This is an ocean, much like any other ocean. Salty. Wavy. Big. Blue. Full of monsters.

Whatever he was expecting, this wasn't it.

He lets out an undignified noise that is not at all a squawk as he splashes into the water.

He's not much of a swimmer, but fortunately this can be remedied in several ways. He elects to conjure a small fogbank and climb atop it (cloudwalking: a feature of his species that he's quite fond of), then launch back into the air. At least, that's the plan. 

Not much of a swimmer? So, hypothetically, he wouldn't notice anything in the water beneath him if something large far below noticed him and began to approach?

That depends on whether it takes more than, say, six seconds to reach him on the surface. Any slower than that and he'll be in the air, with much better situational awareness. (Another silver dragon perk: seeing through fog.) 

It takes a little more than six seconds for the bulk of it to get that close.

But then, very, very fast, a black tendril extends itself out of the water to wrap around his hind ankle.

That gets his attention. Several things happen in rapid succession. 

Ipaxalon starts to radiate cold, his immediate vicinity chilling to well below freezing. It's not enough to immediately hinder a large or powerful creature, but it's cold enough to kill an unprotected human in under a minute. 

His head whips around and he breathes. Everything in the tendril's general direction is blasted with enough supernatural cold to snap-freeze a rhinocerous into a brittle statue, out to about sixty feet. 

If there's anything still moving after that, his front claws make a rapid arcane gesture, he barks out a word, and his movements quicken. 

(If any of his foes were subject to mind-affecting fear effects, they may also notice Ipaxalon is suddenly very scary.) 

His foe is not subject to mind-affecting fear effects but is subject to cold. Much of the blackness breaks off, dead.

That which was far enough below the water to be out of range surges up, though, torpedo-shaped and then winged afterwards as it swims around its discarded frozen parts and shapeshifts into something that can breach and fly.

What. What kind of creature is that. He's never seen or heard of its like before. Is it a Netherling? It doesn't match the description of any of the invaders he knows, but they are new to the world and famously diverse. Is this their world? That's a horrifying thought. But aren't most of them land-based?

Not the time. He's not sure why this thing picked a fight, but he intends to win. He dives, tearing into the creature with several rapid bites, each one powerful enough to crush a horse. His claws and wings rip into its body, somewhat less destructive but aimed with precision. His tail lashes out at its center of mass.

It tastes really bad. The substance of it parts easily enough between his sharp bits, but while he's clearly doing some damage to it that way - flecks of black shear off into the air and don't reintegrate, including the bit that tries to burrow down his throat - it doesn't seem too fazed. It reforms, woundless, wherever he isn't actively harrying it.

He wants his tail to be in its center mass? That suits it fine. It shlorps around said tail with a grip like high water pressure.

...this is not a normal creature. Some kind of Elder Thing? What is going on. 

His attacks don't seem to be doing much, but neither does the creature seem able to penetrate his armor. His scales don't protect against constriction, though. 

In retrospect, engaging an unknown creature in melee on its home turf without adequate preparations was a mistake. He could attempt a spell, but it seems likely this monster can make him regret that in the middle of a grapple. Instead he lets loose another blast of supernatural cold along the length of his own body, towards the beast and his entrapped tail. Then he attempts to wrench his tail free and take flight. His leverage isn't great, but if he can freeze the part of the beast that's holding him and push off that...

Once it's frozen it shatters away conveniently from his tail. There's some of it left still moving, and it forms fresh wings and gives chase.

Between the innate flying speed and the haste, Ipaxalon can get nearly three hundred feet away in six seconds while still going slow enough to cast. 

He glances upwards. It is generally considered inadvisable to attempt a teleport spell to a place you haven't studied closely. But if you can literally see where you're about to go, and don't particularly care if you're a few hundred feet off target, the standard concerns do not apply. One spell later, he is several thousand feet above the water. 

Rule number one of fighting a dragon (or any spellcaster, really): do not give them time to cast buff spells. 

If the creature that attacked him is still inclined to pursue at this range, Ipaxalon will likely have time to cast several. And recharge his breath attack.

(He could continue fleeing, but he's disinclined to put his back to this thing while still unaware of its full capabilities, and very disinclined to be herded by it.) 

The creature loses track of him when he teleports. It reforms into a slim lozenge shape and dives back under the water, disappearing into the darkness.

Anticlimactic, but that's fine with him. A cure serious wounds takes care of his slightly crushed tail while he takes stock. 

Sky, water, single sun. The air smells crisp and clear, though there's something about it he can't quite place. It seems like he's still on the Prime Material. His best guess is that he's been somehow moved to an unfamiliar part of the planet. Given the climate, it's probably well out of teleport range of Jotenaugr. But if he can figure out where on the planet he is, he should be able to make his way back eventually. Or, if the Netherlings are invading here as well, he can lend his aid to whomever needs it.

...there's no way it's that simple. The Wish didn't outright fail; it must have done something that had a chance of turning him into a great wyrm. He's not a great wyrm yet, so the other head has yet to turn.*

If this isn't the Prime Material, if he's somewhere else entirely, then getting back to the war will be a bit more complicated. 

Step one: Find land, or someone he can talk to. He picks a direction and puts on speed. (In local terms, he's doing about fifty knots.) 

*Northlands colloquialism akin to "the other shoe has yet to drop," with a more bitter flavor. Originated during the Burying of Linnorms, a nasty war against cursed, two-headed monsters that look an awful lot like dragons from afar.

He is quite in the middle of the ocean and it's big.

But flying for a while and looking around will catch him a view of some sails, over there.

Sails! Sails mean people, unless he's even more lost than he thought. Either way, it seems more promising than the grabby tendril monster.

Ipaxalon slows and begins to glide down towards the sails, keeping his auras of scary and fuckoffcold tucked away. As he closes, he'll gradually curve down on a trajectory that brings him beside rather than right on top of the ship(s). He doesn't want to alarm the sailors, and he is a thirty-foot-long dragon.

The sailors observe his existence and don't seem... alarmed literally at all? They seem kind of pleased to see him. Some of them wave but none of them try to say anything.

Oh good, no harpoons.

He glides a bit closer, casts tongues. "I greet you," he says in fluent whatevertheyspeak. "I am Ipaxalon of the Northlands, recently restored to life. I believe I've been misplaced by magic, and seek to reorient myself. May I know from whence you come, and whither you are bound?" 

Hmm. As he suspected, the language seems completely novel. 

"Whoa! She can talk!" exclaims a crewman. "I didn't think they could talk!"

It doesn't look like anybody thought "they" could talk. They all agree on "she", though.

???

Have they...only...met...female...dragons? Who...couldn't talk? Or never bothered talking to mortals? But also didn't try to eat them, like chromatics or primals might?

"You have perhaps mistaken me for something I am not. I am a male dragon," oh they do have a word for dragons, weird connotations though, "and we can, as a rule, all talk."

They contemplate this statement, then somebody says, "I guess there's no reason a magical girl couldn't?", very tentatively, and another says, "I hear the pegasus in Ireland sometimes speaks..."

He flaps once to maintain a gentle glide to their starboard. 'Magical girl' maps more or less literally to 'female sorcerer', also with some weird connotations he's too distracted to probe. Something about beauty? That's fairly normal for sorcerers, though.

The (almost certainly human) sailors think he's some sort of...shapeshifted sorcerer? Perhaps from a prominent matrilineal family? Possibly not dragonblooded, if they also take pegasus form. It wouldn't be the strangest bloodline, not by a long shot. 

"I am magical, but not a girl..."

'Ireland' is a place, but not one he recognizes. 

"...I don't suppose you have a map aboard that I might peruse?"

"Can you, uh, turn back into a magical girl for a bit? I don't think we're meant to bring it out on deck."

They're really hung up on this girl thing, aren't they. "I can assume humanoid form for a time, yes." He loops around to angle more directly towards the deck in a spot where his wings won't hit the rigging, and in one smooth motion lands and —

— is now a barefoot, shirtless, silver-haired human wearing grey woolen pants. 

