She stumbles when she appears, and opens her senses even as she's recovering her balance: it's already obvious that she's somewhere crowded, and overwhelmingly if not exclusively human, and that she's the only Force-sensitive in the area; is there anything else to be noticed?

A usual range of emotions for the number of people - angry people shoving past each other, happy children playing games, sad mourners in prayer, neutral or bored background emotional noise of people whose day is an ordinary one for them.

One person over there is - different, somehow.

She'll keep an eye on that. For now the first order of business is figuring out how to communicate. Or a nap; that took a lot out of her - but, no, communication first. She gestures for DZ to follow, and heads around the corner, looking for a bench to sit on.

There are not public benches, but there are retaining walls and covered rain barrels and hitching posts that have enough surface on the top to perch on.

She claims a patch of retaining wall by a merchant whose customers are talking a bit rather than just selecting their merchandise and paying, and settles in to translate for DZ.

People notice her at this point. She's dressed weird - plus if you give DZ half a glance she's obviously not just somebody tromping around incongruously in armor. The shopkeeper asks her what she's doing there, a bit sharply.

He gets a glare from Deskyl in return, and DZ says something incomprehensible but conciliatory.

He gestures at them and tells them to clear off, as he does not want any strange foreigners around his shop.

It doesn't seem like that's going to happen. Deskyl continues signing to DZ, relaying what he's saying to them; DZ apologizes again.

The shopkeeper closes up and goes off to find somebody to help him shoo them.

They stay put.

He comes back with a guy in armor, with a spear in hand, who looks pretty confused by the robot. He approaches and attempts to communicate in mime that they are not welcome here.

Deskyl considers this.

She signs to DZ.

    "Go...?"

He shrugs, points in a random direction down a street. "Just not here. He doesn't like foreigners."

This gets the merchant another look, but they head over that way anyway.

Spear guy walks with them for a couple dozen steps, then waves in a genial sort of way and breaks off.

They stop by another stall, same as before.

This lady doesn't seem to care; she keeps selling her various powders and tinctures, barely looking twice at them. Her customers are more intrigued. DZ gets somebody trying to poke her in the elbow.

The prospective elbow-poker gets a sharp look well before they get close.

Elbow-poker is not looking at Deskyl, just at the robot. She's never seen a robot before! Poke!

Deskyl steps between them before that can happen.

"- hey," says the poker. "Is it yours?"

"Yes."

...upon hearing that the voice emerges not from the human but from the robot, the poker cranes her neck around Deskyl to look at her. "You talk!"

She nods. "I talk a little."

"Are you a mage? Is she your attendant? Shouldn't you have an attendant who knows Cefaxi in Cefax? What kind of mage turns into metal, anyway?"

"She a mage. ...no... like a mage. I attendant."

"...but you're made of metal."

This gets a slightly longer burst of signing, and then the robot shrugs. "I talk a little."

Shrug. "What brings you to Cefax?"

"Other mage," she mimes hitting, "this mage."

"Gosh! Were they trying to send you to Cefax or could you have landed anywhere?"

"Anywhere."

"Are you looking for passage home?"

"No. Looking for something else."

"Whatcha looking for?"

"New home."

"Well, if you're a mage, that'd be a Temple-Guild, only I don't know if they take foreign ones."

"She and I try. Go...?"

"The nearest one's southeast, I think."

"Thank you."

"No problem. What's your magic do?"

Deskyl points at a leaf lying on the ground nearby, and brings it floating up to hover between them. She doesn't leave it hovering long, though, before she lets loose a tiny bolt of lightning to set it afire.

"Whoa! Cool." The person is now frowning between the two of them. "...which one of you did you say was the mage again?"

"She the mage."

"...what are you?"

"I a droid."

"Did some different kind of mage make you?"

"...like a mage."

"What's like a mage? That sounds like a riddle."

She shrugs. "I a little Cefaxi."

"Okay so she's a mage, and a different mage made you to be her attendant?"

"Like that, a little."

"Okay. Huh. Well, southeast someplace is the closest Temple-Guild."

"Thank you."

And off they go.

Heading vaguely southeast, they get a lot of stares but not a lot of interference as the city thins out, then dissipates around them into farmland.

Once they're out of the city, Deskyl stops to meditate: how far is the next settlement in this direction?

There's a village about twelve miles south, and south-southeast three times as far there's another, smaller village with more of those weird people in it.

So, not a day trip, then, at least at a normal human walking pace. She could do it anyway, but showing up at a strange mages' compound with no intel isn't that great of an idea actually.

They go back into the city and hang around getting DZ some more vocabulary, heading vaguely toward that one mage Deskyl sensed and keeping an eye out for a library as they go.

