the spell, the Same Way a Smith might Hone a Knife! If as an Archer you start Loosing Arrows at a new Target, you will Miss a Lot!"

"Oooooh!  Like when you're just starting to sew, you'll make a lot of bad stitches, but then after a while you'll have learned to do it right?  That's the same thing Fraddir's doing with his magic... that's why it's taking him so long..."

She fingers her ring, carefully not activating it.

"... But you're actually summoning people.  What're you going to do with people who aren't so happy to stick around and talk with you like me?  What if -"

A sudden horrible thought strikes her.  She squeezes Harià's leg reflexively.

"-- you do know how to send me home?  Right?"

"It will Require some Experimentation, but it will Certainly be Possible! Sending someone Away is always Easier!"

That sounds sort of like what Papa would say when he didn't know how to get her something right then - and then half the time he'd forget about it.  Or at least it wouldn't happen.

She doesn't say anything, but she still stares at Eriape worriedly.

Eriape's looks away, not quite meeting her eyes.

So Eriape doesn't know how to send her home.

This's been fun, but...

Lila imagines Selma, poor Selma, and worried Fraddir; and everyone else in Maranon groaning under Barvid's usurpation...  She's supposed to help them.

Which means she needs to be there.

She flips over, feet-down, and descends, holding the badger in her arms as she's hovering several inches above the floor.

"It's not right for you to go grabbing people if you can't get them back," Lila says.  "This's fun - I'm so glad I saw you, and you too badgers - it's great to visit, but I need to get home!  Maybe not right now.  But I can't just stay here.  I'm - I'm - I've got big things to do back home.  Against Barvid."

She's not going to just say she's a princess... at least not right now.

Though if she does say it... Maybe she's in another story now, or her story's taken a twist, with Princess Eriape as a strange new ally?

"You should've guessed that some people you summon were in the middle of something important!  I wasn't quite - I'm happy to stay for today -"

... well, maybe not now that she's thinking about it.  Selma will be wondering soon how long Lila's taking getting the water.

"- but Selma and Fraddir are going to be worried about me!  They'll be thinking Barvid got me!"

"Hey! You don't talk to the Boss like that!"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah! Who do you think you are!?"

"Yeah! You better watch your mouth!"

"Yeah! What were you doing that was so damn important!?"

"Yeah! I don't see you helping the undying badger community?"

"Yeah!"

Lila jumps up and back from the increasingly angry-looking badgers.

"Hey, nobody does everything right in the story!  I'm the Princess of Maranon, and I don't know how to save my kingdom by myself!"

She suddenly realizes what she said, and pointedly clicks her mouth shut as if she meant to say that.

"Now now, Girls, Calm Down."

"If it is That Important, I have a Very Special spell, that Always, Without Fail sends you Back to what you Came From."

(Editors note: Dismissal has a 20% failure chance)

"You do?"

She feels like all the wind's suddenly gone out of the sails of her lecture, and she's just hanging in midair.

(...which she literally is...)

"Can you - well, I don't think really want to go back right now if I can later - but Fraddir and Selma will be worried - can you maybe send them a note now to let them know I'm okay?"

"I am Very Powerful, and can Do many Things!"

"The Necessary Spell to Reach your Friends is a Sending, which Requires the Caster to have Met the Target! But I have a Brilliant Idea! I can Summon this Fraddir- that will be Just as Good!"

"Yes!"

But... wait.  As soon as Fraddir's here, he'll have ten thousand questions for Princess Eriape about her magic and about becoming undying and everything else.  And then he'll change up all his Plan, and he'll make another ring or something, and Eriape and the badgers will be helping him, and... He'll be doing it all for Lila and for her story, but...

... she wants to do something herself.

"... Or can we wait a bit?  He might still be at his magic...  Can we talk about your magic or something?  What can you do for hiding?  Or fighting?  Can I learn it?"

"I can Teleport, and Turn Men to Stone, and Create Clever Undying Badgers, and Steal your Breath so you Suffocate, and See People Far Away,....

(Editors's note: Full Spell List Elided)

"...and soon Enough I will be Able to Summon the Eternal Badger!"

Eriape glances at her. 

"You are Sure to be Able to Learn Magic! If you can Read! If you Cannot Read, it is Impossible."

"Ooh, ooh - ooh -"

Lila's excited about the first few spells there, but as Eriape continues down the list, she's increasingly ignoring her to think about what she'd do with scrying faraway people, or creating undying animals, or --  There're so many things it'd be fun to do, and so many others that'd be useful to do, and a lot of both could fit in her Story...

But she does hear the end.  "I can read!" she pipes up.  "How long does it take?  Can I learn anything this afternoon?"

