Elsewhere:

Today has been going.

Which, like, the fact that time has not spontaneously started behaving weird is always a good sign. Small mercies. Villanelle isn't always that lucky.

Her ship's in critical need of repairs, though, or at least time for the spelljammer helm to realign itself so she can limp to a better port. She needs food, too, and water - the automated systems are on the fritz. The locator's still working, so she even knows to curse up a storm when she slides out of the astral sea and into the nearest stable plane, leaking aetherial fluid from far too many valves.

Earth. Fuck. She's not going to find everything she needs here, not even close. And she'll need to keep her head down; supposedly the local head honcho dislikes blatant magic...

She engages the invisibility drive, biting her lip. This is really unideal - she'll have to move fast to get a handful of supplies - but at least sticking the ship in Earth's atmosphere for a bit will allow the air envelope to refresh. And she can stretch her legs.

As far as Ellie's concerned:

A woman with a guitar slung over one shoulder drops down from a faintly shimmering rope in midair - invisible until she's close to the ground. The rope vanishes when she lets go of it, and she doesn't seem to have spotted Ellie.

This startles her. A sudden spark jumps out to zap the woman, prompting Ellie to curse.

She whirls. She doesn't seem injured, at least.

"Ah - didn't see you there." She rubs the back of her head, sheepish. "Sorry."

"I feel like that should be my line."

Hmmmm. On the one hand, magic is taboo here. On the other hand, something very minorly shocked her. Villanelle hums a bar and focuses on the girl. It'll take a bit for her detection spell to calibrate itself, unfortunately. Too long to just pause and stare.

Still - "Haven't gotten to seeing invisible things yet?" she teases.

"Apparently not," she says, gesturing vaguely above the other woman at- whatever she climbed down from. "Who are you?"

"Name's Villanelle." She bows with a flourish (still concentrating on her spell). "Third circle bard, mostly from Aitania but inclined to wander. At your service."

Man is she going to have to move her ship. That'd be obnoxious.

"I have never heard of Aitania. Or a third circle bard."

"Bard's a type of magic user. Circles are a shorthand for spell power; 'third circle bard' means I can use zeroth through third spells. Aitania is an empire." Grin. "One a bit farther out than you're probably used to, though."

"I'd say that's likely."

"You know, this world's supposed to ban magic... But you don't seem too surprised."

"I found out a little bit ago." She points at a rock on the ground and levitates it. "Kind of."

She claps. "Mage Hand! That's a zeroth, though one that's a bit tricky at times. You figured it out on your own?"

She shrugs.

"Things started happening around me. I figured out I could control them. At least sometimes."

"Huh. Sounds like you're one of the sorts of magic users who only need training to master magic, not to get it in the first place."

"Is that... common?"

She hums. "The majority of magic users overall don't have innate magic, I think, though there's some places and species where that's different. It's easier to scale wizard schools than sorcerer bloodlines..."

"There are schools?"

"Yeah. Some're a bit hard to get into, though." Grin. "Depends on how smart you are."

She hums, thinking.

"You," she says slowly. "Have a ship. Or something. Some way to move around."

"Yup! A nice one too, if I do say so myself."

"Take me with you."

"Far be it from me to not rescue a fair maiden from this backwater rock," she says, teasingly. "Though if you've got any local money, I'm gonna have to charge you for passage."

"What if I don't have enough?"

"I'll bring you with me either way, but we might be here a bit longer while I figure out how to get supplies - I'm on this backwater because my ship's a bit busted, and I don't have enough air, food, or water to make it to the next port reliably. Air'll refresh itself, but I'd want to buy or steal food and maybe water - water purification system's on the fritz, but I can probably get pure enough water if I hop over to a glacier. Also could use some miscellaneous materials to try and repair the worst systems myself, give us a bit more range, but that's less needed."

"I could technically also skip out on the food, but I'd rather not, being hungry's unpleasant."

"I can pay. I have some money. I guess I won't be needing it for much else."

"Yeah; I don't think the money here's accepted anywhere else..."

"You said it was a backwater."

"The lack of magic makes Earth seem pretty uncivilized."

"So everywhere else people just- do magic? Like it's nothing?"

"Not everyone really has the knack, and most people with the knack can only do a little. But - for most places with functioning education systems, it's something like a third or a half of people can do something supernatural even if it's not technically magic. And you can make magic items, which - the fancy stuff runs expensive but there's a lot of basic items that're really affordable."

"Let's- go find an ATM."

Laugh. "Sure. Do I need to alter my appearance at all, to blend in?"

(She looks human, albeit an oddly and exceptionally pretty human. Her clothes - if you weren't looking too closely you'd probably not really notice her as too odd, but she definitely wouldn't be out of place in a Renn Faire. Close cut breaches made out of a soft material, dark purple, and a white flowing blouse or possibly dress over it, with a dark purple vest and a segmented leather belt, under a gauzy shawl shot through with silver specks. There's leather bracers on her arms, barely visible under her voluminous sleeves, with exceptionally fine detailing and silver inlay, and she's wearing a silver circlet with purple gems draped from it, as well as an amulet of silver and wood. Her boots seem to be made of green leaves layered over each other.)

"...Yes? But no one's going to stop you in the street, I think."

"Hm... Hiding magic items is a pain sometimes..." Shrug. "If it won't cause problems, don't think I'll bother."