(Getting clothes to cooperate with an alternate form is a bit of a trick, but many dragons who regularly interact with humanoids find it worth their time to master. Ipaxalon is one such, but he's been too busy since his revival to bother with more than the bare minimum. It's not like he needs to dress for the cold. His form is strikingly handsome, though.) 

They find that really confusing, but it was already pretty confusing. "Where's Rebecca?"

"Asleep, she was up in the night three times with swarms."

"Hunh. I'll let the captain decide whether to wake her, I suppose."

He's curious — is Rebecca one of these sorcerers? — but not enough to spend time prying. "I can only maintain this form for a limited time," he admits. "Might I see this map?" 

"- not if you might turn into a dragon again indoors if you get distracted!" someone exclaims, while someone else runs off for (presumably) the captain.

"Distracted? No, it requires no ongoing maintenance on my part. It merely has a limited duration. A bit over twenty minutes, to be precise. I can triple that time if necessary, though I'd rather not." 

"Now I know that isn't how anything works," comes the irritable reply.

The captain bustles back, accompanied by -

- a shockingly beautiful young woman with feathered wings, wearing a thoroughly impractical dress and sandals themed with snowflakes and frost patterns.

A bit of irritation flares at the implication that he would lie. He allows the feeling to fade without reaching his face; it is he, not they, who is a stranger here. Misunderstandings are to be expected. 

He can wait for the captain to return. 

...is that an angel? Or perhaps an azata? (Did that mad beautiful Emissary send him to Elysium?) 

Regardless, they have impeccable taste. And very nice wings. It's not very often that Ipaxalon feels under-dressed. 

He's not sure of the proper etiquette for greeting a sorcerer/angel/azata/??? in this society, but he can do his level best. "Favored of the Light, hail and well met." He smiles warmly. 

He's hot and those are not two words she ever expected to think consecutively ever again!!!

"I - I'm the ship's magical girl, my name is Rebecca Arden," she says, curtsying with a bit of wingflare. "Are - you not a - I suppose I've never tried turning into -"

"It is an honor and a delight to meet you, Rebecca. I am called in the mortal tongue Ipaxalon, of the silver flight." She seems considerably more confused about his identity than he expected an azata to be, but he's too confused himself to answer the half-questions.

"A-and what might an - immortal? - be doing visiting the Shotley -?"

"Dragon, to be precise. Due to a magical mishap, I am unfortunately very lost. While seeking a means by which to navigate, I saw your vessel from afar. Your Captain and crew were most welcoming." Which reminds Ipaxalon, he has a task to accomplish. He is here to orient to an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous environment, not get distracted by ✨wingflares✨. "They were kind enough to offer me a look at the ship's map. Perhaps you would accompany me?" Okay, maybe a little distracted. 

She looks at the Captain, who has been murmuring to one of the crew. The captain says, "There's some concern that - he? - can't be sure to stay small and not dragon-sized, in the map room."

"I have assured the good Captain that there is no substantial danger of my accidentally exiting this form. Unless your map room is home to an antimagic field, which I very strongly doubt." Or unless they intend to physically restrain him from leaving for over an hour, which (a) would not work and (b) would leave him much less inclined to avoid putting a hole in their boat if it did.

"It is not a kind of magic that requires ongoing concentration to maintain." Wait, why is that such a long phrase in this language? Do they not have...? "Captain, I have the utmost respect for the integrity of your vessel, and would not propose a course of action which needlessly endangered it or your crew."

The captain considers this, then finally sighs and nods. Rebecca leads Ipaxalon into a room which contains maps.

He follows politely, and observes said maps. 

Oh. 

Wishes, he knows, can send people pretty much anywhere. He appears to have been anywhere'd quite remarkably hard. 

"I do not recognize these continents," he murmurs. "I fear I am very lost indeed." 

"- that's America, there, and we're headed for England, here."

"Thank you, Rebecca. I think — I expect I may be missing a great deal of context. I will not know many things that seem obvious to you, and I will need to ask what must seem like very basic questions. I beg your patience in this.

"Ships and those who sail them, these things I knew. Yet much of what I have seen and heard here is alien to me. A creature of shifting blackness attacked me from beneath the waves without provocation; I had never seen its like before, and know not its nature nor its motives. The Captain, and crew, and yourself, all seemed surprised by some aspects of my appearance. I seem to have been mistaken for a 'magical girl', and I do not know why. Of Ireland, America, England, I knew nothing before I came here. I do not know the name of this planet, if it has one, nor what plane it inhabits. Could you...explain these things as best you can, the way you might to a child?" 

As he speaks, his eyes flick across the map she indicated, attempting to commit its contents to memory. 

"Gosh. Uh. The planet is Earth. The black things are monsters. They just - attack, they don't seem to want anything besides to attack people. Uh, here on Earth, all the magic is girls. Only some of us, but only girls. And then we can change how we look," she gestures with her left wing illustratively, "and what we're wearing, and we get other powers if we're pretty enough. And if we change how we look too much then our souls leave early and some kind of benign creature runs around in our place fighting monsters, so if you showed up looking like a dragon I guess they'd think that happened, and then it turned out you could talk, so..."

That is even more strange than he was expecting after several instances of updating towards expecting strangeness!!!

...but still no Maelstrom. He'll cope. 

"That does help quite a bit, thank you." Even if it does raise Many Additional Questions. Pretty enough? Their souls leave early? Did they think he was some kind of benign undead? No, still too many assumptions. "By 'all the magic is girls', do you mean, only biological women inherit spellcasting, only they can learn it, they are the only ones chosen by the gods, something completely different...?" 

"There's only one God, let's start with that!"

Curious. "Are 'magical girls' Their chosen clerics? Are Their domains and ethical-orientation known?" 

"...His domain is all the world and He's all-loving and all-good? I don't know if He's picking magical girls though, the Church thinks it might only be Him the same way everything else is."

"...hmmm. Where I come from, there are many gods, each with different but sometimes overlapping areas of interest. Farming, healing, war, fire, knowledge, destruction, law, and the like. They can be good or evil or somewhere in between, depending on their interests, and often carry out their conflicts through mortals. Many, but not all, choose some of their followers who are most aligned with their interests to become clerics, shaping their souls to enable them to perform a particular brand of 'divine' magic. Your magic does sound different. Clerics in my world know when they've been chosen; being contacted directly by a god is fairly unmistakable."

He's still skimming maps, moving the loose ones with care. 

"There are also arcane spellcasters, whose magic is usually learned or innate, and creatures with innate magic of their own, including dragons like myself. How do magical girls originally receive their magic? How did you come by yours, if I may ask?"

"Oh, uh, girls get a - vision, sort of, of ourselves, and stars behind us, and then we can change the us part, and then we look like that, however we changed it, to everyone else too. That's how it is for everybody I think but I haven't met many others. I'm pretty sure pagan deities are all demons or something. If they were angels they'd explain that they were working for God."

"That sounds like quite the experience. Somewhat reminiscent of a cleric-choosing, but not enough to be decisive.

"'Demons' where I'm from are a kind of being from the fiendish planes which takes nourishment from mortal suffering and generally seeks to cause more of it. Among my previous duties was fighting them and opposing their influence on the Prime Material. Only a handful of the most powerful self-style as gods, but they have few worshipers among the living. 'Angels' were in many ways their celestial counterparts and longtime foes." A pang of absence, acknowledged and allowed to fade. "They would usually say which god they serve, but in a world with only one Good deity, that might be unnecessary."

A pantheon of Evil gods could perhaps explain why the Good one hasn't squashed the monsters yet, but he notes the differing connotations between "one God" and "pagan deities" and suspects there's still a communications gap. He asks a few follow-up questions.  

"Would you consider 'monsters' to be 'demons'? Do you know of any demons by name? Approximately what fraction of the population gets a vision? And to be clear, it is uncertain what force prompts the visions?"

