...huh. She expected being eaten by mals to be more painful. 

It sure doesn't seem like "being eaten by mals" is what's happening right now! 

She's in a forest. It's green and shady, and she's lying on soft grass with a pleasantly cool breeze blowing over the exposed parts of her skin. Birds are chirping in the trees somewhere, not birdcalls she's ever heard before. 

Oh wow that's the most greenery she's ever seen in one place in her life. 

—most importantly, her anklet that vibrates when there are mals close by has stopped doing that. Okay, good, back to staring. 

(It's months since she's been outside, but even before that, she grew up in a city in a hot desert climate. She's seen trees, but she's never been in a forest.)

The forest goes right on existing around her. Most of the trees in the vicinity look old and well-established, with broad, gnarled trunks and wide spreading branches. Dappled sunlight reaches down through their shade. 

A small, nondescript brown bird flutters from one tree to another. Closer by, dotted throughout the grass, are patches of flowers. Nothing at all is trying to kill her. 

Which is...really worrying, actually. Saira hasn't been outside with nothing trying to eat her since she was too young to form long-term memories. 

Also, everything about this is suspiciously pleasant, while being completely unlike anything she's experienced before, and she has no idea how she got here when the last thing she remembers is running away from mals in shop class. The Scholomance doesn't have any forests in it and the only way out of the Scholomance is graduating, which she would definitely remember doing. 

Did she get attacked by a psychic mal? Maybe this is a hallucination, or a dream, or it's a real forest but she's lost at least four years of memories? Does she have a way she can test any of those? 

She digs her fingernails as hard as she can into the meat of her opposite hand. It hurts, and gives her a tiny trickle of mana in the process. That seems like evidence that she's not dreaming and at least some of her senses can probably be trusted. Alright, good. Next. 

What would be observably different about the world if she was missing years of memories? Well, mostly her.

She looks down at herself. 

She's wearing the same clothes she remembers wearing a minute ago, the same outfit she came in with at induction. Running shoes, a size up in case her feet haven't finished growing, filled out with an extra pair of socks for now. Baggy cargo pants turned up at the bottom, with the pockets swapped out for finely-woven nets so nothing can hide in them. Enchanted anklet—she reaches down to double-check—still around her ankle, and still quiet. A plain long-sleeved shirt in sage green, also a size too big for her, with a jacket over it that has her ammi's protective embroidery on the collar and cuffs and her own efforts reaching halfway up the right sleeve, exactly where she remembers leaving off in her mana-building efforts last night. 

Saira would be very surprised if she ever wore any pieces of this outfit again after graduation, let alone the whole thing. Which makes it extremely unlikely that she's graduated and forgotten about it. 

What possibilities are left? Probably that she's hallucinating and at least some, possibly all, of her senses are not to be trusted. If she was dreaming, she probably wouldn't have made it through that whole detailed chain of reasoning without either noticing some clue that she was dreaming or waking herself up. 

She tries wanting to wake up, just in case, on the principle that it's quick, easy, and there's no way it can make anything worse. (This is a nice dream but she prefers to be oriented to reality and believing correct things about whether she is in a forest—) 

Nothing happens.

She knows an Arabic warding spell against psychic mals. It might or might not work when she can't trust any of her senses, but it's worth trying anyway, on the same principle. She casts it. It feels like it worked, it's draining mana, but nothing happens. She drops it. 

This is very confusing and Saira would like to know what is going on. Almost certainly what's going on is that she's in the gullet of a psychic mal and there's nothing more she can do to avoid being eaten and digested, but she would still rather know that than not. 

She continues, to all observations, to be in a lovely temperate forest on a pleasant spring day!

She's been sitting still long enough that a black-and-orange butterfly flutters down and lands on her knee. 

Yeep! Fluttery thing! She scrambles away! 

...oh. It was just a butterfly. She's fine. Good thing she didn't waste any mana on it. 

Startled by Saira's abrupt movement, the butterfly flies away. Nothing else visibly reacts to her startlement. 

Saira thinks she might be out of things she can do to save herself if she's trapped by a psychic mal. If she's trapped by a psychic mal, she's basically dead at this point.

If she's not trapped, "just" hallucinating, that's a very dangerous situation to be in, but, again, she can only do things about it to the extent that any of her senses are still at all reliable. But one thing she could try to do is get out of range of whatever is making her hallucinate. Walking around when she can't see or hear the mals coming for her isn't much more dangerous than sitting still when she can't see or hear the mals coming for her. 

