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It's an ordinary afternoon in the Koskin household. Solvei is nestled amid the remains of a demolished blanket fort; her sisters are a few feet away on the other side of a ruined pillow-wall, sharing a book.
"Hey," she says suddenly. "Let's be magical girls."
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"Okay, what do we know about magical girls?" says Solvei, sitting up so she can see her sisters over the pillows. "They're girls, usually. We've got that part covered."
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"Leaving Ravni's gender identity aside for the moment: Usually Girls, check. Teenagers, also check. We're a little young but that just means we have more time to plan. Okay, what's the next criterion?"
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"The desire to do good...?" Eithrun shakes her head. "If that was all it took, we'd be magical girls already, come on. Or at least you would."
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"Perhaps the mysterious forces at work here perceive more of a distinction between doing good and causing mayhem than our dear sister," Ravni suggests.
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"All right, all right!" Solvei grins and leans toward her sisters. "Þainneið."
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"All right, congratulations, you have found the most plausible way I can think of for a bunch of thirteen-year-olds to become magical girls," says Ravni. "Who here happens to have the text of the þainneið memorized? For once, not me."
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"We can look it up. Anyway, I want to reword it a little, because I don't plan to focus exclusively on Thule. So, 'I take as my charge this planet...'"
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"I wonder if it's on Google," says Eithrun. She reaches over and hauls the nearest laptop - Ravni's - into the pillow-ruin.
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Ravni Googles.
"Good old English Wikipedia," she says, passing the computer to Solvei and shifting over so she can watch her sister type.
"Good old English Wikipedia," she says, passing the computer to Solvei and shifting over so she can watch her sister type.
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Solvei starts transcribing an altered version of the oath into a text document.
"I don't want anybody left behind, so nobody say it until we're all agreed on the wording and then we all say it together, okay?"
"I don't want anybody left behind, so nobody say it until we're all agreed on the wording and then we all say it together, okay?"
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"Agreed," says Eithrun, settling in beside Ravni with a slightly worse view of the composition in progress. "...So, 'Earth' for 'Thule', yeah?"
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"Definitely. If I could think of a succinct and poetic way to make it 'this entire universe and any others that might also exist', I would," says Solvei.
She finishes typing and angles the screen so her sisters can read it easily.
She finishes typing and angles the screen so her sisters can read it easily.
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"All right," says Solvei. "Ready?"
She glances at them to see their simultaneous nods, and then returns her focus to the screen, feeling her sisters' attention on her. When she speaks, they read along in perfect unison.
"I take as my charge this planet and its people," they recite in Thulic, "and I swear none shall go hungry that my hand can feed, and none shall be killed that my hand can protect. With this oath I become a thane of Earth, servant to no one and friend to all. May I never forget my duty."
Solvei says the words with focus and sincerity, letting nothing distract her from the intensity of her desire for magic, for the power to do things. She wants to be a thane when she grows up, wants to uphold the Koskin name and do what's right, wants it with the full force of her inherited Koskin stubbornness—and she can't take her true þainneið until her sixteenth birthday minimum, but she can invent this amended version and take it and be a magical girl right now. And she will. It will work. She will allow no less.
She glances at them to see their simultaneous nods, and then returns her focus to the screen, feeling her sisters' attention on her. When she speaks, they read along in perfect unison.
"I take as my charge this planet and its people," they recite in Thulic, "and I swear none shall go hungry that my hand can feed, and none shall be killed that my hand can protect. With this oath I become a thane of Earth, servant to no one and friend to all. May I never forget my duty."
Solvei says the words with focus and sincerity, letting nothing distract her from the intensity of her desire for magic, for the power to do things. She wants to be a thane when she grows up, wants to uphold the Koskin name and do what's right, wants it with the full force of her inherited Koskin stubbornness—and she can't take her true þainneið until her sixteenth birthday minimum, but she can invent this amended version and take it and be a magical girl right now. And she will. It will work. She will allow no less.