"I don't think the Church's said about monsters being demons or not either. Like they might be but normally you'd expect demons to like, tempt people to sin and stuff, not just chew them up. They might be more like magic bears or something. I know a few demon names like, uh. Beelzebub? Mammon? ...I think I know more than that but not off the top of my head. I don't know the fraction, it's not most of us, it's like... there was a girl at the nunnery who said she got the chance but didn't take it, and... I heard a rumor that the butcher's third daughter took it but she didn't have wings or anything so I don't know how she would have hidden it, maybe she had scales or something all over under her clothes?... and there was the spinster who lived all by herself and people came to her when they needed magic, she had four arms... but most people don't. And yeah, it's just the stars and ourselves, no - explanation."

He doesn't recognize the names, but he commits them to memory.

"Magic bears? And are the extraordinary physical traits mandatory or merely popular?" 

"There aren't magic bears, I just mean, if bears were magic, they'd magically bite people and wouldn't be demons. No specific thing is mandatory but you have to do something, or it goes away."

How curious. A Chaotic Good god of beauty, maybe? Granting suitable mortals power would be in character for some. The existence of a Church without clerics who know themselves to be clerics is also very strange. Two different gods, one Lawful, one Chaotic? "I see. I would like to speak to a representative of this Church at some point, I think. You also said you can do magic if you are pretty enough? Could you elaborate on that?" 

"Like a priest? Sure - I mean there's different kinds but whatever kind will probably be able to answer your questions. Uh, my magic is this," she appears a hailstone in her palm. "And I couldn't do it if I were dressed in rags and had... soot on my face or something? I have to look nice and the nicer I look the more of it I can do."

"Ah." He looks up from the maps and smiles. "You must be quite powerful, then." 

She giggles. "I had a stylist help out a bit before setting off with this ship."

"They did an exquisite job. I particularly appreciate the frost motif." 

"Yeah, I was doing the fabric in like, a marbled pattern at first, but that was dumb of me."

"Learning the particulars of a new skill is rarely easy, even for those with an instinct for it. I had terrible taste in humanoid clothing for decades." 

A small exertion of will renews his human form, but the act reminds him he's on a time limit. 

"I'm going to try out a weak spell for identifying magic." He flicks a tiny thread of soul to cast detect magic, and pauses. Then: "It tells me you are strongly magical, but not made of magic like a summon would be, and that your clothes are magical conjured objects." 

...huh. The hailstone doesn't appear to be magical. It's just ice. That could have...implications. 

"The ice isn't, though. Is it common to be able to create objects out of nothing? And may I ask you to make another hailstone?" 

"Oh, sure," she makes another one. "I think most magical girls don't make new things? I mean besides clothes and stuff, we can all do that."

"Thank you. Hmm. That doesn't look like any spell I've ever seen. More like an unstructured supernatural ability." And all their magic works like this? Curious. 

He's still on a time limit though, so he checks another map. "May I ask you to explain America, England, Ireland, the other places I see here? Are they regions or political entities, how are they organized and governed, and such?" 

"Oh boy. Uh. England colonized America but then America rebelled and they're on their own now, a bit before I was born, I forget when exactly..." The rest of the geopolitics lesson proceeds gappily at about that quality level.

He seems delighted anyway. He notes the gaps, but it's still way more information than he had before.

After about thirty more minutes: "Thank you, Rebecca, this was enlightening. I would repay your kindness, and that of your Captain and crew. For all aboard the Shotley, I can offer healing to the sick and injured, favorable winds, and protection on the way to England, if you believe such an offer to be wise. I am in your debt as well, if there aught I may offer you personally in thanks."

"Gosh, okay, there's some men laid up what with one thing and another and I haven't got the slightest bit of healing myself and I'd love not to go it alone against a sea monster if we run into one."

"To the sickbay, then?"

"I guess so!"

She knows where that is and leads the way.

He introduces himself to those present. "I offer magical healing to any who choose to accept it."

About how many patients are there, and what proportion of obvious injury vs disease?

There's a man down with ten lashes, some of which are threatening to become infected. Everybody else has garden variety issues like diarrhea or a nasty cold or a twisted ankle or a broken finger.

A handful of cure moderate wounds takes care of the injuries. He doesn't have remove disease, but he does have the positive-energy sledgehammer that is heal and there isn't much that it can't handle. Three for the worst of the diseases, he'll reserve one for emergencies, and one to the...lashed man.

"Those don't look accidental. Disciplinary action?" He's seen plenty of harsh discipline before, but it's still slightly alarming they'd risk infection over it. 

"Yeah. I don't recall what he did," says Rebecca.

"Drunk on duty," supplies someone else.

That doesn't seem horribly disproportionate, and he's still a stranger here. He doesn't comment further, and instead excuses himself to return to the upper deck.

As he prepares to depart: "Rebecca, would you convey my offer of escort to the captain?" 

"Yeah, okay - are you going to be a swimming dragon or a flying dragon or what -"

"Flying dragon! You'll see." 

"Mm-hm." She runs off to find the captain.

And he makes his way to the aft deck, leaps into the air —

— and is a dragon again. 

He banks around to resume gliding and wait for Rebecca and the captain. 

The captain gives the all clear while Rebecca giggles softly to herself.

He can't resist showing off a little. He does some aerial acrobatics a safe distance from the ship. (He may be cheating somewhat by redirecting the wind around him. Silver dragons are unusually agile, for giant flying lizards, but not that agile.) 

As long as it doesn't foul the sails he will not receive any complaints. Rebecca takes off too, does a bit of a spiral around the ship low to the water, gets ahead of it a bit, and then, apparently satisfied with the results, sees how chaotic the air near the dragon is.

Chaotic? Him? Perish the thought. The air is perfectly well-behaved by the time she arrives. 

"Flying dragon. I see your own wings are as functional as they are beautiful!" 

"They'd be pretty silly if they didn't work, they get in the way something awful when I'm on my feet!"

"They suit you well. An excellent choice of appendage. I mistook you for a celestial when I first saw them." 

"I like them too! And they're very warm at night."

"How very convenient! A little too convenient, perhaps. I would not impugn your honor, but I feel the strangest desire to test this alleged feature." 

"Well, you'd scarcely feel it right now, would you, I've got only about twice as much wingspan as armspan."

"Tragically, I can only adopt an appropriately wing-warmable form for about forty minutes a day. How foolish of me to expend it all on maps, and leave none for appreciating this most excellent feature of yours." 

"Per day, that's funny!"

"Your own magic doesn't come with recharge times at all, even for large workings? It's a very common limitation in mine."

"Not really! I can make ice faster if I'm prettier, but I can do it all day. Till I have to sleep."

"Hmmm. Convenient. Less flexible, but far more reliable. I wonder if that difference is somehow related to your lack of a large, diverse pantheon? It's been speculated that our magic is a compromise of sorts among the gods." 

"Iiii have no idea how the paganism is working out for you that way, I'm a Christian."

"'Paganism' isn't quite translating clearly...worship of different gods, referring to the pantheon? I'm not a follower of any in particular. Christian is...a follower of the God you mentioned?" With tongues, he's able to notice the distinction of the capital letter, but he's not quite sure how to parse it. 

"Right. Named after Jesus Christ. Pagans are people who worship, like, gods of things? Who aren't angels or saints or anything and don't work for God so they're bad news."

"Jesus Christ being another name of this God, or a cleric of same?" That's how some religions are named, anyway. It would make sense; it seems rather awkward to be a god named God, that would be like naming himself Dragon. 

"His only begotten son."

...it's not unheard of for gods to incarnate and have children, who may or may not end up gods or demigods themselves. "Is there perhaps a holy book Christians use for guidance?" It can't possibly be as headache-inducing as Rasanelle's Holy Doodle. 

"Sure, I'm sure there's at least a few Bibles on the ship."

"Ah, good. Perhaps I should read before I bore you by attempting to absorb an entire theology piecemeal." 

"Well, it's rather Protestant to try to learn it from books and not from priests but I'm certainly nothing near a priest."

Is that a name for another religion about the same god? Also not unheard of, but...he's just gonna read the book first. 

"I'd like to speak to a priest as well, certainly, but I was under the impression that'd have to wait on England...speaking of which, what prompted you to embark on this journey?"

"Going to America didn't work out so great."