There is not an obvious library anywhere, but there is a bookstore.

The mage is wearing grey robes with a gold sash and a gold circlet sort of ornament, and sticking close to a well-dressed fellow who is shopping.

Even being careful not to annoy the shopkeeper, the bookstore helps tremendously with DZ's vocabulary.

Deskyl looms nearby as DZ approaches the mage's apparent attendant. "Excuse me, sir, can I talk to you for a moment?"

The goldmage steps between the rich guy and the approaching people. "Back off," he says. The rich guy glances in their direction, eyes lingering on DZ, before he goes back to what he's doing.

"Sorry, sir." DZ backs off. Deskyl, meanwhile, is openly sizing the mage up.

The mage doesn't look like much but he's not scared of her at all.

Well of course he's not, he has no idea what a Sith can do.

She doesn't start anything, though. She and DZ take a different route back out of the city, still hoping for a library.

No libraries. There is a second, much smaller and shabbier bookstore.

Can she loiter in this one long enough to get through a dictionary?

Proprietor over there is petting the shop cat and doesn't care. The books are all hand-scribed.

That doesn't bode well for them having invented dictionaries. Regular books are less efficient, but she can read one or two real quick, anyway.

They complete their trek back out of the city in time to find a reasonable campsite before nightfall, and the next morning Deskyl checks on the mage again.

That mage is no longer in town, but there's another one, indoors.

Same kind, or different?

Different kind.

They'll go check it out, and look for anything that might be pressed into service to make electronics on the way.

There's worked metal in various forms, horseshoes and coins and such, and even wire in a few decorative applications.

The new mage is inside of a house with a non-mage in the same room, and a few other non-mages scattered around the house.

DZ knocks on the door.

Someone who might be a servant opens the door. She looks kind of alarmed.

"Excuse me, Ma'am. My mage friend and I were accidentally sent here; can you tell us how to get to the Temple-Guild?"

"I'm afraid I don't know the way, Tse...?"

"I'm DZ, my friend is Tse Deskyl."

The servant concludes that probably there is a foreign kind of mage that turns into metal and forms the belief that their attendant is them. "I see. I don't know the way there, I've never been."

"Do you know how we could find out about it?"

"I suppose I could see if Tse Ecsari's attendant will tell me."

"If you wouldn't mind, please."

"I guess I could go find her." She taps her chin with a finger.

"We'd owe you a favor, Ma'am. Tse Deskyl can sense things about people's minds."

"I don't know what I'd do with that." Tap tap.

"We could find someone for you, or tell you why someone acts a certain way. She helped me learn Cefaxi, but that took all day."

"I'm not looking for anybody."

"All right. Thank you anyway, Ma'am."

She sighs and nods politely and closes the door.

Well then.

Deskyl still doesn't want to head over to the Temple-Guild on this little information; they'll settle in here for now. It shouldn't be too hard to find work using her telekinesis, right?

...surprisingly difficult, actually. Everyone wants to know what Temple-Guild she's with and if one of the local ones has given her permission to work in Cefax.

Fine.

They go back to their campsite - they're going to have to figure out something for food, soon, but Deskyl can go another day before it's urgent at all - and set out for the Temple-Guild in the morning, Deskyl carrying DZ and speeding down the path at a good enough clip that it's still midmorning when they get there.

They are noticed en route but not approached at all.

The Temple-Guild is up on a hill, and surrounded by walls.

Deskyl is only a little tempted to vault the wall and kill them all; instead, she approaches the gate.

There are nonmages guarding the gate. "What's your business?" one asks her.

"Tse Deskyl and I were accidentally sent here by another mage; we were told we need permission from the Temple-Guild to work here."

The guard nods. "What color mage?"

"Magic works differently where we're from; she doesn't have a color."

This does not, apparently, compute. The guards look at each other.

She floats DZ into the air, and then one guard, and then the other, and then gently returns all three to the ground.

The guards are perhaps less alarmed than they should be. "Yeah, okay, but what color," says the guard. "I can't go tell Tse Witwex 'oh, some kind of foreign mage is here, no, I didn't get her color'."

"Is black a color that she could be?"

"Black mages are a thing. I think they don't do levitation. How do you not know?"

    "Her magic is a different kind from yours here, Sir, it doesn't have a color. She can do more than one thing, too." This is punctuated by a crackle of lightning playing along Deskyl's hand and arm.

"If she didn't get dunked in a spring it's no business of ours," says one of the guards.

"Yeah, the Temple-Guild is for the gods' magic, not for - that, whatever it is."

Deskyl considers this for a long moment.