"What magic items do you have?"

"Hm... The circlet makes me smarter and more charming... The necklace and bracers make me harder to injure... Boots make me springier. My shawl heals me if I fall unconscious... Belt turns into a sword. Ship's also magic, and it's got a lot of common magic items on it - the stuff that purifies air and water isn't working, but there's also a chest that keeps food from spoiling, a stone that'll clean you, a few magic lanterns, and the spelljammer helm lets me take the ship into the Astral Sea safely. - Oh also got something that'll let me land safely if I take a bad fall."

Grin. "Wanna try one?"

"Yes."

She takes the circlet off her head and walks over to plop it on Ellie's.

It's not a profound increase - but if she pokes her own mind, she's now notably smarter and better able to figure out social graces.

"...That is. Really weird."

"It's great, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Pretty cool."

"That's one of the pricey ones - but getting good at magic's pretty lucrative..."

"Is that how you make money?"

"I'm mostly a very well paid lawyer - which, admittedly, is half because of magic. Work's more consistent. But, yeah, I sell spells sometimes, and I sometimes do things like 'go fetch my client's grandmother's magic sword from her cursed tomb without breaking any laws or contracts anyone's under,' which is rare work but exceptionally well paying."

That startles a laugh out of her.

"The number of people who want things fetched out of cursed tombs is astonishing!"

"I presume the tomb-cursing industry is similarly busy."

She laughs. "Exceptionally so!"

"That sort of thing went out of fashion on this planet three or four thousand years ago."

"Awwww. Though perhaps a bit sensible."

"Makes laying Grandma to rest in the plot next to Grandpa a bit less fraught."

"One advantage."

"Of course, Grandma doesn't usually get buried with an ancient and powerful sword, either."

"That's fairly uncommon, too - magic swords are pricey and not very useful if you're not fighting all the time."

"But you have them at all."

"Yeah! Honestly I couldn't even begin to list all the things you can do with magic items..."

"Make you smarter, purify water, keep food fresh, make you springier, heal you..."

Giggle. "Alright, fair."

She pats the circlet. "Maybe you should have kept this on."

"I do have spells that can do something similar... Though they're more temporary."

"What else can you do?"

"Hmmm... For spells - see magic, make lights, repair items, a couple minor tricks, send silent messages... Some minor healing, some divination - like learning about someone from their blood, or watching them from a distance. Can speed myself up, perfectly memorize information, see invisible things... And my performances can be magic, with a pretty wide variety of effects - though the easiest is laying or breaking enchantments. I also have unusually good recall."

"So pretty much a grab-bag."

"Yeah. People vary in how much they specialize and what they can do, though. Like, I've got almost nothing combat useful, because usually I'm not in combat where spells are relevant."

"Huh." They get to a convenience store with an ATM inside. She swipes her card and punches in her PIN, and after brief consideration, withdraws the balance of her account.

"Say, is there any good music on this rock?" she asks, somewhat idly.

"Some people think so. What are your tastes?"

"Hmmm... Bouncy, fun, good music to kiss pretty girls to..."

She laughs. "Some people would say that kissing a pretty girl makes almost anything sound good."

"Well... Depends on the girl."

"Ah, so you're a woman of taste."

"Very discerning taste."

"I'll see if I can think of anything worthy."

"Much appreciated."

She holds out the money. "Well, here's the passage fee."

"Thanks. Where's a good place to get food and water? - And you can stay on the ship while I shop, if you'd like. Your company's delightful but I don't need to drag you on everything."

"There's a grocery store that way-" she gives directions. "But I don't know how to get on your ship."

"I can show you the trick, and key you in so you can see it even when it's invisible."

"Thanks."

Back to the clearing, then. You have to grab the invisible rope (which Villanelle is apparently able to see) and tug it in a certain way - with the telekinesis spell - and then step onto a (still invisible) ramp.

Once Ellie's inside, though, she can see the insides of the ship - which seem to be made out of wood and paper painted with fantastical scenes. The helm's on the opposite side and three floors up from the entrance, and the ship's evidently a bit large. Villanelle keys her in at the helm, and then explains how to get out of the ship - "And it'll be easier to get back in, now that you can see it."

"Things are usually like that. Hence why eyes are so popular among creatures with regular access to light."

Giggle.

"Feel free to wander. My personal stuff's generally locked, and if you can get into those I'll be impressed. Nothing's dangerous, though I'd rather not have any fires on board."

"I'll try to keep things neat."

"Cool. See you in a bit."

"-Do you want the crown back?"

Small smile. "How about you keep it for now. I'll need it back before we take off, but it sounds like I won't need the edge it gives my magic while I'm here."

"All right."

And she heads out.

Ellie starts wandering the ship. The aesthetic seems vaguely... Japanese or something, with all the wood and pictures.

There's a lot of small rooms, mostly. It's cramped. Villanelle's bedroom is probably the larger one, with a folded down cot covered in colorful blankets. There's a study adjacent to it, shelves full of thick books and odd crystals, and a library packed full of even more papers and crystals across the hall from that. The bottom level seems to be mostly storage, with a small galley kitchen. There's a few more potential quarters, mostly currently given over to storage, and a storage room turned into an art studio.

Books... tempting. But maybe she should try excavating one of the rooms to stay in first. On the other hand, there might be some kind of organization system she'd mess up.