"I see. I perceive your burden, Rebecca; I offer attention, should you wish to speak of it, and companionship regardless." It has the cadence of something oft-spoken, warm and gentle. (It is in fact a much shorter phrase in Celestial.) 

"Thank you, that's very kind. It's - I wasn't a magical girl yet when I set out, that came - later. Too late."

"I am sorry for your loss. How long ago?"

"Three months."

Far beyond his ability, then. Solace would have to suffice, as it all too often must.

"Itamnri. May their soul find rest, and flourish Beyond."

That's... close enough even if it's not quite right. "Amen."

"Some find it helps to speak of the lost, others do not. I do not know your heart, Rebecca, but the offer I made does not expire." He falls silent, and that is an offer too. 

"My baby Catherine. She got sick, on the voyage."

"As a magical girl, you could have — brought her to a healer?"

"Well, I could've got healing magic but I wasn't even thinking about that, then, I was thinking - she'd been away from me for a while, and I couldn't nurse, and I was pretending, swapping her around with five other mothers, and I thought maybe if I could shapeshift I could get it going again but it was too late."

He listens, and comments occasionally, signaling as best he can that he hears and welcomes her story without expecting her to share more than she is comfortable. And he flies with her. (She may find the wind unusually cooperative.)

The wind being cooperative helps with allowing her to be in the air longer than she usually manages. She doesn't have a whole lot else to say though.

Eventually she mentions her wings are getting a bit tired and she needs to be able to take off if there's a sea monster, and she glides back down to the ship.

Then he'll check in with the sailors, slightly adjust the prevailing winds, and repeat this a few times until he's got a sense for the direction and speed that's best for the Shotley. 

And ask to borrow a Bible. 

It's not exactly convenient to read a human book while flying, but he has mage hand and cloudwalking and plenty of time. He'll figure it out. 

Mortal theology has always been spotty at best, but Heavens this book is a mess. If He's being represented properly, this "one true God" either has utterly baffling priorities or He is actually several gods in a trenchcoat. It's hard to imagine a Good god ordering half of what is described here. Perhaps the mortals were overzealous in translating? It happens, quite often, but rarely this badly without a cleric showing up to set the record straight. 

Their origin myth he mostly glosses; they're all more or less the same flavors of strange in his experience. There are some intriguing bits, but he's not sure how reliable they are.

At least God's instructions to His followers show up relatively early on. It looks like a pretty Lawful list, albeit with some confusing entries. What exactly does it mean to misuse His name? What counts as "coveting"? The "no other gods" bit does rather explain a few things, but also suggests there might be other gods, not just demons, although the rest all being Evil would certainly explain the importance of the provision. 

Oh goodness there are more rules. Even Ploth Koon Eidrex isn't this persnickety, and He hazes His clerics. 

...maybe mortal misrepresentations is the problem, because it does seem to keep happening that a servant of God shows up and tells everyone they're doing it wrong. 

Speaking of which, what happened to all their clerics? Clearly someone back then was slinging around earthquake and snake staff and probably even calling on miracles, and they couldn't have been magical girls unless they all somehow caught a very specific curse. Was there a renegotiated godagreement at some point?

It's still not a worse read than the Holy Doodle, thank the Heavens. The words don't change around at all, he checked six times. Bizarrely, though, he misses the pictures. 

...that's enough reading for one day. 

Rebecca flies up later on to ask if he's going to fish for his dinner, they're not sure they have enough food on board for him.

"I'll go fishing eventually, yes. I don't need to eat every day. I do need to sleep to recharge my magic, and plan to take some naps during calm weather." He'll be running on less sleep than usual, most likely, but that's preferable to letting the ship get too far away. He's studied it enough to find it with a teleport if need be, but there's always monster attacks.

"Whoa, in the air?"

By way of demonstration, he gains a bit of distance, makes a sphere of cloud a fair bit bigger than he is, and curls up atop it, halfway buried in floof. His tail swishes smugly. 

"Whoa, neat. Won't you lose the ship in the night?"

"I won't lose the ship outright, I can teleport to its location if it comes to that, but I am a bit worried about monsters. I can mitigate this somewhat with short naps, by flying ahead before taking them, and by waiting for calm winds. I need to do that anyway if I have to make my own clouds, they dissipate quickly under a stiff breeze." Indeed, the fluff is already thinning. "I suspect I'll be a bit more likely to notice a fight breaking out in the daytime, so I may stick to that where possible... How much range do you have, by the way? Can you drop a hailstone on my head if you can see me?"

"No, I have to be pretty close. You... won't be able to sense monsters, right. It wakes me up out of a dead sleep but if one flew up out of the sea it could sneak up on you."

"Technically, yes, but...it is surprisingly hard to sneak up on a sleeping dragon." A Perception of more than +30 has its perks. "I was thinking altitude would help as well. The one I fought earlier seemed to lose track of me at a few thousand feet up. I don't know their range limit, though, and don't want to get too far from the ship for obvious reasons. I'll manage." 

"Oh, they can fly, I'm not sure why it would have stopped chasing you if you got higher."

"Some creatures without natural vision have a hard range limit on their senses...but if you aren't sure they have one, I shouldn't rely on it. About how long to England, in expectation?" 

"About two more weeks."

"I can probably shave a little of that off by keeping the winds cooperative. There's only so fast a ship like the Shotley can be pushed, though.

"I'll have to ration spells more than usual, but it won't be crippling. I can nap briefly in human form on the ship, too. Two weeks is doable, but I'm open to suggestions to make it easier." 

"You have to ration spells? I thought you got them every day?"

"Only with sufficient rest, about the same as a human needs. I can function on far less sleep." 

"Oh, that's even worse than I thought. There's bigger ships than this, if you want to take escort work - you'd want maybe a whole fleet that had a regular magical girl or two, so they could sense the monsters, but you could help fight them, and if the ship were big enough maybe you could land on it."

"I'm frankly more inclined to go hunting, if I decide fighting monsters is the best use of my abilities. These monsters primarily come from the sea?"

"Swarms can appear on land too, but big monsters show up when nobody kills them while they're small, so the sea and the forest and the mountains and stuff. There's the shells of magical girls who went too far who hunt them, though."

"I should like to get a look at these 'shells', sometime, in case there's anything I can do for them. Doubtful, but worth trying." 

"They're friendly, generally, so it's safe to go up to them and have a look if you spot one, but they all look different."

"Good to know. What are your own plans on returning to England?" 

"...get on another boat probably. There's nothing I want to do there particularly and boats always want magical girls. I guess I might stay with this one but I'd let somebody outbid them, I'm on this one because I wanted to leave right away."

"Understandable. Well, that's certainly an argument in favor of my escorting a fleet from time to time." 

"It pays pretty good especially in bonuses when there's monsters."

"Excellent. I do share my kind's stereotypical fondness for shiny things." And now he has questions about currency and how much of it will buy what! 

She can explain pounds and shillings and so on like a native Englishwoman.

Those sound like moderately shiny things. He'll ask some followup questions about their banking system and debts and such before swapping to lighter topics, like what places are worth visiting if one can teleport. 

"I don't know if any magical girls can teleport so I never really thought about it! I haven't traveled a lot besides the going to America that one time..."

"Do you think you might like to? Escorting ships will certainly take you to interesting places, but not to all the interesting places." 

"Well, where else is there to go - I guess the middles of continents but I don't know much about where would be worth flying to there -"

"If my own world is anything to go by, you may find a great many wonders which do not border the sea!" With only a slight trace of wistfulness, he tells her of the immense and unassailable spires of Jotenaugr, of its towering adamantine gates and the Moat at God's Eye; of the ancient empire of Halflingdom, twice ravaged, long hidden, and now reborn anew; of the deep, wild jungles of Juthmar and the grand Temple-House of Ploth Koon Eidrex, destroyed and rebuilt countless times; of the walled gardens of the Fortlands where myriad communities thrive under the protection of the copper-flight, guarded against conquest from within and without...

Whoa, he tells good stories. And he is really hot and she should nooooot be doing things about thaaaaaat but he iiiiiiis.

