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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.
Isabella in Elcenia
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"We aren't supposed to summon anyone," says Korulen, "and we screwed it up, I have to tell my mom -"
"Don't -"
"We can't send her we can't unsummon her we can't keep her in our room forever!"
"Don't -"
"We can't send her we can't unsummon her we can't keep her in our room forever!"
kaolinandbone
"So let me out! I have some magic myself: if I can find the right location it's possible I might be able to send myself back."
"Oh no we can't let you out absolutely not," says Korulen. "I have to tell my mom and she can check you out but we can't."
kaolinandbone
"...and you are obeying this rule when you were so eager to break all those other ones, because...?"
"Not letting you out is a safety protocol," murmurs the brown girl, while Korulen closes her eyes.
kaolinandbone
"Yes, you need to be kept safe from the fourteen-year-old girl who just wants to go home. Clearly I am a massive threat to your entire universe."
She puts a gentle push into her voice- just enough to make herself a bit more persuasive. Assuming it carries past the wards. Assuming the wards don't decide to flare and blare alarm sirens or something. She's getting tired enough of these two incompetents that it's worth the risk.
She puts a gentle push into her voice- just enough to make herself a bit more persuasive. Assuming it carries past the wards. Assuming the wards don't decide to flare and blare alarm sirens or something. She's getting tired enough of these two incompetents that it's worth the risk.
Korulen's roommate does not react.
Korulen opens her eyes.
The door opens to reveal a young woman with green hair.
"I'm sorry, Mom," whispers Korulen.
(They don't look much alike. And Korulen looks too old to be this woman's daughter.)
Korulen opens her eyes.
The door opens to reveal a young woman with green hair.
"I'm sorry, Mom," whispers Korulen.
(They don't look much alike. And Korulen looks too old to be this woman's daughter.)
kaolinandbone
"Hello. I assume you're these two's guardian, teacher, or some such?"
"I'm the school's headmaster's wife, and this one," she indicates Korulen, "is my daughter. They're correct that they cannot send you straight home; getting you out of the circle is another matter. May I have your consent for a minimally invasive scan of your mind to check that you aren't dangerous?"
kaolinandbone
Isabella bites her lip. "Nnnnn. I am opposed to having my mind read, in general. What specifically would you be looking at?" She blinks. "Oh, and I'm Isabella. Properly Lady Isabella, but my title is in another universe so I see no point in standing on formality."
"I can skip it, but if we can't confirm that you're at least relatively harmless, you need to stay behind your ward," the green-haired woman says. "I'd just be checking to see if you were inclined to harm anyone or break local laws in a way that would be more inconvenient to deal with than looking after you in the circle would be."
kaolinandbone
"Yes, I understand that that's the purpose of the check. I'm asking what specifically you would be looking at to determine that. Memories, personality traits? Does your spell report back a yes-no answer to you, or do you 'hear' my surface thoughts, or what? I care much more about you looking into my personal history than about you just skimming off the top of my brain."
"I won't be retrieving any of your episodic memory. This isn't a spell, it's a natural ability I have, and it's much more fine-grained than answers to binary questions. I won't see anything I'm not looking for."
kaolinandbone
Isabella eyes the green-haired woman speculatively. "Well, then. I suppose that I'm no worse off if you decide not to let me out because of what's in my mind than because I refuse to be tested. Go ahead, do the thing."
The thing doesn't feel like anything. After a moment Keo shoos the girls out of the room, telling them to go see the headmaster; they bolt.
Keo sits in one of their chairs. "Well," she says. "You aren't exactly poised to go on a rampage. But neither do you seem like a guaranteed placid law-abiding guest or a highly reliable keeper of promises to strangers, and you have some offworld abilities that are not within conventional law enforcement's usual repertoire. So there's three basic options for what you can do with the year or two it will take to get you home. One, you stay in the circle. This means somebody has to push food in for you several times a day and so on, but the girls are going to be assigned disciplinary details anyway. You could get books to read and music to listen to, we can move Korulen and Saasnil out of this room so you could have privacy, but there's no way to expand the size of the ward, so you wouldn't be able to move around much.
"Two, you get let out of the circle and you are of your own accord scrupulously well-behaved - we put together a list of all the particular problems you could cause, and periodically you tell somebody under lie detection that you haven't done any of those things, and if you have, we have a problem.
"Three, you get let out of the circle with a mental block installed, temporary until you go home, so that you can't do any of those things in the first place, which requires some work from me personally up front but makes it much less likely that I'll find myself needing to undo various... misunderstandings... months from now.