Books it is.

The books are an eclectic mix, in a variety of languages. The ones in Villanelle's studio seem to be mostly legal references; there's also folders of notes on cases, locked. The ones in the side library seem to be art books, fiction, and a smattering of nonfiction - history, arcana (spell theory and magical item identification), and guides to trap designs.

Interesting.

She pages through the art books.

Motion studies, mostly, it looks like, for the first - sketches of dragons and a kitten with tentacles and a humanoid frog with teeth and birdlike humanoids and human-like creatures that're far too tall and thin with overly large eyes and long fingers...

There's some still lifes, too, drawings of strange plants and buildings - a cityscape with floating skyscrapers, a tree with eyes...

There's a sketch book near the bottom, with sketches of people (probably, mostly; there's some alien species in there) in assorted states of injury. They're a lot more complete than the other drawings, and are also annotated, with color notes and mentions of light sources, and also names and dates and often contact information.

That's. Uh. That's certainly something.

She puts those back carefully. She's not quite sure she wants to advertise that she was looking through them just yet.

How about that arcana?

Arcana! There is so much theory about spells and magic!

These books seem to assume you understand that theory. They're rather densely written, and mostly in - a language that isn't English but that she understands anyways, actually.

Something called 'planes' is probably involved in magic, and there's mentions of an Astral Sea, and arcane, and a good bit of dry discussion of experiments on the properties of this or that spell... One arcana book is a comparative of arcane and psionic magic and manages to be clear about what neither actually is.

Well, the Astral Sea at least she think she heard Villanelle mention as a place the ship can go.

The language thing is weird, but she gets bored with the impenetrability after a bit and switches to history.

The history books are a lot less dry and impenetrable! They're mostly about the wars and histories of this or that great nation or empire, though some are older, about long lost peoples and species and worlds. They paint a fantastic picture, of magic often defining and turning the tide of battles - of exceptionally powerful individuals deciding the fate of numerous worlds in a single casual appearance. A wizard drops an army on his enemy's doorstep; a cleric prays for a miracle and turns the army to stone. A tear between two planes opens, demons pouring through, held off by a dragon as a paladin order organizes an evacuation and resistance. A city of delicate spires falls in one night as magic fire burns the stone to ash. A goddess vanishes, depriving her clerics of magic, causing the collapse of an empire. A sorceress ascends to godhood and declares one of the bloodiest wars in recent history. The same individuals pop up in disparate times; it seems some of the most powerful magic users are either very long lived species or outright immortal.

(Villanelle's place of origin, Aitania, is the subject of a good few of the books; apparently the empire's ruling class is mostly elves, other species hedged out of governmental service. The empire's inclined to imperialism, and gets into a lot of wars. Elves seem to be traditionally long lived, with individual kings and queens ruling for centuries.)

This is all- It's really a lot. Elves and wizards and multiple other worlds. All this history somehow makes it more real.

And, not too long after, there's a small sound from downstairs as Villanelle returns.

She puts the book away and goes down to meet her.

She's unloading things out of a small bag into the storage rooms - looks like she got a lot of canned and dry food, a good sized pile of fresh fruit (which gets put into a big chest carved with odd runes), a lot of bottled water and other drinks, and some stuff from a hardware store, as well as a pile of CDs (which get piled on the floor, presumably to be moved elsewhere).

"Hey!" she says when she spots her passenger.

"That is more CDs than I've seen in one place in ten years."

"Less investment than your digital stuff, won't run out of batteries, still something I can rip onto a better storage method - I think the records would've been easier, but those were mostly more expensive, and I can make these work."

"It does make sense, since we're not sticking around."

"Yup! Also got some poetry books..." She shrugs. "I need to work on repairs before we take off. It's safe enough for you to hang around and watch me if you'd like, and easy enough I can explain stuff while I work."

"That sounds like a good time."

"Cool." She finishes putting away the food and water, moves the CDs and poetry books to an upper room, and then gathers the hardware supplies and leads Ellie over to the storage room containing the ship's guts. "What'd you get up to while I was out?"

"Reading, mostly. You have a bunch of books."

"Yeah. Reading's fun, and a good way to pass the time - astral voyages can get long."

"I found some references to the Astral Sea but the books were- difficult to follow."

"Oh, yeah, sorry - I don't think I have any primers on board. I can explain what's up with it, though." She starts working on a pipe that'd been dripping pink fluid into a bucket.

"That would be great."

"So, planar basics - the place you're from, Earth and its surrounding everything, is all together a plane of existence. Planes are usually coherent, singular places - they have the same physics throughout them - and you can get around within them without magic usually. So, you could strap a rocket to a ship and eventually get to anywhere in Earth's plane, though it might take you way longer than your lifespan. You couldn't get to Aitania that way. Planes can be any size, and they can have basically any laws of physics. All known planes were created, usually by very powerful beings. A plane's creator can alter it, and often will stick around, though a majority of known planes have a dead or missing creator. Most are a lot smaller than Earth's plane, and a lot more magical."

"The Astral Sea is the stuff between planes. It's made of magic, and it's pretty deadly if you aren't made of magic too. Spelljammer ships are how people get around that - a spelljammer helm is a tremendously powerful magic artifact that generates a sort of magic knife ahead of it and a planar bubble behind it, protecting ships and allowing them to move between planes."