He is withholding more blatant romantic overtures until he's a bit better oriented and no longer needs to reserve all of his mortal-form-time for sleeping, but he is thoroughly enjoying her presence and will not be running out of fascinating stories anytime soon. He has enough to last the whole voyage, and many more besides. 

(He will sprinkle in a few more...suggestive stories. This is how he learned about the mortal preoccupation with wearing clothes all the time, he'd previously thought they shed the uncomfortable things as soon as they were indoors away from the cold, the royal delegation from Halflingdom was telling the story of that reception for months after...)

Oh noooooo that's hilarious.

...and just when he'd dared to hope the last of the teasing had died out, a merchant-prince of Kaoirth shows up to trade with the giants — mind you, the Shining Cities he hailed from are on an entirely different continent — and spends half a day making inquiries about the legendary nude tavern dragons of the Northlands. Halflings are such incorrigible gossips...

Eventually it will start to get dark.

"I should land before it gets too dark," she says apologetically. "I hope you will be comfy out here... in all the nothing you are wearing."

"Ye as well? Truly have I sown the seeds of mine own downfall," he laments. "Now there will be a bawdy sea shanty about naked dragons on all nine seas before the year is out.

"A fair eve and a bright dawn, Rebecca." 

"Good night, Ipaxalon." And down she swoops.

He glides through the night, occasionally flying ahead and resting on tufts of cloud while the ship catches up. He admires the novel constellations when the sky is clear, and wonders whether the ancient light of the star that once lit his homeworld now glimmers faintly among them.

Occasionally, he chats with the night watch. 

And he thinks about what he has learned, what he still needs to know, and what he might be failing to consider entirely.

Rebecca clearly likes chatting with him up to and including the flirting but keeps flinching back from realizing any insinuations.

Over the next few days, he notes this but isn't sure what to make of it. Cultures vary widely, and it could be practically anything, up to and including lingering trauma. If only there were a way to — ah. He feels rather silly. 

During their next conversation, he finds an opportunity to segue into "Another thing I've been wondering about, how does your culture handle romance?" 

"- oh, well, I don't really know how to summarize that. People... get married, of course... usually..."

"That also often happens where I'm from! Though not everywhere, and customs do vary."

In the process of attempting to formulate his next question via translation magic, Ipaxalon notes quite a few interesting details about the connotations of words in this language that discuss sex, including "courtship" and "seduction" which may shed some light on the current situation. He scraps the original question and asks a more pointed one. 

"For instance, a few cultures frown upon romantic engagements outside marriage. Is that the case here?" 

"Yeah. And before you ask no I didn't marry Catherine's father, I was just stupid."

"I apologize, I did not mean to offend." He is not at all qualified to comment on the wisdom of not-marrying in this culture, so leaves it at that.

"You didn't offend me, I'm just - kind of used to the usual - reception."

"Even had I sufficient context to judge your decisions with any confidence, I find compassion a more fruitful attitude towards error than scorn or censure."

"Thank you."

"If you like, I could talk a bit about the norms where I'm from, and you might point out what's different here. But I understand if you'd rather avoid the topic altogether for now." 

"I'm curious to hear it?"

"Norms vary widely across cultures and species, and dragons are often solitary and more independent than most. At some point in our lives, though, many of us will enter an egg-bond, a long-term agreement between two or more participants to raise a clutch of young together until those young are independent, however long that takes. Egg-bonds are sometimes, but not always, extended into more stable partnerships. 

"Relationships outside egg-bonds vary greatly, including everything from single flings to centuries-long arrangements drawing from half a dozen cultures. It's hard to summarize them succinctly, really. The nature of the relationship is decided more or less entirely by the participants. 

"Your thoughts?" 

"That doesn't sound like getting married responsibly at all."

"Interesting. What are the operative features of a marriage, to you — what work is it doing, what problems does the arrangement seek to avoid or mitigate, such that it is more responsible than alternatives?" 

"Well, it's permanent so that all the children will have a mother and a father providing for them and so the husband and wife can rely on each other even after that for security and faithfulness, and you're not supposed to do - things - outside that, so that there aren't children born when they won't have that."

He hums. "Yes, that would be a concern. The main reason egg-bonds exist at all is because so many dragons consider it unconscionable to leave our young unprotected until they decide they can fend for themselves. Even Chaotic and Evil dragons engage in egg-bonding to some extent. Faithfulness is negotiated separately, but security is mostly the point." It's also a useful safeguard against being stabbed to death while sleeping, he doesn't add. 

"It is possibly relevant that dragons are more or less universally self-sufficient, and are only fertile when we choose to be." 

"I guess only being fertile when you choose to be would make a big difference."

"Indeed. A longtime friend of mine in Juthmar-That-Was had been working on a method to deliver this option to mortals as well. I don't know if she succeeded before the fall of Kaoirth, but if she did, the method was tragically lost long ago."

"I mean, we're not supposed to do that but also the things that people have to do that with don't even really work unless they do it by killing the baby."

"Such methods did and do exist, yes, and ending an ensouled child's life is tragic indeed. I believe my friend's proposed method would have sidestepped the issue by reversibly preventing conception." It does not occur to him that might be taboo as well. 

"...which like I said we're also not supposed to do but it would be maybe a harder temptation to deal with if it would work."

What, why. 

"Is that a — cultural norm, a Christian teaching..." 

"I'm pretty sure it's a Christian teaching? I guess I don't know if... Jews or whoever... do it."

He's skimmed enough of the Bible to appreciate the difference between Jews and Christians, by now. But he doesn't recall seeing that in the holy book. Is Jesus Christ a god of fertility, maybe? 

"I'll add it to the list of things to discuss with a priest, I suppose." 

"Yeah, I'm not good at explaining. Uhhhhh Catholics aren't super popular in England right now, you'd probably more easily get a Church of England man, but I think it's mostly the same except they allow divorce and the king's the head of the church? Which are both really bad but don't seem related to your question."

Ah, schisms. Rasanelle's faith is barely a year old and it already has at least twelve. Granted, She's about as Chaotic as Good can be, but message coherence is still a problem that's plagued divinity since time immemorial. It's rare for a Lawful faith to get as bad as having multiple independent Churches that disavow each other, but if Your clerics can't cast commune and You and have to rely on the occasional headache-inducing vision to communicate with mortals...yeah, he could see it. 

"In light of all this, would you prefer I refrain from flirting with you?" If she's categorically forbidden by her chosen faith from both unmarried sex and sex that cannot result in babies, that rather constrains things. He's far from ready to egg-bond with anyone, and the local marriage customs sound considerably more loaded than that. He doubts it's a kindness to offer 'temptation' given the givens, but it's her call. 

"Ummmmmmm..."

Perhaps that wasn't a kindness either. Well, no way out but through. "I find you attractive, but I'm still too poorly oriented to this world to consider egg-bonding for quite some time, let alone adopting an unfamiliar culture's institution of marriage. I could continue to be shamelessly charming at you anyway without taking things further, or tone it down until one or the other of our circumstances change, or perhaps do some other thing more in keeping with your values. If you aren't sure, I'll default to the second thing for at least the voyage; I don't want to put you in a situation that's at odds with your chosen faith. None of these offers, to be clear, would deprive you of my company and friendship insofar as you seek either." 

"So the thing is - magical girls are -

- people say we don't make very good wives because -"

He'll wait patiently for Rebecca to find the right words, not interrupting, just attentive.

"I remember being stupid about that one boy but it wouldn't happen again. Magical girls aren't stupid about boys, only, um, other magical girls, but. You are... magical."

Huh. What a strange side effect for an entire magic paradigm. He supposes that rather thoroughly rules out the possibility it's a weird sorcerer bloodline, unless it also does spontaneous eggs children. 

"Same-sex relationships come with different norms? Or magical girl relationships do, or both?" There were some bits about the former in the holy book, but there were a lot of things in the holy book. 

"Well I'm not going to do that, I'm - or, uh, it would be wrong of me to, I know I can be really stupid -"

"It would be wrong to engage in a same-sex relationship?" 