    "She might be able to fix your mages, if she has time to study them. From how their magic tears them apart."

"...how's that?" asks one of the guards; the other makes an eloquently skeptical face.

    "Her kind of magic is learned, and it's possible to develop new techniques. She'll need to see how your kind of magic works - except for the mages who are just sick; she says she can just heal those and they'll be fine until they do more magic."

"I'll go get Tse Witwex," says one of the guards, and he runs off.

Deskyl sits cross-legged on the ground and closes her eyes.

    "Most of her magic is stronger the stronger her feelings are, but for healing she needs to be calm," DZ explains.

"How come she can't talk?"

"She was injured by another mage, the same kind that she is. We expect her to recover, but we don't know how long it will take."

"So that's not something that happened from her doing magic?"

"No, sir. Her magic changes her feelings, sometimes, but it doesn't hurt her."

"Uh-huh. And what are you?"

"I'm a droid, sir. We're made as servants."

"Made how, is that another magic she can do?"

"No sir, there's no magic involved. The place we're from knows how to make a lot of things you don't have here. Deskyl might explain some of it to you; she's going to need to make something to make the thing I need instead of food."

"You need a - thing instead of food? But you're made of metal."

"Yes, sir. Metal can't move by itself, but if you make it the right way, you can use something to make it move. I don't know if you have a word for it."

"I don't know either. Huh. How about that."

DZ doesn't seem to have anything to say to that.

The other guard comes back with an old woman in a greenmage uniform. "Hello," she says. "I'm Tse Witwex."

"Hello, Ma'am. I'm DZ and this is Tse Deskyl; we're from very far away and her magic works very differently from yours."

"If she's not a mage, she oughtn't use 'Tse'," says Tse Witwex. "How does it work?"

"Xaari, then, Xaari Deskyl. She can do quite a few things - moving things without touching them, and seeing people's feelings and thoughts, and healing, and seeing what's about to happen, and a few things I don't know how to talk about - she helped me learn Cefaxi a few days ago, but I don't know all the words yet. Her magic is all learned, and she can learn how to do new things, if she can watch what she needs to work with. She thinks she can learn to fix your mages."

"That's what he said." She indicates the guard. "In exchange for what?"

"She was planning on asking for permission to work in the city near here, but if you'd like her to stay, she might agree to it. I expect her to want a metalworking workshop wherever she ends up living, though."

"I can provide a writ of auspice."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, I don't know those words."

"I can give you the paper you'd need to do mage work."

"Ah. Thank you, Ma'am."

"What does Xaari Deskyl need to try to repair a dwindled mage?"

"She's preparing right now to heal the sick ones; she needs to be calm for that technique. To learn to help the other kinds, she'll need to watch them - she might need to watch them do magic specifically, I'm not sure. She won't need to touch them or talk to them or anything like that."

"The goldmages don't do magic outside of emergency situations and will be difficult to observe."

"Goldmages are the ones who lose time?"

"Yes."

"Their problem is easy to see; she might still need to see one do magic, but I don't think she'll need to see it many times."

"Their least costly magic is one she won't be able to watch."

"She might be able to see it anyway, Ma'am, she'll be watching with magic. But I don't know yet what she'll need, I'm guessing."

"They stop time. She won't be able to watch."

"Well, she'll do what she can, Ma'am."

Deskyl open her eyes and signs to DZ.

    "She's ready to heal anyone who needs it, Ma'am."

"Should I just have whitemages paraded by the gate, is that the idea?"

    "She says she'll go in if you like."

"That won't be necessary, but does she need to touch them?"

    "No, ma'am. When they're ready, she'll make a blue light, and they'll need to touch that."

Tse Witwex nods and murmurs to a guard, who trots off.

Whitemages, many of them in arms or on wheels, are paraded by the gate and can stick their arms through or have them stuck.

Deskyl grimaces a little at a few of the ones in the worst shape, but heals them all.

There are plenty of whitemages and most of them are not doing so hot at any given time. This takes a while.

"All you want is the writ of auspice?" asks Tse Witwex. "What work are you planning to do?"

    "Probably helping move heavy things, to start; once she has some money for supplies she'll start making things to sell."

Tse Witwex writes that Deskyl is authorized to use her magic to move things. She hands the writ through the gate. "When you want to start making things please come back for another."

"Yes Ma'am."

"The timing of magic use varies by appointment. Is there a particular time it would be convenient for you to come back?"

"We don't know yet, Ma'am. What time would be good for you?"

She has a schedule in her pocket and consults it. "You'll be able to see white, blue, green, and red used if you come in two days at noon and wait a few hours."

"Yes Ma'am, we'll be here."

"Thank you very much."