"Magic is a substance. It's kind of like light - it's fundamentally made of stuff that only makes up magic, and it moves in certain weird ways. It has a constant speed, and if you cast a spell it'll move at the speed of magic - which's basically instant on human scales, but it can take a few days to get between planets in a solar system."

"How does magic being a substance work with casting spells?"

"It reacts to thinking minds - or, well, most thinking minds are able to interface with it. Having a mind that's particularly strong in one trait - like self knowledge, or intelligence, or social grace - makes it easier to manipulate magic. Certain gestures and words can also make it a lot easier to manipulate magic, probably because of the patterns of activity in your brain when you make those motions."

"Some people's minds can naively interface with magic, like yours - so I'd call you an innate caster. Most people need to learn the trick, though."

"Huh. Is it known what makes some people innate casters?"

"There's a couple of ways. Sorcerers usually pop up when someone has a more magical species in their bloodline somewhere - like dragons or angels - and are the most common kind of innate casters. Divine innate casting can happen just through being sufficiently in tune with yourself, or from a spirit or deity deciding to spontaneously grant you magic. Psionic innate casting can be from a bloodline - there's some psionic species - or just luck. And rarely exposure to a lot of magic can kindle something in you."

"Does it matter how far back for the bloodline stuff?"

"There's a range - within two or three generations, you'll typically just have magic as normal for whatever species, rather than being a sorcerer. But there's not an appreciable drop in each individual sorcerer's power over generations after that, though there's a drop in what percent of someone's descendants become sorcerers. The current theory is that eventually the bloodline will exhaust itself, but if so that takes a really long time - and the main proof I've seen for that is that there's historic bloodlines of long dead species that no one has anymore."

"Kind of weird to think there's a dragon somehow in the family tree."

She laughs. "Some of them can shapeshift, though 'dragon' is hardly the most adventurous anyone's ancestors have ever gotten..."

"For Earth, that's pretty adventurous."

She opens her mouth, pauses, then -

"...How old are you because if you're a tall fourteen year old I don't want to make the joke I was about to make - "

"I'm eighteen."

"So perhaps we can broaden your horizons, now you're getting off that rock..."

She winks and sticks her tongue out.

Squint. "You're definitely a sorceress," she says, tapping her chin. "Too charming to be anything else."

"I'll defer to your expert opinion."

"Good." She fiddles with something in the guts of a tangle of pipes. "Any other specific questions, or should I just keep listening to my wonderful voice?"

"I don't mind listening to your voice very much either."

Heeeeee. "So... For how the ship works - in most planes, anything with enough mass maintains an air envelope around it, though the air's not always breathable by humans. So the ship's a lot bigger than it needs to be, so if I stop somewhere with nice air to refresh, the envelope will stay breathable for a while after I leave. Everything also has its own gravity locus. If you're floating off into space, your gravity locus will be whatever you think is sensible, which is exactly as exploitable as it sounds. If you think it'd be sensible to fall in a specific direction, you will. Because your personal air envelope is tiny, that's not a safe way to travel between planets, but it's useful in an emergency. If you're near something bigger than you, your gravity locus will realign to match its. For a ship or planet, the gravity locus is usually gonna be a flat plane at its base or a point at its center - though some gods set up weirdly complicated planetary loci."

"Now, that's a bit of a generalization - I need to run the spelljammer helm while I'm in local outer space to tell your plane's very overly insistent physics to fuck off. But most planes support proper magical physics."

"Is there a way to make your personal envelope bigger?"

"Hmmm... I'd rely on stuff to purify it, first, and look into stopping needing air second. Most things that'd make an envelope bigger - like shapeshifting - will also make you take more air..."

"I see."

"It's a good thought, though, and you might also be able to invent a spell that'll just create air - I haven't heard of any, but there's ones for food and water."

"A growth project."

"Heh."

"Once I'm done here - want pointers on your spell work?"

"Yes please."

"In the meantime... I can explain what kinds of options you've got for pushing forward on more education? At least in areas I'm familiar with."

"Wizard schools."

"Not always the best thing if you're not a wizard, but wizards and sorcerers can usually do pretty similar stuff. Most of the schools cost money but some don't, and some have scholarships. There's also apprenticeships, which are usually more prestigious and get you more time with your teacher. They can be hard to get, though, especially without connections..."

"I can write you a letter of recommendation for wherever you want to go, which should help. And I can teach you myself for as long as you feel like sticking around."

"I think I'd like some flexibility to explore before committing to school again."

"I can definitely help with exploration."

"So I'll stick by you for a while."

"Cool. Though there's something I'm investigating right now that might get dicey - we'll be safe getting to the next port, but after that there might be stretches where I have to leave you somewhere for a bit..."

"What are you investigating?"

"Rumors of a powerful artifact, possibly an intelligent one. A fairly old one, too..."

"What's it supposed to do?"

"Not entirely sure. The records I found said it was part of an old battleship."

"So like some kind of combat computer?"

"Probably, yeah - though it could also be like an autonomous gun or something, or even an emergency life support system capable of decision making. But the records suggested it was mostly a martial thing."

"Huh."

"Artifacts can get pretty out there. But they're interesting, and I have time to do this salvage. It also ties into my usual work - I'm trying to get expanded rights for non-elven sapients, including intelligent artifacts."

"Are there many others floating around?"