If that's a real teaching in this faith, he's going to have to revisit the part of the book where a priest of God told an army to slaughter civilian prisoners. And quite a few other points he had previously assumed were mortal misrepresentation. 

On the other hand, it is a kind of sex that definitely does not result in babies. Fertility god hypothesis, +1 likelihood bonus. 

"People will... overlook it, some, because magical girls are so useful, but..."

"For what reason are such relationships condemned?"

"Well they're not natural, are they?"

"I find it hard to imagine a meaningful sense in which they aren't! They're certainly natural for people who are naturally inclined that way. Including, it would seem, magical girls.

"At any rate, there are a great many things in Nature which are not in accord with the Good, and a great many Good things which are not themselves of Nature."

"Well I'm not naturally inclined that way though, I wasn't before."

"One's nature can change, or new facets to it be discovered. It would be generally inadvisable for, say, a man who is not attracted to men to attempt a romantic relationship with one. Self-deceit and pretense are a poor foundation for love. But if he were to discover in himself a desire for one man in particular — as does sometimes happen! — that advice would not apply. Perhaps that is the sense intended in the teaching, and it has lost important nuance over time?" (He's seen this happen rather a lot. The loss of nuance, that is. The specific attraction thing he's seen, like, twice.) 

"...maybe you should ask a priest. I am pretty sure the rule is not to do it."

"Frankly, Rebecca, that does not sound to me like the teaching of an all-Good and all-loving deity. I begin to suspect Someone's will has been gravely misrepresented somewhere along the way." Or worse, that it hasn't. "But I will, as you say, consult a priest on the matter." 

"I think God wants what's best for us and that's not doing sins!"

"Where I am from, it is possible to look directly at a soul and know its state, know the afterlife it will find if it takes no further actions before death. There are," the word sin has too many meanings to be properly used here, "some actions which visibly push souls towards Evil and towards afterlives of suffering. Murders of the innocent. Acts of spite and torment. Betrayals of trust. The common thread among them is that the acts themselves cause suffering, usually in a direct and predictable way.

"Where I am from, no mutually consensual sex act qualifies." (He has checked this rather more thoroughly than was strictly necessary. For science, of course.) "If any did, clerics would literally see the soul having fallen, after." 

He lets out a long sigh. "I am sorry to have pressed you on this. Perhaps it is different here. I genuinely do not know. But it worries me."

"Oh it's not that I'm worried about, I just go to confession when I can and say my act of contrition and everything, but like, I do mean to be trying to do right."

"A worthy aspiration, and one I share," he agrees. 

"Before this digression, you were describing how magical girls are...differently oriented, yet it seems to be the 'magic' part and not the 'girl' part that matters? Was there more you wanted to say, on that?" 

"Well, I - noticed, that...? I don't know that anybody's every noticed anything like it before - all the regular magic people are girls, or at least used to be even if they're phoenixes or something now -"

"How very curious. This may be an awkward question, but is anyone attracted to the phoenixes and such?" 

"Mm-hm."

"Well then."

Ipaxalon now faces a genuine moral conundrum of a sort he's quite possibly never faced before. On the one claw, he's fairly damn sure all this business about sex prohibition is in fact either mortal foolishness or the narrow special interests of a god that's at least not entirely about joyful flourishing. But on the other claw, it's a strange place he finds himself, he isn't as sure as he could be, and he very much does not want to be the vehicle of a mortal's eternal suffering, however unlikely that may be. 

Ultimately, he falls back on one of the the most foundational heuristics in his ethical framework: Grown Adults Shall Be Afforded the Respect to Make Their Own Choices. 

"You never did answer my original question," he adds. "How would you prefer me to proceed from here?" 

"Oh - uh - well I don't rightly know."

"Second one it is." At least until he's talked to a priest and had a chance to reevaluate things. "So I'm curious, how did it come to pass that the King of England also heads the Church of England, and also the Church of England happens to permit divorce...?" And he will, as promised, attempt to steer future conversation in less blatantly flirtatious directions.

He can have a Catholic's guide to why the Church of England exists.

He is coming to suspect his source is somewhat biased when it comes to theology and Church intrigues. He likes her anyway.

Time passes; he catches a large fish and some naps. He reads more of the Bible and boggles at it. (The New Testament is...better, in many ways. He remains very confused.) Talks with the crew about their lives, places they've been, what they know of the world. Flies and talks with Rebecca. 

There's a bit of a squall. It rains on the ship, but the winds remain conveniently modest in the Shotley's immediate vicinity despite raging outside, like a weird inverted tornado. 

He has the crew's gratitude, conveyed to him on the wing by the only person who can do that.

"It is a genuine pleasure to be of help." 

"What other kindsa spells do you have?"

"Mostly combat spells," he admits. "The wind and fog ones are innate to my species, it's why I've been so free with them...there's also a general sense-for-evil, a magic to slow falling, and a handful of minor spells called 'cantrips' that light, move, color, or clean objects, detect or decipher magic, weakly shield people, and other small effects. I breathe supernatural cold, also not exactly a spell but it does work well against the monsters. 

"For proper spells, there's several kinds of protection and shielding, some multi-target boosts that affect allies, a weak but mostly reliable binary divination, an area calming effect, the language spell I'm using now, several healing and restorative effects, a dispelling effect, a long-range teleport, a burst of flame, and an ace in the hole or two that I'm keeping in reserve.

"There's also a few that are harder to summarize. True seeing overcomes most magical concealment and shows me the true form of shapeshifters; I want to try it out on a monster when I'm no longer rationing spells. Freedom of movement prevents restraint by most forms of magical or mundane obstacles, including being grabbed."

"Whoa, that's so many things it kind of makes up for not being able to do them as much as you want. I'm not sure monsters have true forms... Are you learning English for real or just using the spell forever?"

"I've been picking up what I can from chatting, including some entertaining pantomimes with the sailors, but I suspect it will be some time before I can do without the spell. English is...odd." 

"There is one more spell." He will not conceal this last spell from her. It might be painful, given her loss, but it would likely be worse if she learned he had kept it from her on purpose to spare her feelings. "A spell with steep prerequisites — an expensive diamond, consumed in the casting, and a body whose soul has been departed for less than a fortnight — which extends a bridge to the afterlife and invites that soul to return from the dead."

"Has to be a diamond, you can't - substitute a pearl -"

"It's been tried. Many times, in many ways. It is suspected the price is part of divine agreements, and actively enforced against exploitation. Mind you, I intend to try a great many things again once I have the leeway to experiment. Perhaps divine agreements are different here, or some plentiful substitute exists. But I would not expect it to work, and there's no getting around the duration limit with the magic I have."

"Could I be holding the diamond the whole time -"

"As in, conjure it as part of your outfit? I suspect it wouldn't work — magically conjured objects cannot, as a rule, be used in spells, and I know of literally zero exceptions to this. Your clothes registered as magical. It is worth a try, but my more ambitious hope is that someone somewhere can create diamonds the way you create ice."

"I guess that's - not impossible -"

"One day, perhaps." 

"Yeah." Sigh.

Ipaxalon is less communicative during the latter half of the voyage. He's had the most urgent conversations already, and while he has quite a few castings of tongues, he is beginning to tap his higher-level spell slots for them and wants to conserve those. 

But his English is improving, and he practices with Rebecca and the sailors when he's not otherwise occupied. Tongues helped a lot with quickly expanding his vocabulary, though it's not great for retention and his grammar needs work. 

As fatigue sets in, he rests on clouds more frequently, and is noticeably slower to react. (Ipaxalon's Fortitude save can be succinctly described as "yes", but two weeks with minimal sleep is still rough.) 

"Do you want me to ask the captain if there's any way we could tow an iceberg?"

He eyes the ship doubtfully. Tongues isn't up at the moment. "Ice...berg...? Piece of ice behind ship? Clever. Worth a try." It wouldn't have to be a large iceberg. 

"I can make one if we can do it!" she tells him, and she flies down, but she's back up a minute later saying that the ship's not equipped for that, a whaler might be.

"Understand. Was a long shot. Whaler?" It's a new word. 

