Even intimidating-looking cryptids are rarely dangerous, especially to magical girls, so when Dusk finds a giant snake with a mirror for a face in the park at half past midnight, she's not too worried.
She hasn't had a chance to see if her telepathy works with cryptids, yet, so she tries it, sending a friendly greeting - and she's promptly eaten. How rude.
Her name is Dusk Glory. She won't mind if people are curious but she'd rather not be touched by strangers.
She takes the basket, dismisses the chairs, swaps her wings for her more customary ones, and follows.
"That's quite a name! I like it."
Gorvan Mills walks calmly into the central area, tells everyone he sees that he's giving their visitor, Dusk Glory, a tour of the art rooms to start, and she prefers not to be touched so be mindful of that. Someone asks him if Dusk Glory is going to be staying here and whether she'll go to the school, and he says 'that's a bit premature at the moment, we'll see what looks reasonable'.
"That was one of the teachers. Hila. She teaches students older than about ten until we figure out what job suits them and they go learn from someone who does that job most of the time."
The buildings are neatly laid out and clean, all bundled up near each other in a small area in the center, with small gardens and green areas here and there. There's a few murals on the walls, nature scenes - including the strange critters that are natural here.
That's cool. She was learning about technology and can probably continue on her own a little bit but she'd like to know how things are made here, too, and might pick something up in that area.
"That's one of the things we focus on most when teaching. I know we can't match the technology of Earth, though - there's too much lost knowledge, and metal is very scarce even besides that."
He indicates a certain building. "Most of the art rooms are in here. We have fabric art, paints, sculpting and carving, a little library and writing area, a music room, and papercrafts."
Not having metal is a problem, you really can't do much without it.
Can they go in and see what people have been working on?
They go into the painting room. It's an open space with easels, chairs, and a few tables, plus shelves, cabinets, and a couple of sinks. Natural light is coming in along the walls somehow. A man is painting something impressionistic, lots of silver and grey, what looks like the tall spires of an imagined city.
"Hello, Dorian. Don't mind us - this is Dusk Glory. A lost visitor. I'm giving her the grand tour."
Dorian nods. "...Wings?"
"They're not dangerous, the thing that created them is under control."
"Ah. Good. Well, nice to see someone new."
"Thank you. I wasn't sure whether to do the background red, or more green... Mars is supposed to be red, but they also say they turned it green under the domes."
She's from an Earth, but her world's Mars doesn't have cities yet, so she doesn't know how they look. Mars is this shade of red, though, she thinks the green he picked is nicer.
"Yeah, I think it is. A little green against the red might have been nice too, show something growing, but I'm already past the background."
"Yeah, next time. I'll probably finish this one and try something else for a while before using more paint. Enough to go around won't be anymore if nobody thinks like that."
(The President is tidying up the art room a bit and watching them interact, smiling slightly.)
She can make paint if it's just for practice or trying things out. She has magic - that's why she looks strange, she's a magical girl - and one of her spells is making fake things.
The President comes back over. "That's a good idea! Especially for the little kids. They'd find it fun."
"I wonder about that," the painter says, "I like it, but there's lots of other things the time and effort could go to. Art's probably worth it, it's a luxury in itself."
Art gives people hope, and makes life tolerable when things are bad and better when things are good; of course it's worth it.
"I'm not arguing with that. Art is nice. The murals around our commune are very good. I'm just saying that art might trade off with other luxuries, sometimes." He shrugs. "In any case, I think I'll keep working on this tomorrow some time. It's probably about time to check on my apple trees."
"Of course. Mind, library is a bit of a grand title - I don't want to get your hopes up. Reading room, perhaps?"
He leads Dusk across the hall. The library has eight tall shelves, mostly full - some books in proper bindings, some scrolls. There are comfy-looking chairs and tables near the front with more natural light, plus a couple of lecturn type things with stacks of blank paper and scrolls and some relatively crude writing supplies.
It's little. Seems like they care about it, though. (She keeps these observations to herself, and looks through the titles.)
It's cozy, she likes it. How often do they have a chance to get new books?
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