"There's thousands at least, spread across the planes. Intelligent artifacts aren't common enough to be anywhere close to a majority of slaves - but they fairly universally don't have legally acknowledged personhood, which even slaves tend to get. There's exceptions - one small nation's actually ruled by an intelligent throne - but those're too rare to be an overwhelming precedent."

"Still, there's - a general legal principle, where uplifting the lowest will drag up everyone above them. That happened in Aitania about a century ago with animal cruelty laws spreading to child and slave abuse laws - once the precedent of 'you can't abuse a creature just because you legally own it' got put in place, it was pretty easy to argue extensions. And Aitania's getting close to banning slavery outright - the core plane actually has a law where everyone physically there is legally free, but it hasn't been applied to colonies yet, or to really putting pressure on neighbors to end slavery."

"You dream big."

"I'm an ambitious sort."

She smiles.

She works a bit more, chattering lightly about artifacts she's met or heard of, intelligent and not. (A deck of cards which has powerful and random effects if you draw a card... A battleaxe capable of cleaving any physical thing... An evil book of profane lore, the individual pages long since scattered... A dancing hut capable of jumping between planes... A dagger that tries to mind control her wielders into murder, possessed of incredible magic... A sword forged by a paladin order that selects their leader by teleporting into the new leader's possession... Mighty and famous ships like the original Spelljammer, a massive intelligent ship carrying a city on its back...)

She finishes up, putting her tools away and brushing herself off. "So!" she says, brightly. "Magic lessons?"

"Magic lessons."

"Probably safest up on the deck." She leads the way on up. "And I think we should be ready to head out after - the spelljammer helm needs a bit more time to realign - so I can show you how the navigation panel works then..."

"I don't suppose it's much like driving a car."

"Dunno. I've never driven a car. But most models rely on having a spellcaster or a magic item powering it and providing direction - this ship uses a magic item. Not a smart one, so I need to provide destination and route stuff ahead of time, and I'd need to take over the helm personally in an emergency."

"Semi-autonomous, then."

"Yeah. Sounds like your world's managed some similar stuff, even without magic?"

"Reliable physical laws are good for some things."

Laugh. "Still, I like magic more."

"Seems like less work, overall."

"Doesn't help with everything - you can use zeroth circle spells and some magic items as much as you want, but first circle spells and above and some magic items have limited uses per day. And magic items can't really be mass produced. The best strategy would probably be a bit of both, have normal technology for all the utility magic doesn't cover... Still, that's been slow to catch on."

"Per day is kind of a weird restriction."

"The current theory is it's mostly based on capacity for spells refreshing when you sleep or at least are really idle for a long stretch. Casting spells depletes magical energy, especially for spontaneous casters - most casters are either planned or spontaneous. Spontaneous casters know a certain list of spells, and can cast any subset of them, which runs down magical energy. Planned casters have a set number of spells that changes every day, usually intentionally so - that's most common with people who get their magic from gods or patron spirits, since the god will just basically give you little spell parcels to cast later. Wizards also have to plan out their spells - they make and store spell parcels themselves, usually when they wake up but sometimes later. Zeroth level spells are simple enough that a spontaneous caster won't ever run out of energy to cast them unless, like, you do something like refusing to sleep or rest for three days in a row while you constantly cast, and a planned caster can set the parcel to rebuild itself after casting without increasing its energy requirements a lot."

"That makes sense. How does a spontaneous caster know what's on their spell list?"

"Experimenting, and also training towards specific spells. It does vary a bit with whether you're innate or trained - sorcerers are innate spontaneous casters usually, and lean more 'experimenting' early on, while bards are trained spontaneous casters and lean more 'training.'"

"Okay. So I guess I've got to do experimentation."

"Yeah. I can suggest things - there's a lot of spells, but there's some pretty common patterns, out there - especially until you get your zeroths down."

"I was practicing with a few when we met."

"What can you do so far?"

"Mostly the telekinesis thing. And another that does a lot of small stuff, clean things, straighten them."

"Hmmm... First sounds like Mage Hand. Second sounds like Prestidigitation, which's admittedly sometimes kind've a catch-all term for little utility spells like that. You'll almost certainly have your own little version, but - there's only so much you can do with zeroths, and people've figured out strategies for getting the most out of those."

She nods.

She explains some of the gestures and phrases used to bring both spells more under the practitioner's control - "Though I'd recommend training yourself to do without these in a pinch, too, especially for more powerful spells. There's spells that can prevent all sound in an area, and of course you don't want magic that can be beaten by tying you up..."

"Only if it was very exciting."

She grins. "Of course, distractions can create issues with casting too..."

"I bet."

"And a responsible spellcaster practices in all plausible conditions."

"Is that the advanced course?"

"Oh, absolutely. Metamagic Two-oh-one."

"I'll have to do my best so I can advance, then."

"No problem for a promising student like you."

She hums.

Smile.

"Probably best to set out soon - that way I'll be able to watch the first few hours' travel before needing to sleep - oh and also eat dinner..."

"Sounds good."

Navigation happens in a cabin on one end of the deck, small enough Ellie and Villanelle are in fairly close quarters, especially if Ellie wants a good look at what Villanelle's doing. There's a few paper maps on the walls or folded up, but there's mostly crystals; Villanelle demonstrates the use of a magic item that, when a crystal is inserted, will display 3D maps. The crystals are kept in carefully labeled little boxes, and have small labels on their base.