"A ship for hunting whales. Sometimes they've gotta let the whale tow them for a while to tire it out."

"I see," he says after processing for a moment.

"Other thing, I wonder, you range of detect monster sense?"

"Oh, it's not great, that's why I sometimes fly really low and circle the ship."

He doesn't have much to add, and makes small talk in rough-but-improving English for a while. 

With favorable winds nearly guaranteed, they do make good time. A couple days early, land is visible on the horizon.

They pull in to port. There is not a lot of space where a large dragon is welcome on the beach, they're loading and unloading stuff and people all the time, but he can find a rocky outcropping that will hold him.

He thanks the captain, and crew, and especially Rebecca, before deciding where to sleep. 

Sleeping in a strange city is a tad uncomfortable. But monsters do exist in the wilderness, he's been told, and they're probably a good deal more likely to sneak up on him than humans at the moment, given he looks like a benign magical creature. 

He might be out for a while, so he doesn't want to land on a cloud and drift away. He'll take the outcropping. 

Flop. Alarm, just to be safe. And sleep. 

Does the Alarm notice when, six hours later, a green doe with wings and flowers sprouting out of her in aesthetic spots approaches to curl up next to him companionably?

It does. He starts awake — not immediately in combat mode, alarm is known for being somewhat indiscriminate by default, but on guard. He may startle the creature. When he sees what woke him, and confirms there are in fact no humanoids with pointy objects nearby, he examines her curiously. "Do you speak?"

She blinks at him beatifically and rustles her petal-feathered wings.

What fascinating aesthetics this world has. She looks almost fae and smells like a mix of animal, human, and flower. It's hard to believe such a creature could be the result of an innocent person losing their soul (?) and becoming an empty shell. 

She doesn't detect as evil, and he lacks the material resources for a true seeing right now. Well, if this is the worst that happens when he's out for a few hours, he's probably fine, despite the lingering discomfort at being this close to a city and sleeping without a proper lair. He dismisses the alarm for now and goes back to sleep.  

He might wake up two hours later when the doe is delicately stomping to death all the individual black "bugs" in a new-spawned swarm with her hooves.

He does!!

He's heard about swarms during the voyage. He can't simply breathe on them all, that'd likely kill the doe. He can activate his cold aura and sweep at the edges of the swarm with his tail, freezing and crushing bugs and catching any that separate from the main cluster. "Please move back, area magic," he says, on the off chance she can understand. Otherwise they'll just do this the slow way.

They mostly don't separate from the main cluster much. When his tail gets involved she flutters clear, though.

Perfect. He rears, aims down, and exhales a cone-shaped blast that should flash-freeze the lot of them.

Yup, that works fine. The plant deer blinks at the resulting ice and then crocuses poke up out of the frozen ground.

Detect magic. Wait, lost magical girls retain their spellcasting as well? Modern thaumaturgy says everything about this situation should be impossible; a creature without a soul can't do magic or even be magic because magic more or less is souls doing stuff. Even unintelligent magical beasts have them to some extent, just... less.*

Maybe local wisdom is wrong about them being soulless? What he wouldn't give for Aliztavagr's soul-sight right now. 

*Faeos operates on somewhat different metaphysics than Golarion.

"Thank you," he tells the doe who probably can't understand him.

Swarms aren't really a threat to him, even asleep, but if he gets woken up again he's gonna go find a cloud.

Flop. 

The doe makes a pretty chiming noise and lies down next to him again. No more swarms appear for the rest of his sleep.

Then he will enjoy a blissful eighteen more hours of rest, and awake from slumber refreshed and recharged. Is the doe still present? 

Nope, she wandered off at some point.

Then he'll move on to his next priority, finding a...

...well, okay, he'll go fishing first, he's a bit peckish. 

He's not conserving spells anymore! That means fishing is extremely easy. His swimming is mediocre at best but freedom of movement renders this irrelevant. He flies out beyond the shallows and plummets into the waves at full speed. The water simply fails to impede his flying in any way. (Also, he can see pretty well in the dark, especially at short distances). It's so much fun. 

People observe and comment on his fishing; if he overhears anybody on a boat or the shore doing so they're all she-ing him.

Eh, it's a reasonable assumption given everything else they know. Honestly as possible receptions go, assuming he's a friendly magical fae thingy is pretty good. Still no harpoons! 

When he's had his fill of sea life, he'll overfly the port in search of either a Rebecca (if she happens to be around) or a church (which he knows by vague description tend to have crosses on top). 

Rebecca is perched in the crows' nest of a new ship.

Tongues. He glides down to hover nearby. "Hello again, Rebecca!" 

"Hi Ipaxalon! Did you sleep all right?"

"Thoroughly. I woke only twice, once when a magical creature happened by and once when a swarm appeared."

"Ooh, what kind of creature?"

He describes the petal-winged doe and her behavior. "I didn't realize they also retained their magic. It's a very unusual phenomenon by my own world's standards. As far as they're concerned, souls are magic, more or less." 

"Well, they're still pretty, just not humans really any longer."

"Indeed. The pattern seems consistent, it's just a very different pattern than I'm used to."

"They live forever, supposedly. Sometimes you hear about a magical girl who's getting really old and decides to turn into something instead of dying the normal way."

"A final gift to the world, or simply a way to leave something of oneself behind...Yes, I could see it being an attractive option. If, ah, you'll excuse the turn of phrase."

Giggle.

"Now that we've reached a population center, I expect I'll want to stay for a time — talking to priests and governors, learning the language, figuring out how best I can help. Yet I feel it'd be a shame to lose touch when one of us can teleport and both can fly. I see you've found a new vessel to grace with your presence; whither are you bound?" 

"The Netherlands, it's not so far."

"Would you like to explore options for staying in contact?" 

"You could see if they'll hire you too? I'm going with them because I bet I can get a ship to South Africa from the Netherlands and they'll pay extra for the chance to have ice around the equator. I don't really have an address for letters."

"I think I'd enjoy voyaging with you again, but I don't think I want to sign on for another long trip without at least an assurance of somewhere to sleep. For now, I was thinking some combination of you leaving a letter at your port of call, and my requesting the captain's permission to study the vessel closely enough to let me find it with a teleport. And if you do settle somewhere in South Africa, it wouldn't be hard to visit, if you'd like that.

"For that matter, teleport takes passengers. I'd need to actually visit South Africa the long way first to be safe, but if your ultimate goal is to end up there, you could bypass the whole 'sailing' business entirely were you so inclined, whether by magic or initial flight. Thoughts?"

"I'm not going to stay in South Africa forever, I just think ice magic'll be in demand for the voyage and on the way back too. I'll probably be on one ship or another all the rest of my life, I've got nothing to settle down for and that's where they pay magical girls the most."

"In that case, I'm inclined to ask you to leave a letter at ports you visit, and to occasionally pop by your vessel of choice to visit and hunt monsters. Perhaps one day we can share a fleet escort, as you once suggested I do."

"Maybe! I'd like that."

"As would I." He'll attempt to hash out the details with her, including asking Rebecca which port in the Netherlands to check, if there's several, and asking the captain for permission to observe the ship for a time. (He doesn't strictly need permission to fly around the ship and stare at it from different angles, but it's considered polite to ask.) 

The captain allows it when he learns that the use case is to teleport to the ship and maybe fight monsters while hanging out there.

He suspected as much.

To Rebecca: "Do you want to test whether your outfit can be used as material spell components, before you set out? I have a few spells that need them."

"- it's worth testing? I thought it wasn't worth testing..."

"I'm not optimistic, but I'm no longer carefully conserving spells and it's a cheap test. Only if you choose to, though." 

"Are you going to try the resurrecting somebody one, I might need to change my plans if you can do that."

"I am not. The spells are true seeing and restoration - a healing spell." 

"Oh. What do you need for those?"

He describes a rare ointment for true seeing and a small handful of diamond dust for restoration.

"I don't know if I can do the ointment because I don't know what it looks like and I do all of this by what it looks like. Diamond dust sounds easier." Her palms fill with glittering granules.

He gently touches a claw to her palms and tries a restoration. It doesn't go through. "It did not work, alas." 