"I won't go for option three at all without your say-so, but if you can't convince me that option two is safe for my students, innocent bystanders, etcetera, then the fact that I might be the only person who could competently undo some of your misdemeanors starts making option one look attractive by comparison."
Keo sits in one of their chairs. "Well," she says. "You aren't exactly poised to go on a rampage. But neither do you seem like a guaranteed placid law-abiding guest or a highly reliable keeper of promises to strangers, and you have some offworld abilities that are not within conventional law enforcement's usual repertoire. So there's three basic options for what you can do with the year or two it will take to get you home. One, you stay in the circle. This means somebody has to push food in for you several times a day and so on, but the girls are going to be assigned disciplinary details anyway. You could get books to read and music to listen to, we can move Korulen and Saasnil out of this room so you could have privacy, but there's no way to expand the size of the ward, so you wouldn't be able to move around much.
"Two, you get let out of the circle and you are of your own accord scrupulously well-behaved - we put together a list of all the particular problems you could cause, and periodically you tell somebody under lie detection that you haven't done any of those things, and if you have, we have a problem.
"Three, you get let out of the circle with a mental block installed, temporary until you go home, so that you can't do any of those things in the first place, which requires some work from me personally up front but makes it much less likely that I'll find myself needing to undo various... misunderstandings... months from now.
"I won't go for option three at all without your say-so, but if you can't convince me that option two is safe for my students, innocent bystanders, etcetera, then the fact that I might be the only person who could competently undo some of your misdemeanors starts making option one look attractive by comparison."
kaolinandbone
"So effectively, my choices are to live in a space the size of a closet, be interrogated weekly, or undergo psychic surgery. How wonderful."
She sighs. "May I have some time to think, at least? The circle isn't going anywhere, especially if you expect it to hold for years."
She sighs. "May I have some time to think, at least? The circle isn't going anywhere, especially if you expect it to hold for years."
"Of course. If you think my name - it's 'Keo' - very hard, then I'll pick it up and we can talk. About that, or about any more immediately pressing needs you might have."
kaolinandbone
Isabella settles into a cross-legged position on the floor, leaning back against the slippery-but-nonetheless-there wall that the ward provides. She carefully places the faded parasol across her lap, then closes her eyes and stills her breath.
Well. If it's true that it'll take years for her to be released, being in this circle full-time will lead to... awkwardness. Though it might not lead to less awkwardness if she were allowed outside it.
... She needs to learn more about this world, if she's going to make any kind of informed decision. She ought to have asked the green woman for an encyclopedia.
Well, she can't have gone far. Let's try this 'pointed thinking' option.
Keo?
Well. If it's true that it'll take years for her to be released, being in this circle full-time will lead to... awkwardness. Though it might not lead to less awkwardness if she were allowed outside it.
... She needs to learn more about this world, if she's going to make any kind of informed decision. She ought to have asked the green woman for an encyclopedia.
Well, she can't have gone far. Let's try this 'pointed thinking' option.
Keo?
Mm?
Keo is in fact still in the room, but seems just as happy to converse like so.
Keo is in fact still in the room, but seems just as happy to converse like so.
kaolinandbone
Isabella opens her eyes, a little sheepishly.
"I asked the girls earlier for a local encyclopedia. Would you happen to have such a thing? Also, it'd be nice to have a cushion or a chair in here; while I can sit seiza-style, it'd be much more comfortable with some furniture."
"I asked the girls earlier for a local encyclopedia. Would you happen to have such a thing? Also, it'd be nice to have a cushion or a chair in here; while I can sit seiza-style, it'd be much more comfortable with some furniture."
"I can get you a chair - an entire encyclopedia might crowd you; do you want it all at once?"
kaolinandbone
Isabella shrugs. "Well, if you can think of a better way to do a fast introduction to the local world, I'm all ears... Oh, there's a thought. How about an atlas? Oh, and before any of that, we need to get this spilt tea out of here." She nudges the overturned cup with one red-shoed foot.
"I'll have the girls set up circles for calling and pushing to move things in and out. Korulen's getting you an encyclopedia right now."
kaolinandbone
"That sounds excellent. How long would you expect it to take? Oh, and while we're modifying the circle, may I ask why you can't expand it beyond its current rather-cramped proportions?"
"You should have your books and chair, and be rid of your tea, within an angle, perhaps two. The ward isn't designed to be expansible. If we could break it with spellwork, we'd be able to break the spell on you entirely - this is still worth trying, but it's not likely to work - so it's stuck. We could in theory put a similar-quality ward around this entire room instead of the circle one, but that would make it very difficult to put anyone else close enough to the chalk to smudge it - the quality of ward in question would prevent someone who was pushed in from leaving by any means."