Actually programming the destination involves one of those maps and a control panel which Villanelle explains the use of. "You can use Prestidigitation here, actually - makes it faster, and I've got my own way of casting it keyed into the system as a sort of password so other people can't take off with my ship."

"Smart. Is it possible to copy your way of casting?"

"Yeah. But it's hard, especially if you're not standing there watching me - if someone's good enough at magic to copy my casting without me teaching them, I likely have other problems."

"So you need to have a map to a place before you can go there?"

"Depends. I could also enter the coordinates manually, if, say, I found some scribbled in the margin of a wizard's notebook. And I could take the helm myself, and then go wherever."

She nods.

She pokes some things, shows Ellie how to enter coordinates and then how to reset them. "Alright. Do you want to give it a try? Since we're past the point that needs specific spells..."

"Sure. Where are we going?"

She indicates a crystal and a plane. "This's the nearest port. You want both the plane's coordinates, and a specific point within it to arrive to..." She indicates an area near one of the planets, though off the main orbital path. "We'll be aiming here."

She sets things up.

Villanelle checks behind her. "Good work. This all looks right."

"So then to make it go?"

She shows Ellie how to confirm the coordinates, double check them, and set them up on a queue to activate once Villanelle's navigated them to a good leaving point (out of Earth's gravity well and atmosphere).

"Want to do the honors?" she asks, gesturing to the final 'confirm' button.

She takes a breath -

-and pushes the button.

The ship hums a bit.

"Congrats on your first navigation."

"Sadly the process of steering from the helm's a lot more boring, no matter what movies are gonna tell you... Still, it's safe to stand on the deck, if you wanna watch the world fall away."

"Sure."

"Cool."

She heads out to the deck, splitting off to go stand on a little platform at the front of the ship, hands slightly apart.

She follows, standing a bit back.

There's a bit of a shimmer around her hands, maybe, and - she's reciting a poem, voice low. The language is unfamiliar, but something about her cadence is hauntingly beautiful.

The ship rises straight into the air. Quite quickly from how fast the world's growing small, but there's no turbulence on deck.

Impressive.

The world seems so small.

It gets smaller as they rise, and eventually the ship tilts - gravity still point toward the deck - and starts rising more quickly. It'll still be a bit before they get past the moon, but - they're definitely in space, now.

"Seems a little... anticlimactic."

"Want me to promise you a firefight next time?" she calls back, laughing.

"Hmmm... Maybe just a lightshow."

She hums...

And the air around them lights up with coruscating purples and pinks, streaming from the bow of the ship on back.

She applauds.

She bows grandly, and the ship picks up speed again.

Here we go.

And - 

The streamers Villanelle created are overwhelmed by more and more light, and the ship shudders and breaks through something, like a thin buzzing membrane passing over Ellie - like lightning, coursing through her skin, hovering at her fingertips - 

The Astral Sea is liquid light, pouring around their ship, stars caught in streamers, dark eddies swirling around them. It's grand and immense and Ellie can feel a beat, like a distance pulse, a push-pull of strange waves. Towering cliffs of stars surround them right now, creating a narrow passageway for their ship - and then they pull ahead, burst through into eternity, and the Sea washes in every direction. Strange creatures pass by in the distance, creating little whirlpools around them. Little schools of light motes dance by them, swirl around them, then dart away.

That's more what she was expecting.

Villanelle laughs, stepping away from the platform and walking up to Ellie.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"It's definitely a sight to see."

"Never gets any less gorgeous, really. Of course, pretty company enhances it some..."

"Mm."

Wink.

"Feel like dinner yet?"

"What's on the menu?"

"Fruit, an assortment of canned soup, bread, some sodas that looked cool..."

"A healthy and balanced diet."

"You'll be missing these days whenever we're far from port."

"Maybe I should have gone with you for the shopping."

"Not sure that would've helped; I can only cram so much fresh food in the chest of preservation..."

"Dried foods keep. Rice, bouillon cubes, fruit leather, powdered eggs."

"I've got some of those, and I did try to get a bit of a variety, but we'll probably be sick of it anyways after a while."

"Fruit and bread it is."

"Should also be pretty portable if you want to eat somewhere other than the mess..." She shows the way down to the stores and galley kitchen, pointing out the chest with all the fresh food and the different places shelf-stable food is stored.

Then she'll have to see about putting something together.

Villanelle takes her meal up to the deck.

Ellie follows.

"Do you have any preferences about which room you'll be in?"

"Oh, I wanted to ask you which one would be okay to clear out."

"Hm... Any except the one I'm sleeping in or my study... But yeah I'll want to keep track of where things are being moved to."

"Move things after this, then?"

"Works for me."

So food, then moving stuff.

Most of the rooms are pretty similar; still, some are bigger than others, and Villanelle suggests one of those for Ellie. (It's near her room, in the middle of the ship.)

Advice she'll happily take.

"If and when you accumulate things of your own, I can clear out a section of a store room for you, too."

"I'll keep an eye out for neat stuff, then."

"There's a lot of cool things out there. - Probably tomorrow we should discuss stuff like 'money' and 'schooling' and all if you'll be staying with me past a few ports... Still, it's late right now."

"Bedtime?"

"For me at least."

"See you in the morning, then."