Deskyl curls up at the base of the wall just out of sight of the gate for a nap, and after a couple hours they head back to the city to try again at the most promising of the employers from the day before.

She can, with the writ, get a job hauling cargo off boats. Some of the workers who get sent home for the day in the face of her considerable productivity look pissed off.

Annoyed workers aren't her problem.

DZ doesn't have the best grasp of the local economy, but she's been paying enough attention to prices to make a reasonable guess of what a dockworker might be paid, and see to it that Deskyl isn't underpaid too dramatically. It remains to be seen whether half a day's work is enough for a meal and a room, though.

One meal and a mediocre room, yes.

DZ spends the next day looking for better-paying work while Deskyl unloads ships.

She could take on contracts to convey the cargo to its destination in town, or attempt to sign on with the local law enforcement, or transport passengers the way people with carts do.

Maybe not law enforcement; is it clear which of the other two pays better?

Passengers pays more but involves more facetime with customers.

DZ can handle that part, it should be fine.

Deskyl does a few hours' work at the docks the next morning, and collects her pay before heading back to the Temple-Guild.

It is where she left it. The guards greet her by name.

DZ returns the greeting, and Deskyl settles in to meditate again.

    "How are the whitemages doing?"

"One's fallen sick again, so I don't think Xaari Deskyl's had any effect on how dwindled they are," says a guard. "But they don't have whatever they had yesterday, at least."

"Yes sir. She doesn't particularly like healing, but she's willing to do it every week or two until she figures out something better for them."

"That's real good," says the other guard. "The whitemages like healing fine, just they keep getting sick, see."

She nods. "She doesn't think she's going to be able to reverse dwindling right away in any of the mages, but she expects to be able to help in other ways - she might be able to stop them from dwindling if she's there when they use their magic, or change the details of how they're dwindled or how they'll dwindle in the future. Learning any of those will help her learn to reverse it; do you know what would be best for her to focus on?"

"Redmages, probably," says the first guard.

"Oh, hey, yeah," agrees the second. "They only dwindle when they first touch somebody, not later."

She nods. "I'll let her know. What is their dwindling like?"

"They lose their memories," says the first one.

Another nod. "She's mentioned them - it seems like they might be the next easiest to help after the whitemages."

"Why's that?" wonders the second guard.

"She already knows how to work with memories. She'll need to see what exactly their dwindling does, but one of the mental defense techniques she already knows might be enough for them."

"How's that come up where you're from?"

"Her kind of mages don't get along with each other very well."

"And can take memories?"

"Some of them, yes sir. I don't think Xaari Deskyl knows that technique, though."

"Mm-hm."

DZ shrugs.

"When's she gonna be done doing that thing so we can show her in to the appointments?"

"Now is fine, sir." She goes to get her.

The first appointment is a whitemage, wrapped up in a lot of layers of linen to make it marginally less hazardous to get near the sick fellow who has paid for her services.

Deskyl leans against the wall and closes her eyes, and gestures after a moment for the whitemage to go ahead.

The whitemage nudges enough linen off her hand to touch the sick man's hand, and he coughs a few times and then stops.

Deskyl hisses softly when the healing starts.

And then the whitemage is done and puts her linen back over her hand and a servant ushers the cured man out.

    "She says she should be able to block the dwindling, at least for whitemages and probably for everyone. It's going to be tiring for her, though."

"It'd be worth a fair amount of money," says Tse Witwex, who's been looking on. "Unfortunately, it'll be hard in most cases to verify that you've managed it. Easiest by far to check greenmages and to a lesser extent redmages than the others."

    "Yes Ma'am. She's willing to do it anyway, at least when she's already here."

"We can adjust how we time appointments, if there are regular times it would be convenient for you to come."

"I'm sure there will be, Ma'am, but we don't know what they are yet. Perhaps we can come back in a week or two; we'll know more then and Deskyl will be ready to heal the whitemages again."

"Very well. The next appointment is a redmage - not a new client, but a visit from a preexisting one. Those are usually private; do you need to be in the room?"

   "It would be helpful for her to meet the redmage first, Ma'am, so she knows who to watch, but she can do it from a distance after that."

"Let's go find her, then, before her client arrives."

The redmage's uniform includes gloves and a hood. She blinks at Deskyl.

    "Hello, Ma'am. This is Xaari Deskyl, she's a different sort of mage."

"Hello," says the redmage. "What color?"

    "No color - Xaari, not Tse. They're very rare."

"Oh. Okay. Mivi says you're going to try to fix dwindling."

    "Yes Ma'am. She's just starting; she needs to see how your magic works first. She doesn't need to be there when you use it, though, she can watch by magic."

