Hammond waddles his way up to his last stop of the day. The sun is just starting to set in the distance. Today has been nice — mostly venturing through the Italian countryside — but it will be nice to get home for dinner.
He straightens his tie, and gives the door a firm knock with his flipper.
She scrambles for the door.
"I'll get iii..." oh, wait she's alone.
She looks through the peephole to see if it's someone they know.
She unlocks the door but keeps the chain on, as her mum told her to do for strangers.
"H... hello?"
"Would that require opening the door? I'm sorry, but mum says to never let strangers in. I don't think she was considering talking walruses but you know, better safe than sorry."
"Oh, no, that's quite understandable," Hammond agrees. "I would tell my calves the same thing, had I any."
"But no, I'm content to put questions to you from out here, so long as you don't mind conversing through the gap."
"No, no, that's fine. This is most probably a dream anyway, walruses can't talk in real life."
He huffs a little.
"Perhaps not in your world," he admits. "But in mine it's perfectly usual. I've been able to talk since before I said my first word."
"And anyway — it might become more common here pretty soon. I've been sent around because your world has grown enough that it's about to develop magic, and I'm surveying people on what form magic should take here."
"Wait. How does that work? If you haven't said your first word yet you haven't talked? I'm confuddled."
"Wait, we're getting magic? For real? Oh, I really hope this is not a dream! Which kind of magic? Is it like Harry Potter? Like the Lord of the Rings? Are you magic? Can you use magic?"
Hammond smiles.
"Well, if I hadn't been able to talk before that point, how would I have said my first word?" he points out. "As for your more important question — that's rather up to you. The Will of Magic is still trying to decide what kind of magic to be, so it sent us out to ask for people's opinions."
He looks to the side.
"... well, technically it didn't send me; I'm a subcontractor. But it's close enough! Anyway!"
He makes a show of consulting the clipboard.
"Are those the kinds of magic that you'd like to have? Magic isn't so limited that it has to match what you're already familiar with, but if you have a kind of magic in mind already, it might make sense to start there."
"I mean, not precisely? Harry Potter's magic words are just silly. 'Wingardium Leviosa', really? Magic should be more dignified than that. And Tolkien's magic is uncommon and often subtle. I want everyone to be able to learn magic. Well, maybe not everyone. You should be smart enough or something. People who are not good at thinking would be dangerous with magic."
"I definitely want spell diagrams! And portals!"
He writes this down.
"How do you feel about the question of 'hard' and 'soft' magic? That is, should magic be based on mechanistic, mathematical principles, or on less rigidly defined concepts such as language or emotion?"
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