Soft smile. "Goodnight."

And she heads back to her room.

To sleep.

Villanelle's up early the next morning, though she stays quiet and avoids waking Ellie. Still, there'll be warm food (kept at 'just cooked' magically) when she wakes up.

Ellie sleeps later, and doesn't say much until after breakfast. Which she does appreciate.

"So I've been putting some thought into training you," she says, once Ellie seems more awake. "And in general having you on ship - or following me around when I'm in my home port for long stretches."

"Oh?"

"So I'm not going to demand a fee from you or anything. I'll ask you to help with chores around the ship, and in my home when we're there, but I'll train you in how to do those, and if they're cutting into your studying time I'll reduce or remove them. I'm also hoping to hire you for extra work once you're up to speed on some things - it's important for you to have the ability to be independent of me, and that includes 'having your own money.' I can help you with investing it or whatever. The extra work might be doing my share of chores, or might be helping me with legal cases, or might be helping me with magic or historical research."

"For studying - I'll teach you magic, but I also want you to learn other things, too. The classic school stuff is history, planeology, foreign cultures, languages, science and medicine, and math and economics. But I want you to choose a visual or materials art like calligraphy or knitting, a performance or auditory art like music or poetry, and a weapon, too. You need to know how to defend yourself even without magic, and art's good for you. I'm pretty widely educated, but if you pick something - especially a weapon - I'm not trained in, I'll look into finding you supplemental teachers."

"Is that acceptable?"

"That sounds... fair. I haven't done much art, martial or otherwise."

Small smile. "I'll make sure you get a good range of options, then."

"And - there's a good set of rights you have, as my student and as someone on board an Aitanian ship, and some legal considerations. I copied the relevant law," she puts a pamphlet on the table, "But I'd also like to go over some of it with you."

"You're being very thorough."

"Yeah. You're not from my cultural background, and you don't have any reason to trust me. And I don't actually know you that well, yet, so - I want you to be able to get a sense of what you can expect."

"All right."

"So the big thing - you can officially register as my student, which gives you the right to sue me in court if I don't fill the obligations of a teacher. These include providing you with an education, and as a sole master, feeding you, housing you, and some clauses about how I'd be allowed to discipline you. It also makes any kind of flirting or beyond between us illegal on my part, but in a 'you'd have a very easy case to take me to court with' way, not in a 'we could expect police scrutiny if overly affectionate' - at least not in Aitania main, I got homosexuality legalized there but it's still trickling out to the colonies, and different nations are differently accepting..."

"If you don't register as my student, you'd still have rights as my roommate, but I'd have far fewer legal responsibilities toward you. - I fully intend to fill those responsibilities anyways, because I don't do things I'm not willing to commit to, but some people like the extra assurance. Being legally my student would also help for getting into a university if you decided to do that."

"I think... I'd like to think about this for a bit?"

"Yeah, that's very fair. You don't have to make a decision right away - it'd be a while before I could register you, anyways - and I'm fine teaching you while you're still undecided."

"Okay."

Small smile. "I know this is a lot... You can also ask me questions whenever. Or tell me if I'm being a dumbass."

"Thanks."

"Sorry to spring this all on you first day."

"Might as well be now, if it was going to happen anyway."

"True! And it's good to know what you're getting into, though I promise I'm not usually so boring."

"I'm more willing to believe you're a lawyer now, anyway."

Laugh. "No one ever believes me! I have no idea why!"

"It might be the guitar."

"Ah, yes, the violin is a far more lawyer-y instrument, that's true."

"I was thinking more a harmonica. Fits in a briefcase."

"Not very refined! But you could certainly sneak it into court..."

"Perfect for a surprise attack."

Giggle. "Excuse me, your honor, I have a very important interruption..."

Terrible fake harmonica noises.

She laughs.

"Or something to that effect, anyway."

"Any judge would acquit."

"Of course."

Fond smile. "Now I'm tempted to actually do that..."

"Make sure the stenographer gets it down accurately."

"Of course!"

Smile.

The next little while goes well. Villanelle works with Ellie on figuring out her existing spells, initially, and teaches her the history and theory and uses of those spells. She teaches her about the ship - how to identify when there's problems, how to navigate, how to help with repairs. She teaches her the broad swathes of what planes are important, and what the many peoples of the planes are like. She focuses, some, on dragons and their history, and helps Ellie figure out which type of dragon might be in her bloodline. So far the miscellaneous other things are a small share of it all, though Villanelle hardly neglects anything. Villanelle also has her help look up laws for her work, and teaches her how to use magic for chores.

The first port's close enough to Earth that Ellie gets to stretch her legs after only a bit over a week, and then Villanelle's steering them toward the first of the historical sites she wants to investigate (the site of an old military installation, destroyed and rendered mostly useless in one of Aitania's ancient wars).

"Seems like people would have picked over the site already."

"There'd been dangerous magical energies up until recently, and really intensely when it was still a remembered site; some of it's still enough of a problem I'll be running the helm constantly. I'm also not really counting on finding much more than a few clues..."

"Ah."

"Still - it's a good point that other scavengers might've gotten here before us, or might even still be here."

"Do you think there might be, uh, aggressive competition?"

"Well... That depends on how good we are at fast talking."

"You'll be all right, then."

"The best anti-pirate weapon."

"What's the runner-up of choice?"

