combinatorial explosion | Glowfic Constellation

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The strangers have six casters, in their group, that Qiri can count. Qiri's group has four counting him, and they got split up awhile ago when the strangers started that earthquake. Qiri is stuck with Master Huo. Master Huo is dying, but since Qiri is chained up he can't use that to escape, or attack Master Huo. The master's magic is uninjured, and he can reach Qiri's from where he lies, and Qiri is sitting there, goosepimpled, enduring it. He wonders if Master Huo might be in enough pain to distract him, if Qiri tried to wrench his magic away, but he doesn't think so. He can squirm around a fair bit under Master Yu and Master Zao if only one of them is using him for a spell - and if he wants to earn himself a beating - but not Huo.

He doesn't get nauseous anymore, like he did when he was a kid. So there's that.

Huo's casting a healing spell, moving Qiri's magic around this way and that to set it up. Qiri assumes it's going to target Master Huo, but spells don't know who anyone is. Qiri can't distract himself, not with his spine tingling and all his magic cringing under the slide of Huo's. Instead he tries to concentrate on something less directly sensory: how's the spell targeting? How is Huo going to make sure it heals him, and not Qiri's irritated skin under where the chains sit, the injuries to his fingers from the last time he irritated Master Yu, the probably broken toe sustained in the earthquake?

He figures it out when the spell is probably almost over: it's going to target the most injured person, and Qiri is a little banged up but Master Huo's got an arrow to the gut and a slice through his thigh that's probably going to bleed him out before the abdominal wound can kill him. It's objectively pretty impressive that he can concentrate enough to make his magic force Qiri's through the motions he wants.

Then, dimly around the cloying sensation of Huo's magic over his, Qiri notices a group of the stranger mages approaching, standing close together, back to back to back, doing something -

And he and Huo are banished somewhere else.

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She opens the door. There are four guards there, two against this wall and two against the other.

" - he's not a prisoner, right -"

"Bit complicated. I can ask if you'd like to do something in particular."

"We want to go exploring."

The guard winces. "That's a bit open-ended."

"You can't just leave him in there being bored -"

"Lord Maedhros visited."

"That's worse."

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"He's a scary guy."

"He's mad," the girl says in a conspiratorial whisper. "The Enemy did it."

"That's enough," says one of the guards a little sharply.

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Qiri takes a step back into his room.

"You scared him," the girl says reproachfully.

"You are saying things you don't understand."

"Lord Maedhros asked me to be here."

"To deliver food!"

"He's lonely!"

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"Maybe, uh, there's something I could do to pass the time in here."

"I guess we could watch a movie."

"That sounds like a great idea," says the guard.

She shuts the door. "They're really not scary, you don't have to let them scare you. ...Lord Maedhros really is scary, but everyone else is just people."

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"I'm not sure how to not let people scare me. What's a movie?"

"It's a story on the screens. I guess I don't mean don't let them scare you I mean - are you scared of a thing? Besides them saying things sternly?"

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"Uh, it seems like you don't work how my masters worked but that means I don't know how you work instead."

"In a war zone you do what soldiers say without asking. In a city you don't actively go doing things they're saying not to do, but you can argue, they don't always have a good reason or even care that much and there are hardly any children so they're very vulnerable to children making sad faces at them. How'd your masters work?"

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"Uh, they told me what to do and if I didn't do it like they wanted they'd beat me."

"Soldiers won't beat you if you break rules. They'll just stop you and explain why you shouldn't." His viewscreen has started scrolling through movie posters.

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He watches movie posters go by. "This is a story? I can't even really read in Yisi."

"Nah it's a list of the stories we could watch. What's your favorite kind of story?"

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"Um, my favorite stories from home are Divine Tiaobu stories but I bet you don't have those."

"No but if you tell me what they're about I could pick something similar?"

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"They're about Tiaobu, who started my religion, which is also called Tiaobu, and how he figured out the Holy Knowledge and defeated evil things and stuff. There's better and worse ones, my favorite is one where he meets a talking fish."

"Hmmm. We could do the story of Oromë meeting the Elves?"

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"Sure! Will it make sense if I don't know who that is?"

"I think so. He's our god. Mostly the Noldor's god, really, I haven't met him." She stops on one of the pictures.

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"What's a Noldor?"

"When Oromë came he took some Elves back to Valinor with him. The rest of us stayed here, on this world, Endorë, and there used to be many nations of us. They've mostly fallen to Melkor, except Doriath and no one is allowed to go to Doriath. The Noldor came from Valinor to fight him, and they had the knowledge of the Valar, so they've held out longer. They took us in. Well, not me, I hadn't been born yet.

Lord Maedhros is Noldor, and his brother Lord Curufin who did the language, and the soldiers outside."

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"How come Lord Maedhros sent you with lunch?"