"Figures."

"Out of curiosity, what would you have wanted to do if it'd worked?" 

"I would want Catherine back!"

"Ah. The spell only works on those dead within the last fortnight. I am sorry, I thought I had made that clear."

Sigh.

Should he tell her about resurrection? Even if he did little but spell research and combat, it might be decades before he's able to cast it. He's not even sure it would work on a baby, resurrection is draining and they're extremely frail. 

There is a point at which extending hope is a kindness, and a point at which it's just cruel. His heart aches for her nonetheless. 

"I had planned to talk with clergy, today, about the will of your God as the Church sees it. Have you visited this port before? Is there a particular church or priest I should seek?"

"I haven't been to this town before, no. I dunno if they have any Catholics left here or if it's all Anglicans but your kind of questions might as well go to an Anglican."

"I plan to widen my search eventually, but for now, most likely yes. When do you set sail?" 

"Not till Tuesday."

"And today is...Friday? No, Saturday." It was a long sleep. "In that case, I'll visit again after some errands in the town proper. And of course, if you should seek me, I'm difficult to miss."

"Youuuuu sure are!"

He laughs, bids farewell, and wings his way towards the town to find a church. 

That building looks churchy! He lands nearby. 

Hmmm, human or dragon? He's still limited in shapeshifting and has a lot to do; he'll save his shifting unless it's strictly necessary. Anyway this might turn out to be a long conversation. 

Those are some small doors though. In a move that must look rather absurd to onlookers, he rears up and knocks. 

No one is that surprised about a dragon showing up anywhichwhere "she" pleases, but, yeah, knocking is pretty odd! Someone does answer the door though.

And they will be greeted by a very polite dragon explaining that he's a magical not-girl from another world and would like to speak to a priest! 

A priest can eventually with some bemusement be located.

He summarizes his background, in a little more detail this time, and asks if the priest has an hour or so to explain all of theology some key elements of the faith he didn't quite understand from reading the holy book.

This random Anglican priest was not really expecting to have to field these questions today but can do his best.

Excellent! Let's start with the question of what "demons" are and where they've been observed to act on this world's Prime Material...

Forty-five minutes later, in a conversation involving at least eighteen unique heresies and multiple instances of "let's back up and try this a different way", Ipaxalon has learned a few things.

Well, mostly, he has learned that he should talk to a bishop. 

But it was still informative. If it's true about demons possessing people sometimes, he should probably be running detect evil more often, though apparently they have...some...countermeasures. He was not aware they considered raise dead a necromancy spell instead of conjuration (healing), or that divination was supposedly of the Devil — of which there's apparently just the one? He's still not clear on that — or that there is indeed a third Good god in their some-theon who is apparently responsible for tongues in this world, only very rarely, and who is in some way the same person as the other two...

...it's at least reassuring that they mostly consider the wanton slaughter in the Old Testament to be as egregiously awful as he does, but he's still not clear on why it's still in the book. The priest doesn't seem to think it's a lesson or anything. In fact, he mostly doesn't seem to think about those bits at all. 

...alright, what does the priest think about the whole same-sex romance thing? Surely there's some misunderstanding...

Definitely not allowed. It is against God's plan.

By now, Ipaxalon has learned better than to ask this particular priest questions like "Which part of the plan?" or "Who or where did this teaching come from originally?" (It's not that he won't have answers. It's that the answers won't really help.)

Alright. Does the town in fact have a bishop, and could he perhaps get a referral to get him out of the priest's hair facilitate a meeting.

Yes, the town has a bishop, he's over there.

Oh, good. He'll thank the priest kindly and go meet with the bishop.

There are how many religions about this one God? And they all can't stand each other? 

The Catholic high priest is chosen by committee? (Actually, that goes a long way towards explaining the first bit.)

Okay, but about this Hell business...

...huh. If Jesus Christ dying did actually save a bunch of people who'd been languishing in Hell and pave the way for otherwise Evil people to get an Atonement at scale, that raises his estimation of this Trinity by a lot. That is the sort of insanely expensive miracle that would absolutely wipe out a planet-scale god for centuries and would be absolutely worth it. And, demons being demons, they might actually take "we get to torture and humiliate your Son for a while" in trade. It's not totally clear this is what happened, but it makes so much more sense this way. 

That would make the rapid spread of the Christian faith quite possibly a secondary effect of the redemption miracle, or else a plan the Evil gods never saw coming. Quite a feat to accomplish that without being able to regularly choose clerics. That has the look of a masterstroke. 

...but why is even the bishop still insisting on the sex thing. It's not just homosexuality, this one is saying masturbation is a heinously Evil act! 

Was that part of the godagreement?!? Did the demons insist on getting the vast majority of sexual acts metaphysically classified as Evil?!?

...you're sure it was God's idea??? 

AUGH. 

Well, at least this "confession" institution, if it works, seems to be much more scaleable than mass Atonements. Given the rapid spread of this religion, that and the eminently sensible "visitation of the sick" has to have saved millions.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY CHARGE FOR IT

Oh it's just some of them? Sometimes? And apparently this diocese doesn't charge for absolution, but practices vary among the "dissenters." 

THAT IS STILL SO VERY NOT OKAY

...Ipaxalon is VERY CONFUSED BY THIS RELIGION. 

Well, the bishop is pretty confused by this male (???) dragon from another universe (???). But he will still take time out of his Saturday to explain things.

And Ipaxalon politely appreciates it despite all the INTERNAL SCREAMING. 

...eventually he will thank the good bishop for his time and depart. The man really did seem to be trying his best. 

Sigh. 

Despite absorbing a fair amount of wisdom and restraint from far kinder souls over the years, Ipaxalon is still a warrior at heart. Some part of him had hoped that figuring out what to do in this world would be as simple as asking the large, successful Church of the God of love and Goodness for direction. And they did have important context for him. 

But there's just too many red flags, even for a church in a foreign world with entirely different magic.

Among the bishop's suggestions for him was, roughly, "fight Papists and infidels." (He also suggested "demon-worshippers", which, fair enough, if Ipaxalon finds any of those there's at least gonna be a Talk. And "witches", which makes no sense, he thought those weren't a thing here and even if they were, that is not sufficient justification for violence.) 

He might end up fighting Evil humans at some point. But not on the word of their enemy. There's too much he doesn't know and can't explain. 

Ipaxalon would like a bit of distance right now. By any chance, is it perhaps cloudy today in southwestern England? 

It is! Not completely but pretty cloudy.

Then he'll curl up on a comfy stratus while he thinks about what to do next. 

Priority 1: Gather information. He's barely scratched the surface of this world's complexities. He's been too focused on a few sources of information, and needs to broaden his perspective. He's talked to the Church; he should talk to the local authorities, guilds, and common folk about their priorities. And ideally do so in other nations as well, in time.

Priority 2: Short-term wins. He can still do some good while he's orienting. Candidates for unambiguously helpful actions are healing and monster-hunting. He has a spell budget that includes powerful healing magic and he's among a population of people who don't seem to have divine healing available, so he can start with their hospitals.

Priority 3: Assemble a proper hoard. It's looking like this world runs on money just like the Northlands or Juthmar, possibly moreso in many ways. He has skills and spell slots that likely won't be earmarked for charity work for some time, and he'll need some kind of capital if he ever wants to make more of an impact than a particularly powerful magical creature. 

What next action best serves these priorities?

Framed like that, the next few days seem fairly straightforward, even if long-term plans remain in flux.

He descends to look for a hospital. It's perhaps beginning to get late in the day, but illness works all hours. 

The state of hospitals in this year is not amazing, but they do exist. They are slightly cheerier about an approaching dragon than most random people; it is always possible that a random dragon approaching a hospital is going to do healings even if it doesn't happen all the time.

This random dragon does! If that's a thing that happens at all, he might not even need to shapeshift! Do they have a setup whereby he can see patients while big? 

There's some windows? He might even be tall enough to see into the second story ones. The patients are kind of crowded but none of them find a dragon alarming. Everyone knows that magical girls who have abandoned their souls are still friendly.