"Well, I can't pull off 'teleporting bombs' yet... I suppose I'd have to go with anti-ship weapons."

"How many of those do we have?"

"Two, one capable of firing forward, one aft. They require magic to activate. Not the best radius of fire, though, but I can get a punch out of them when I need to."

"Better than none."

"Yeah. They're a bit of an older model, but that matters less against pirates than it does some others - there's not really a coordinated arms and armor race anywhere."

"Something like that would be scary, in this context."

"It'd get bad, fast," she says, more seriously.

Nod.

"Pirate ships shouldn't be much more armored than this, though - some do have stolen old war ships, but that's exceptionally rare, and usually reserved for the big time gangs."

"Hopefully this site isn't quite that interesting."

"Well, perhaps you'll be my good luck charm."

"I am quite charming, and reasonably lucky."

"Perfect, then!"

Hee.

She grins and steers the ship on - they'll be coming up to the transition into normal space very soon.

"I believe I have decided that I do not wish to be your student formally."

She glances over, grin fading a bit. "Huh. Any particular reason?"

"I. Uh."

"Don't want to get you in trouble."

She beams.

"You're delightful."

Shy grin.

She grins back, running her hand through her hair.

"I'm glad I picked you up."

"I am too."

She grins and turns back to the navigation interface as they break into reality proper. "I'll wanna hang back a bit, gather some data..."

- And then she frowns.

"Something wrong?"

"Not sure... The readings are weird..."

"Weird like there's people there already or weird like the sun's blowing up?"

"Weird energy signatures, so probably 'people already there.'"

"Unfortunate."

"I don't recognize the make, though..."

"How exotic is it, then?"

"It's kind of elven? Similar design philosophy - biological ships and all that. But nothing used by any current elven army, so there's a decent chance we're looking at pirates, possibly something exceptionally old or modified..."

"Nothing's ever simple..."

"That's the fun of it."

"So long as we live to tell about it."

"I'd rather say live to celebrate... Ghosts can be chatty, after all."

"Right. That's a better expression anyway."

Laugh. "Well, let's investigate our competition, then..."

"All right."

She talks Ellie through putting the ship into 'stealth mode' (something Ellie can't do yet; it requires one of Villanelle's higher level spells). And then they can creep closer to the ancient wreckage and the odd energy signatures. Villanelle has Ellie activate the crystal ball's view screen, displaying what they'd see from assorted vantage points in the system. (The range is a bit limited, and it doesn't have any fancy detection spells built into it other than 'see invisibility', but it's workable.)

The energy signature is in fact a ship, a hulking monstrosity that looks like someone had a nightmare after they saw an octopus for the first time and decided that'd be a great ship design. It's dark, and the crystal ball doesn't illuminate it well, but its shape can be outlined against the stars. It's exploring an even larger wreck, twisted metal covered in crystal growths.

"That uh. Doesn't look friendly."

"Abyssal elves," she says, squinting. "Pretty unfriendly, yeah, to everyone not them. Or, at least that's who bred the ship..."

"So what's the plan?"

"I'd like to gather more information... And avoid a confrontation, that thing's probably nastier in a fight than we are. If it does come to a fight, though, we should be a lot more agile."

"They haven't noticed us yet, and might not - I want to hang back some, scry, and try and dart in ahead of them then take off. They're not searching like a group equipped with magic useful for finding things."

"Makes sense."

Smile. "Are you okay keeping an eye on the ship while I look through the wreck?"

"I'll do my best."

"So I should expect excellent work, then."

"Either that or abject failure."

"Certainly something impressive."

"I am a lady of extremes."

"Extremely delightful, for sure."

She preens.

She laughs and sets about scrying.

The information they're able to get is pretty detailed - enough Villanelle feels confident leaving Ellie with the ship while she delves into the wreck alone. She thinks she can get in and out ahead of the pirates... And that the thing they're after is too small for the ship.

She'll hide the ship behind some wreckage; Ellie will just need to stay hidden. Is she okay with that?

"If someone finds me, should I move the ship or try to fight?"

"I'd rather you try to get away... I can hang out for a few hours easily until you're able to come back for me, and I should be able to expand that some."

She nods. "I'll try not to break anything."

"I'll appreciate it."

Smile.

"Good luck finding something."

"Thanks. I shouldn't be long."

Ellie sees her off, then heads to the bridge to keep an eye on things.

The ship's pretty well hidden by the time Villanelle leaves, tucked behind some material that seems to give scries directed inward (but not out) a lot of static it took Villanelle some finagling to get around. The other ship continues its slow way through the ruins, searching back and forth methodologically. Villanelle vanishes from the radar not long after she heads out.

Villanelle is not, despite her assurances, back soon. The hulking pirate ship turns, and starts sweeping on an arc that should take them past but perhaps dangerously close to Ellie.

Is there enough cover that if she moves she won't expose herself?

Barely; she'll have to be careful.

Then she will carefully ease the ship away from the pirates' course.

They don't seem to notice her! In fact they don't seem to notice a net of cables they stumble into either, and have to spend a good bit of time detangling themselves from.

Ha. Gives her time to find a good hiding spot.

She's able to, and it even has a decent enough vantage so she'll be able to tell if and when Villanelle returns to where she left from.

Convenient.

Back to waiting.

There's an explosion off in the wreckage.

The pirate ship turns towards it.