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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"So you get used to it before it happens to you in a real war."

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"I'd think you would want people who were thinking about becoming soldiers to think it was very glorious."

" - but then they'll get out there and learn what it's really like."

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"Well... yes, but if you make them sick ahead of time then nobody will want to be one."

"If they were the type to quit once they learned it was awful then they'd quit their first month anyway. Better not to waste anyone's time."

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"I guess that makes sense. Is there anything about gloriousness in there to get people interested in the first place or no?"

"Not gloriousness, really, I don't think. There's things about - saving lives and protecting your family and being brave and not letting other people suffer and die for you while you sit comfortably at home?"

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Qiri nods.

"War isn't glorious but it's necessary and good. Sort of like farming."

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"That's a kind of weird comparison."

"I mean compared to the jobs people do because they're fun all the time, like glassblowing or gardening, and the jobs people do so that people will admire them, like composing and inventing."

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"Isn't gardening like farming?"

"I don't think so. Gardens are prettier than farms so being in a garden all day is much nicer."

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"...just because it's pretty?"

"...yeah?"

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"But you still have to - do all the same things, the job is about the same. I guess maybe you don't plow gardens and don't have livestock in them? Do Elves hate livestock?"