"Well, you Have Met a Splendid Teacher this very Night- my Friend Haria is Skilled in a Great Plenty of Spells, and a Great Teacher of Secrets!"

"Yes! I am Very Good!"

"Ooh, you can do magic too!?"

Lila buries her hand in Haria's fur.

"How do I start?"

Haria wiggles. "You will need a Spellbook! Then you can Learn the Script Therein, which we use to Represent the Strange Shapes of Magic! Once you Know those Shapes well Enough, and can see them In Your Head- it Takes a Long Time- you can cast Spells!"

"Ooh, a magic book of my own!  I haven't had any since - since things went bad."

She used to love storybooks, when she was sitting in her rooms with nothing more interesting to do, wishing to be in a story of her own.  Selma didn't let her pack any, though, so now all she has are Fraddir's magic books and two dry histories.

"How long does it take!?  A week?  Two weeks?"

"It depends on how Clever you are. They Say Aroden, a Local Wizard who Lived Hereabouts, learnt it All in a Single Week. It took me Somewhat Longer" twenty years "but I have only Paws to Write With. The Great Lady Eriape was Very Patient."

She looks around at all Princess Eriape's projects in the room.  Fraddir has just one Project, and look at how much patience it's taken him.  If Princess Eriape's got so many projects going on... she must have a whole lot of patience.

"If it might take me a whole week... maybe I can look at the magic book and then maybe get started on something else first?"

Oh, and there's something else.  As a Princess herself (even though she doesn't look like it anymore), she feels Responsible to call out - "And why're you calling her just Lady Eriape when she's said she's a Princess?"

"We have Been Friends for Fifty Years! Does your Friend Fraddir call you Princess?"

"There are Magic Items! Clarabella has Boots that lets Her Teleport. Eriape has a Magic Dagger that Stabs by Itself. I have a Hat for Secret Missions that makes me Look Different!"

"No, but I thought Fraddir wasn't doing it because we're all supposed to be in disguise..."

She trails off for a moment.  Fraddir looks like he wants to use her full name and title, but she never asked herself whether she wanted to be called by her full name and title all the time.  Suddenly, she's not sure.  Just the simple "Lila" makes her feel... like things are different.  Like she's in a more exciting story.

"For fifty years... wait, are you Undying too?"

"They all are! I Spent a lot of Time on It! Fifty Years to Make Badgers Smart and Undying! A good use of Time! I have so Many Friends now! Forever!"

"Fifty years!  But - wow!"  She throws her arms around Haria.  "And is that how they can talk too!?  And read and do magic?"

She twirls the magic ring on her own finger, reflexively avoiding the twist that would turn it active.

"I spent much Time in a Quest to Discover" (in the vivisected brain of a very unlucky druid) "The Means to Awakening the Badger! This Spell, which out of All the Wizards in the World only I can Cast, is my Greatest Work!"

"Yes it is so great!  How'd you pick who to awaken?  And -" she looks down at Harià "- how does it feel?"

"I found an island far away, where there lived only peaceful little birds that could not fly. They were not Interesting, so I imported some Badgers. Now there's many colonies of Badgers there, and I go there every few years, and pick a particularly strong and wise Badger to make of them Undying."

That sounds like a great story!  Cuddly badgers and cute birds on an island living together!

"Fun!  What does it mean for a badger to be wise?  If she can't talk yet or do magic?"

She looks over at Haria as she asks the question.

"Being an Animal that Cannot Think is Horrible. You are always Aware that there are Many Things you don't understand and that are Scary, like Thunderstorms, Being Hungry, and Strange Sounds. Even on Badger Island, where there are No Predators of the Badger and Many Delicious Moles to Eat. Eriape makes as many of us Clever and Undying as she can Afford! Being undying is not as Comfortable, but I am no longer Scared all the time."

"I use Spells to Determine the Best Badger!"

Wait a minute... lots of moles to eat... an island of flightless birds...  She suddenly remembers one time in the castle when a bird had hurt its wing in the courtyard, and it wasn't long before one of the cats got it.  She hopes there're still some of those flightless birds left.

And that bird must've been really scared.

"I didn't know all the animals are having such a horrible time.  I'm trying to be nice to the animals in the forest - especially with my magic ring - is there anything I can do to really help?  Should I just learn more magic?"

"Yes! Learn more Magic! Eventually you can Learn Awaken!"

"Yes! Learn more Magic! Also you should be Nice to the Badgers in the Forest! Give them Snacks!"

"I'll try.  What sort of snacks do badgers like?"

"Soft Boiled Eggs"

"Hazelnuts!"

"Moles"

"A fresh Cat"

"Ham"

"Oh, hazelnuts, I can find those -"

"- wait, you eat cats?  Fresh?  Does that mean live and still meowing?"

"They are Better when they are Dead. Less Clawing."