"- like, watching? Nicaru won't like it if you're paying attention to us while he's seeing me."

    "She'll only be watching the magic, not what you're doing aside from that. But if that's too much, she can skip you."

"I think it would bother most people. Mivi? Come here?"

The redmage's attendant trots up.

"How about you just watch me touch Mivi," says the redmage, "and not spy on private client meetings?"

    "That will be fine, Ma'am."

Mivi takes off one of the redmage's gloves and they lace fingers. Mivi closes her eyes blissfully.

Deskyl tilts her head curiously, and, after a few moments, nods.

The redmage kisses Mivi's hand and puts her glove back on.

    "Once she's ready to try something complicated, she might be able to make it so that redmages don't do anything when they touch people, until she changes their magic back - that won't be very useful, of course, but it will help her learn how to change things about your magic."

"That would be useful if they could really count on it," says Mivi. "They could touch people they didn't want to fall in love with."

Deskyl nods when DZ relays this.

    "They probably won't be able to use their magic at all while they're changed, though."

Redmage and Mivi both wince.

Deskyl gives a wry smile and a nod.

    "It would just be for practice, unless there's someone who doesn't want to be a mage."

"It would be so bad to be stuck that way, though," says the redmage.

Another nod.

    "She feels the same way about her magic."

"Really? I don't think most mages would feel as strongly about it as a redmage," says the redmage. "Not if they'd earned their keep, anyway. We're the only ones who get much in the way of personal use out of it."

    "Xaari Deskyl's magic isn't very much like the kind you get here; she can do more with it, and it doesn't hurt her to use. And one of the things she can do is sense emotions - not as well as you can, but at a distance and all the time."

"Oh, I guess that would be sad to lose," agrees the redmage.

    "Yes Ma'am. So she understands - she can't guarantee that she'll be able to change someone back until she tries it, but she knows how important it is not to leave someone stuck."

They both nod.

    "She's learned as much from you as she can, she says. Blue or green next, Tse Witwex?"

"Blue, but not for an hour or two, the client isn't here yet."

    "Yes Ma'am. She'll spend the time meditating; where would you like her to be?"

Tse Witwex has her attendant show Deskyl to an out-of-the-way spot under a tree.

She meditates, and naps, and meditates some more.

Tse Witwex's attendant comes to get her before the bluemage's appointment.

She's ready to go when they get there.

The bluemage is being asked the location of a ship, and pans around for a couple of minutes before finding and reporting on it.

Deskyl leans against the wall scowling until they're done.

The bluemage's attendant finds the scowling pretty nervewracking.

"She's fighting with the part of his magic that dwindles him," DZ explains. "It's difficult, and her magic is stronger when she's upset."

"Stronger when she's upset?"

"Yes sir. She's a different sort of mage, her magic doesn't work like yours at all."

The bluemage, meanwhile, has no interest in Deskyl's facial expression and yawns and leans on his attendant.

    "She didn't get all of it, she says, but pretty close."

"That's good to hear," says the attendant.

    "She'll be able to change how blue and greenmages are dwindled, soon, she says. Though she'll need an example of someone with convenient dwindling to start with."

"Convenient dwindling?" asks Tse Witwex.

    "Mages don't dwindle identically, even if they're the same color, she says; she can change how one mage has dwindled to match a different one's dwindling. And once she's more familiar with the effects of the dwindling she'll be able to change it to something specific."

"Oh, maybe you'll want to meet some little children," says the bluemage's attendant.

    "She can't give a mage more than they already have, yet, she can only change which things they have. She's trying, though."

"I meant the children don't have any dwindling, so if you could make working mages match that..."

Deskyl shakes her head.

    "She says it's like making something out of cloth - if you have enough to make a shirt, you can use it to make pants instead, but if you only have enough for a shirt or pants, you aren't going to be able to make a robe, no matter what you do."

"I don't understand," the attendant says.

"There are other bluemages who have done as much magic as he has, sir?"

"Yes."

"And they all have about the same amount of trouble, but they don't have trouble with the same things, exactly?"

"Not exactly, no."

DZ nods. "She can't change how much trouble they have, yet, but she'll be able to change which things they have trouble with soon."

"Oh. I guess that might be useful for some of them."

    "She'll be able to do more as she learns more about it."

"It'd be more useful for greenmages, probably, if you can make them lose stuff from later instead of stuff from earlier in the progression," the attendant says. Tse Witwex nods.

    "She'll be able to do that, yes. Not today, but maybe next time, if you have examples for her to look at."

"That's next," says Tse Witwex.

    "That will help too, but she'll need to see people with the kinds of dwindling you'd prefer, and people without that kind of dwindling."

