"Okay, but seriously don't tell anyone, it'll wreck everything. I've been publishing research papers under a pseudonym for several years because I'm a hundred sixty and that's adolescent for dragons and no one will take me seriously if I do it as myself. I need this theory not to be too strongly connected with my real identity yet."

"I understand completely," the six-year-old unicorn assures him.

"Thought you might. Okay, so the theory is called Lialenan matter theory and it supposes that shapeshifting involves storing our alternative shapes in a semi-dormant state in an attached world-of-sorts that I named Lialen for mythology reasons. Right now I'm in my human form, but if I stay in it for a year and never turn back to my natural one in that time, I will find after that year that my natural shape has grown and healed from any injuries it had and so on. If I tuck away physical objects - like, if I shifted now, my clothes would go away with my human shape, they wouldn't be destroyed or anything - then they'll come back when I resume the form. Etcetera. Shifting is truly instantaneous once the intention to do it is formed correctly, like teleporting or summoning is when the spell is completed and unlike any spell that actually changes a thing itself - a color change takes a tiny fraction of a split to happen, but it still takes that period of time, for instance."

"I see," says Blueberry. "That is interesting. So if worlds come in types, Lialen is a different type from Elcenia and the one where Equestria is."

"Yes. I mean, if I'm right. It's all extremely theoretical stuff. I tried summoning something from Lialen, didn't work."

"I wonder why it didn't. Did you try scrying, too? Was there anything remotely informative about the way it failed?"

"I did try scrying. The spell didn't fail outright, but apparently, it's very dark there. The summon just didn't work at all."

"Hmmm... if you knew someone who had an alternate shape that glowed, you could try scrying that... unicorns only glow sometimes, so that won't work. But there's creatures that glow all the time, I think."

"That depends on them still glowing all the time in Lialen. I'm pretty sure that shapes in Lialen don't breathe, they definitely don't eat or drink, it could easily also be that they don't glow."

"Any shapes? No matter what kind of creature it is or how they usually go about glowing? That seems worth investigating, at least."

"Maybe, but my pseudonym identity isn't a dragon, so I can't really have him petition the dragon council for experimental volunteers," sighs Kaylo.

"Could I petition the dragon council for experimental volunteers? Or - I bet I could find a unicorn spell that makes things glow and cast it on one of your shapes and see if you can scry it then. That would at least be a start."

"I don't think the dragon council will talk to you, as you are not a dragon or even a thudia. But feel absolutely free to attempt to glow my dragon shape so I can scry on it while I've got hands to cast with."

"Does the dragon council not talk to people who aren't dragons? Why not?"

"It's not what they're for. They're a dragons-only sort of deal, to coordinate the species for species-relevant things."

"It's species-relevant that you happen to be the only species that can deliberately turn into glowing creatures to be scried in Lialen - isn't it? Are you? It doesn't really get any more or less species-relevant depending on whether or not whoever thinks of it can find a dragon to talk to the dragon council about it for them, anyway."

"I mean - yes, it is species-relevant that that, but they're not set up to take requests from non-dragons. If you want to talk to them about something dragon-relevant you go through a dragon, and I don't want me and my dragony-ness too close to Lialen theory. They figure if you can't find any dragons to pass up the message it can't be that important."

"That's very silly of them," says Blueberry. "But I suppose I'm not likely to convince them of that. Anyway, a glowing spell shouldn't be too hard, I'll look one up when I get home. Ideally one that stays on once it's cast and doesn't need active maintenance, but can be turned off afterward. It would probably be inconvenient if you just went around glowing forever."

"A little bit. I mostly just use my dragon shape to fly and breathe fire occasionally, it wouldn't be that big a deal, but yes, one that you can turn off would improve the situation. When you're home can you also look up that stuff about other creatures turning into unicorns? Dragons don't get species-specific magic from, say, vampires if we turn into those, but since their magic is also shapeshifting it's hard to be sure why."

"Yes, I'll do that too. Are there wizard spells that - oh, but they'd probably break when you switched - hmm. Do wizard spells on people break when they switch shapes?"

"No, they remain active, but on whatever shape's in use - like, if you put a sunscreen spell on a vampire they will still be sunscreened in bat shape and still be sunscreened in humanoid shape again."

"Hmmmm. What if you cast a spell on a specific part of a person? Like, I don't know... making the end of your nose glow?"

"Sometimes that'll fall apart - oh, you know what's a good example of that, there's this ultra-basic one-trick spell called the Lanfen trace, it makes the tip of your right forefinger leave a glowing white trail wherever you move it until you reverse the spell. If I shift while that's on, my natural form doesn't have fingers per se and the spell breaks."

"Aha. Hmm... actually, you said you could take objects with you, what about if they're glowing objects?"

"That'd be a good thing to try, I can get a lamp or something and tuck it and check that, see if it still glows - it might not, but it's an easy test."