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Two girls are moving their hands through the air and speaking together in perfect parallel.
Two girls are looking expectantly at a circle of red chalk on their floor.
Two girls have done something exceptionally stupid.
Nick in Elcenia
"I do both. Shapeshifting is all dragons, mind magic is just me," says Keo sunnily.
The lift comes to a stop and opens onto a cafeteria crowded with children.
The lift comes to a stop and opens onto a cafeteria crowded with children.
"Ah, so naturally you look like something else. That could have interesting navigational uses if your weight changes as well." Nick walks up to the rows of food. "Ooh, meat." He has some of anything that contains meat or seafood (which he recognizes as more meat).
"My weight does change, but I seldom need to navigate like you do," she points out dryly. She helps herself to a few foods too. There's lots of meat available; if he wants rabbit and beef and chicken and pork and tuna and shrimp he can get it.
"I have no idea how things work on solid land, but in Cloudbank you always think about weight and lift. You dream about it. I can't just turn that off."
He does want all those kinds of meat, and he takes a chicken egg as well.
"I can rarely afford fresh meat. This is going to be delicious."
He does want all those kinds of meat, and he takes a chicken egg as well.
"I can rarely afford fresh meat. This is going to be delicious."
"It's not particularly hard to come by here. We have to have it available for the leonine students even if everyone else were vegetarian; they're carnivorous," says Keo.
"And someone mentioned conjuring iron. If I ever go back I want about ten tons of the stuff - metal is extremely rare at home. Rare enough that it's hard to make proper tools. A lot of people's lives would be a lot easier with a little steel."
"That will be easy enough, although it'll probably be necessary to send it in batches rather than draw an enormous circle," says Keo agreeably.
"I don't suppose magic can be exported, too? From what I saw of your office, there's easily a dozen kinds here."
"Not a dozen," says Keo. "Well, depending on how you count, I guess, but anyway - most forms of magic you have to be born with. Wizardry won't work in your world at all even if you import wizards. It is possible you could use witchcraft but I wouldn't count on it."
"It's a school of wizardry, but you probably can't learn it, it's unlikely you have a channeling capacity."
Sigh. "Come on, fate. If you're going to summon me to a strange world and sink my ship, at least give me some magic in return."
He finishes his meat, apart from a few scraps. "Okay, so where's the compost bin? And where am I going to sleep?"
He finishes his meat, apart from a few scraps. "Okay, so where's the compost bin? And where am I going to sleep?"
"To recycle food into fertilizer. I guess you don't need it if you have more than bare rocks to grow plants on."
"Convenient. This is a surprisingly relaxing place to be irreversibly summoned against my will to, you know."
"Which is probably a good thing for all concerned. Are you particularly busy? I know I couldn't have left my ship alone this long even if it weren't about to hit something - show me a place to sleep and give me shopping money and directions to a store and I'll get out of your hair."