"I think that's as much different people being different as it is the dwindling being different," says the bluemage's attendant.

    "A little bit, yes. It won't be a problem; she's trained in this kind of thing."

"I thought magic was completely different where you're from," comments Tse Witwex.

    "It is, Ma'am, but minds are the same. More the same here than she's trained for, even; the place we're from has more types of people."

"Types of people?" asks Tse Witwex.

"Yes Ma'am. I don't know if you have the right sort of word for what she means - people who are different from the kind of person you're used to in the same way that different kinds of animals are different from each other."

"I don't think we do have a word for that, no."

"Our word is alien, for that kind of person."

"All right then."

    "How much time do we have before the greenmage is ready for us, Ma'am?"

"Another hour, longer if the client is late."

"May Deskyl use the courtyard again?"

"Yes."

She goes through a few lightsaber katas, this time, before settling in to meditate again.

A few mage children with their attendants watch her curiously.

DZ keeps watch to make sure they don't get too close.

    "Deskyl would like to know where your young mages come from," DZ relays when someone comes for them again.

"We adopt them," says Tse Witwex, conducting them to the next appointment. "From the orphanage."

She nods.

    "Is it particular children who have the potential to be mages, or something else?"

"We make them into mages with the Godspring. Any child of the right age can be a mage, but we pick the ones who will hold up best to dwindling, insofar as we can guess."

Deskyl relaxes considerably when DZ relays this.

"Why do you ask?"

    "Not everyone can become her kind of mage, and there's a rumour that the other sort of mage like her - they have the same kind of magic but different training - steal babies with the potential for it. She doesn't approve."

"I see."

The greenmage they're going to observe is talking with the client about exactly how she wants the magic done; she's trying to quit a painkiller she's addicted to and her grandfather's footing the bill for it but there are a few ways the greenmage could approach the problem.

Deskyl makes herself unobtrusive by the door.

Eventually the client states her preference, and the greenmage writes out all the details and frowns at them and then, slowly and with more complicated steps than the others, performs the magic.

Deskyl scowls about this, too.

The client looks nervous. "When you said an observer I thought you meant -"

"Shh," says the greenmage.

"It's all right, Ma'am; her magic affects her emotions, that's all."

"Shhhh," says the greenmage.

Shhh.

Eventually the greenmage is done. She and her attendant see themselves out.

    "She expects to be able to block dwindling entirely after another few tries."

"We can schedule things closer together in the future to allow you to observe more all at once."

    "Thank you, Ma'am."

"Will that be all today?"

"Yes Ma'am." DZ arranges a time for them to return, and asks if Tse Witwex expects to be able to tell whether Deskyl protected the greenmage from dwindling by then.

"It should be clear by that time, yes."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

And back to the city they go, to focus on earning enough money to get supplies to make a charger for DZ.

They can make money pretty steadily with telekinesis.

Oh good.

They're back at the Temple-Guild right on schedule.

They can witness more assorted appointments!

Deskyl isn't any less annoyed about the mages' dwindling on this visit, and declares after the second appointment that she's perfected her single-person anti-dwindling technique and can start working on range and the ability to protect more than one person at a time.

"How much range might you get?" asks Tse Witwex.

    "She'll be able to cover the entire Temple-Guild; it'll take a few months if she focuses on that specifically, visiting every week or two, or longer if she works on other things at the same time."

"From here, do you mean, or from the city?"

    "From here, Ma'am. She can do it from the city but that would take a year or two at least."

"I see. The goldmages seldom use their magic within the Temple-Guild, but perhaps something can be worked out."

    "She'll notice them if they're in the city and will usually be able to go see if they'd like her to cover them."

"That won't cover our whole operating range, but it wouldn't hurt."

    "Did you have something else in mind, Ma'am?"

"No, I don't know what your limits are. It will be nothing but beneficial if you can cover mages in the city and during planned appointments within the Temple-Guild."

    "Yes Ma'am."

    "She'll be able to make a machine that will let you talk to people in the city from here, but that might take a year or so; they don't have the tools to make the parts she needs here."

"I'm not sure what the use would be, but I'm sure someone will be interested in something like that."

"It would let you tell her when you'd like her to cover a goldmage somewhere other than the city, Ma'am, without having to know about it when we're visiting."

"Mm. We'll look into it when it's available, then."

"Yes Ma'am. We'll keep you updated."

They're shown out.

And they go back to the city.

The city hustles! It bustles! It hums, it thrums! It has a busker with a flute! It has an overturned cart full of rice and an argument about that in progress! It has someone dragging his ten year old son by the ear through the street, snarling! It has a bunch of little children playing something that's a cross between jacks and marbles near the well! It has a laundress balancing her basket on her head!

