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Ehail blinks, when she finds the bar instead of her room.
She goes in.
She looks out the window, at the exploding things.
"I don't think this is my planet," she observes to herself, tucking silver hair behind her ear.
nonbird
"I don't actually know," says Lazarus. "I know they come in coins and I know the coins come from people who make coins but I don't know how you produce them."
prima-sequentem
"Coins are made out of pain," says Libby. "Which is why it might be relevant how much it hurts to be most of a dragon. Normally, coins being made out of pain is a significant limiting factor, because there aren't many people willing to make them who I'm willing to trust with the ability, and the ones who fit both those criteria aren't willing to make very many. But from what you've said, if I gave you the ability to make coins, you'd have a much easier time of it coming up with enough of them to complete a lot of dragons."
"Oh. Yes. I mean, as long as it's not something about the pain that we don't have any more, like - paying attention to it or caring. Then it wouldn't work."
nonbird
"I still haven't seen anyone make a coin," Lazarus points out. "But I'd guess the same way you'd guess. For however much that's worth."
prima-sequentem
"I will be a lot happier about trying to solve your problem if I'm spending coins you create without much trouble instead of taking them out of my limited and limitedly renewable supply. But once I give you the ability to make coins, I can't take it away again," she says. "So if I do, I'd like you to think very carefully about how else you use it. Wishes can do a lot of things, and it's important to use them responsibly. Does that seem reasonable?"
"Yes, I suppose so. I'm a wizard," Ehail adds. "I'm not a very good wizard, but when I'm at home I can cast spells that can also do a lot of things. Except not this thing. I haven't gotten anywhere trying."
prima-sequentem
"Maybe wishes can do something wizards can't. All right," she says. "Coins come in five varieties that I know of. I have them named for the number of points in their shape; the higher the number, the more powerful the coin. Four of them are simple - threes, fours, fives, and sixes."
On each word, a dark purple coin appears in her hand, and she sets them out in a row on Lazarus's coffee table - triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, each with a hole through the centre.
"Sevens are different." She shows Ehail a dark purple seven-pointed star, but vanishes it again without putting it down. "The other kinds of coin are safe to use as far as I can tell, but without special preparation, wishing on a seven can have disastrous consequences. I've heard of things like someone losing the left half of their body, or exploding with enough force to destroy the house they were standing in at the time. I know how to safely use a seven, but because they're the most powerful kind of coin, I try to make sure that as few other people as possible find out."
On each word, a dark purple coin appears in her hand, and she sets them out in a row on Lazarus's coffee table - triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, each with a hole through the centre.
"Sevens are different." She shows Ehail a dark purple seven-pointed star, but vanishes it again without putting it down. "The other kinds of coin are safe to use as far as I can tell, but without special preparation, wishing on a seven can have disastrous consequences. I've heard of things like someone losing the left half of their body, or exploding with enough force to destroy the house they were standing in at the time. I know how to safely use a seven, but because they're the most powerful kind of coin, I try to make sure that as few other people as possible find out."
prima-sequentem
Libby smiles slightly. "I like to think so. All right. I think the most sensible order of operations here would be to design a wish, see if small change" (she gestures to the row of coins on the table) "will do the trick, and if not, I'll make you a mint - someone who can create wishcoins - and see if you can produce them easily enough to be happier about forking over a seven than my next best source."
"I don't - think I'll be able to tell, if it works, without trying to fly," says Ehail. "If you even want to test it on me instead of someone else. I guess we would have to wait for the door to that place to come back to get anyone else though."
nonbird
"Well... there's a kind of magic that dragons and most-of-dragons have," he says, "and it comes in amounts. If you have a dragon amount you are a dragon, and if you have a little tiny bit less than that you are most of a dragon, and if you have even less you are dead. And apparently there are dragons with more than the regular dragon amount, but I haven't met any of those. There's also some complicated stuff going on with Ehail's magic besides it being a most-of-a-dragon amount, and I think those are most-of-a-dragon things - it's sort of - continually slurping up something that is definitely not the right kind of magic from something that isn't here, to cover the gap between the amount it has and the dragon amount, and the doing-thatness of it is sticky. You said you're contagious, right?" he asks Ehail. "I think I might understand how. So my guess is that in order to properly make her the rest of a dragon, you'd have to fill in the gap with the exact right kind of magic, and stop the slurping, and ideally also ward against the possibility of someone else's slurping getting stuck on later because it definitely looks like that is how the contagiousness works."
prima-sequentem
"I see," says Libby. "All right. I think that's enough to be going on with."
She touches each coin on the table in turn, briefly. Three, four, five, six.
"No dice. Somehow I expected that," she remarks, scooping up the row of coins and returning all but the six to whatever mysterious form of storage she took them out of in the first place. "All right. Still want to try minting, Ehail?"
She touches each coin on the table in turn, briefly. Three, four, five, six.
"No dice. Somehow I expected that," she remarks, scooping up the row of coins and returning all but the six to whatever mysterious form of storage she took them out of in the first place. "All right. Still want to try minting, Ehail?"
"If it will help," repeats Ehail.
One might almost develop the impression that she's not in the habit of forming wants for other reasons.
One might almost develop the impression that she's not in the habit of forming wants for other reasons.
prima-sequentem
One might indeed develop that impression.
The six-pointed coin vanishes out of Libby's hand.
The six-pointed coin vanishes out of Libby's hand.
prima-sequentem
"The procedure for making coins is to experience an amount of pain and then move it across your mind," says Libby. "It's also helpful to be thinking about where you want the coin to appear - it will be somewhere in physical contact with your body, but exactly where is up to you. Hands are usually convenient."
prima-sequentem
"The amount that produces a three is very small - it might not be the exact minimum of pain it's possible for a person to experience, but it's close to it," she says. "You don't need a knife."