She pauses to watch the father and son.

"- good for nothing friends! You think I break my back and save up money so you can go buy them sweets? You think they're going to steal from their fathers and buy you things? Their fathers don't have a dime, because they're drunks, but I'd rather be a drunk than have a thief for a son!"

"I'm sorry I'm sorry sir -"

"You're going to go cut a switch when we get home -"

"Sir please -"

"Shut your face, boy."

Kid's gotta learn sometime. She continues on.

There's a spice merchant with prettily arranged bins of turmeric and red pepper and fresh basil and strings of garlic! There's a fabric shop with nice muslin and expensive silk! There's a farrier's, closed for personal reasons according to the sign on the door! There's a greengrocer with a sale on pears! There's a mud puddle, and a little girl with a muddied dress miserably running after her briskly striding mother trying frantically to explain that she tripped while the mother stonily ignores her! There's a little old lady and her little old husband holding hands and going for a walk adorably! There's a beggar with one leg! There's a person distributing caged songbirds who do not have very much room in there!

Ooh, pears.

There's something not quite right with that girl and her mother; they're both far too upset for the apparent situation. Deskyl zips up to the former, runs a demonstrative circle around her, and offers to pick her up.

The girl skids to a halt when Deskyl runs between her and her mother and starts crying. The mother ignores her for a few steps, then pauses and looks over her shoulder. "Ixasi! Now!"

Seriously, lady?

Ixasi jumps and runs around Deskyl to catch up.

All right then.

She'll keep half an eye on that.

Ixasi continues to follow her mother, once her mother is satisfied that the aberration has blown over. They reach a house. They go into the house. Ixasi get much unhappier very quickly.

One of the advantages of there not being any other Sith around to care if she's soft is that she doesn't have to put up with this kind of thing, if she doesn't want to.

She goes and knocks on the door.

Someone who might be Ixasi's dad answers it. "Who're you?"

She pushes past him into the house. Ixasi's mom is this way.

"What the - hey - come back here, you can't just -" He grabs for her.

He suddenly finds it hard to move, like he's moving through water rather than air, and her elbow where he was going to grab her crackles briefly with electricity.

"Glurcgk -"

And here's Ixasi and her mother, and - even an unaugmented blow from a trained Sith is nothing to sneeze at; down the woman goes.

Ixasi screams.

Yeah, that's fair. She turns to go.

Outside, there's someone with a goldmage bodyguard.

The goldmage has a raised eyebrow.

Yeah?

"This isn't worth my life as it stands," the goldmage comments. "And I know you weren't raised in a Temple-Guild and don't know any better. But if this is not the last time, we're not going to wait to find out when the last time would have been or how far you'd escalate. Mages cannot go around attacking civilians on our own recognizance. No matter how much you might have to try to bribe us with to look the other way while you have your fun."

She doesn't get any less incredulous as DZ translates.

"Is your attendant having trouble explaining?" he asks mildly.

"No, Sir."

"Do you have questions?" he asks.

"How long is this going to take?" his client asks.

"If it goes longer than the time it takes the runner to return the rest of your trip is free," the goldmage tells him.

    "No sir." Deskyl stalks off.

They don't show up at the Temple-Guild the following week.

A servant from the Temple-Guild goes looking for them the following morning.

They're findable; Deskyl is already watching the servant when he spots her.

"Hello. You missed your appointment, I was sent to ask what kept you?"

    "She says she doesn't work with people who tolerate parents abusing their children, sir."

The servant blinks. "I don't think I have context for what you're describing."

"There was an incident last week - she noticed a woman beating her daughter for falling in a puddle, and she - took care of it - and one of your goldmages noticed what was happening and threatened her about it. She's not going to challenge you over how you choose to administrate the city but she's not going to stay if she's expected to tolerate that sort of thing, either."

"...she took care of it?" repeats the servant, confused.

DZ asks Deskyl for clarification. "She punched her. She says she didn't do any permanent damage."

"What I'd heard was that we got a report from a man who said she'd used magic on him to prevent him from keeping her out of his house."

    "Oh. Yes sir, that also happened."

"I didn't know about punching the woman but I assume they'd also be upset about that - uh, I don't think there's anywhere in Cefax you can go where it's okay for a mage to barge into a person's house and attack them."

    "Then we'll leave Cefax, I suppose."

"Cefax is the whole island. So you know. I also wouldn't really expect it to be legal in foreign countries..."

    "She's really not willing to compromise on this, sir."

"I certainly can't stop you from terrorizing people personally, Xaari Deskyl, but my expectation is that it's not going to be legal anywhere on the planet."

    "She's not harassing people because she enjoys it; if she needs to live away from people to avoid their misbehavior then that's what she'll do."

"Okay. Should I tell the Temple-Guild you won't be returning?"

    "Yes sir. We'll be here for another week or two, if they have any other questions."

"Understood." He bows politely and goes off again.

And Deskyl gets back to work.

Her work permit's going to expire at the end of the month.

Two days after the first guy, a middle aged woman servant from the Temple-Guild comes and finds her.

She's just picking up a passenger, but DZ tells the woman to wait, and they're back in a few minutes.

    "Yes, ma'am?"

"Hello. I'd like to talk to you about how to work with your mage, since if I understand correctly you're her attendant?"

"More or less, yes ma'am. What would you like to know?"

"I was told that her magic uses her emotions, but not quite the way we'd naturally interpret that. Is that why she has impulse control problems?"

"This is about the incident the other day, ma'am?"

"Yes, and her anticipating that she can't control the urge if it comes up again."

DZ nods. "Most Sith do have difficulty with impulse control, but Deskyl doesn't particularly, ma'am; she can tolerate being around people who are suffering if she needs to. But she prefers not to, and she's not accustomed to having laws apply to her."

"...why wouldn't laws apply to her?"

"That's how things work where we're from; the only one who can make demands of a Sith is a stronger Sith. Even then, they kill each other over it regularly."

"She doesn't think it's better to live somewhere with real rule of law?"

   "It hasn't been an improvement so far, she says."

"What is her plan now?"

    "She expects to be ready to travel in a week or so; she's skeptical enough of the other gentleman's claim that things will be the same everywhere that she intends to try at least one other city first, but living away from people will also be acceptable."

"Another city in Cefax? All of the Temple-Guilds in Cefax are loyal to the Queen and agree to use their magic only in licit ways and stop rogue mages."

    "No ma'am."

"All right. Is there a way she can be kept under control here?"

DZ doesn't translate that. "It's not a good idea to try to control a Sith, ma'am. But-" sign sign sign sign sign "-she would prefer to stay and keep working on dwindling, if there's a way to arrange it so that she doesn't have to put up with hearing people suffer. And I don't expect you to find her behavior objectionable under those conditions."

"People are sometimes unhappy anywhere you might go."

"Yes ma'am, she understands that. The problem is when it's egregious, and when someone is trying to stop her from doing something about it."

"Is that how it works for everyone where you're from, or does everyone just let mages do anything they like where you're from because there's no one who can teach them to obey the law?"

She doesn't translate the last bit of that, either. 

"Laws do apply to people who aren't Sith, yes ma'am. And they do police each other, in a sense, but that's unlikely to work here."

"Why is it unlikely for mages policing her to work?"

    "She'd rather leave than follow unpleasant rules, and she doesn't think you'll be able to stop her if that's what she decides to do." Sign sign - "she wants to make sure you know that it's already a concession that she's planning on leaving rather than starting a fight over it."

"I really did mean it when I said I wanted to talk to you, specifically, in your capacity as her attendant," the woman says.

    "Yes ma'am." She signs to Deskyl for a minute, and the Sith moves off to watch them from across the street.

"I understand that her alternative to working something out with us is fine with her, whether that's finding some place that doesn't care very much about vigilantes attacking its civilians without oversight or living alone in the wilderness. Is your read that she is at all motivated to find a way to stay?"

"Yes, ma'am. It may help for you to understand - Sith are explicitly trained to follow their own preferences and ignore rules; their magic is strongest that way. She likes you, and she very much does want to solve the problem of dwindling, but it's not that she doesn't know how to follow rules and needs time to learn or to get used to the idea; it's that that goes against what it is to be a Sith."

"Hm. I think that if we had a kind of mage that - to get the nearest equivalent - lost the ability to comprehend that some things were against the rules, we'd need to give them attendants they were closely personally attached to as prosthetic rule-rememberers to transmit the information in a palatable way - maybe as hostages, in extremis."

"No, ma'am."

"I can ask favors of her; that's deeply unusual, but she allows it. But - I mentioned that I'm not actually her attendant in the sense that mages have them; what you're suggesting is incompatible with my actual purpose."

"What is your actual purpose?"

"I'm her servant; my purpose is to help her achieve her goals."

"Attendants often combine the two."

She shifts subtly, making her discomfort clear, and Deskyl shifts in response, from watchful to ready to react.

"If she wanted me to, I'd do that, ma'am."

"But you haven't been trained to and - are afraid of her retaliating?" guesses the woman, glancing only briefly at Deskyl.