If she's somehow been transported to a patch of forest somewhere...then there are probably things she should be doing, to find water and food and shelter. It would be great if she knew anything about wilderness survival, but most things are more likely to work than "sit here waiting to die". 

So that's one possible world where nothing she does matters, and two where getting up and walking is more helpful than sitting still. She...doesn't actually need to calculate the probabilities for each world. The obvious thing to do, given this information, is to get up, pick a direction, and start walking in it while keeping watch for mals. 

Do any of these directions look more promising than any other? 

It looks like the trees maybe thin out not too far thataway! 

Oh, that does look promising! (In universes where her senses are providing any data about the world.) Thataway she goes. Slowly and cautiously, and half-expecting to bump into a table or a wall with every step. 

She does not bump into any obstacles that aren't clearly visible! And no mals attack her! 

But, uh. How does Saira feel about the promisingness of...clifftops.

Hypothetically. Asking for a friend.

Oh. Well, that's among the least useful reasons why the forest would look thinner in this direction. On the other hand, it has ruled out one of the possible directions to go in, which is still useful data, and she only wasted a minute or two walking this way, so it could be a lot worse. 

She goes the rest of the way up to the cliff edge—but not so close that she's in danger of falling—and looks out to see if there are any visible signs of civilisation, or anything else that might tell her where she is in worlds where the answer isn't "still in the nightmare boarding school". 

It's a clear day with only a few clouds, and she can see quite a long way from the clifftop.

Unfortunately, most of what she can see is more forest. A winged shape, probably some kind of large bird, is flying above the treetops. Away in the distance, she can see the towers of a city, with mountains beyond it, but it looks pretty far off, not really reasonable walking distance even if she finds a way down the cliff.

It seems worth taking a minute or two to see whether she can spot a path down the cliff, in case exploring in the other directions doesn't pan out and she has to come back here. 

There doesn't really seem to be an obvious way down anywhere nearby. Not for a fourteen-year-old with no rock-climbing experience and no climbing equipment, anyway; there are plenty of handholds and ledges if she wanted to scale it. 

When Saira looks up from figuring that out, the winged shape in the distance is quite a lot larger and closer! It's also definitely not a bird. 

ALLAH YAHFADNI THAT'S A DRAGON. 

(This is not really an update on the implausibility of the forest because it was already pretty implausible. It's still surprising, though, because even when logic says anything can happen because this is a hallucination, the human subconscious is really good at extrapolating patterns forward from past observations, and something incongruous with those past observations will still feel emotionally like more of a surprise.) 

Saira doesn't really know how you deal with dragons but probably getting away from the exposed cliff-edge and hiding behind a nice solid tree won't hurt. 

The dragon seems to be heading directly for her, or at least for the cliff. Once it's no longer directly between her and the sun, more of its features become clear: the batlike wings, the red scales. Its size is initially hard to pin down beyond "big"; she keeps revising her estimate upwards as it keeps turning out to be further away than she thought. 

Pretty soon, though, it gets close enough that she can see a comparatively-tiny human figure perched on its back. Yep, that's big. 

It swoops down, down, down...and lands at the bottom of the cliff. (It's still tall enough to look her in the eye.) 

—she ducks back behind the tree, heart pounding. 

A few moments pass, and then a tiny high-pitched voice—maybe a young child—calls out in a totally unfamiliar language from somewhere near the dragon. Their tone is chipper and not at all alarmed. 

...okay, what??? 

She peeks out again to see whether there's actually a small child about to get eaten by the dragon.

She can't see any small children! There's this little fuzzy red creature about the size of a baby or toddler, though, with massive ears and a tiny black button nose and a little fuzzy tail. It—they?—is walking on two legs and carrying a stick. 

The creature spots her and waves, calling out an incomprehensible greeting which incidentally confirms that they're the source of the voice she just heard. 

A woman in a white hooded robe, who must be the figure Saira saw on the dragon's back, is stepping carefully from the dragon's shoulders to the clifftop. In her arms is an ornate black chest, which she's holding like its contents are precious and breakable. 

As Saira watches, she turns and bows to the dragon, speaking to it in what sounds like yet another unfamiliar language. 

Oh no, how many new languages is she going to have to learn—wait, but if she's not in school anymore then she doesn't have to...except she might, if she wants to talk to these people, actually...

The dragon dips its head in a return bow and flies away without eating anyone. 

The lady in white and her small companion start walking in Saira's direction. 

"Um, hi, do you speak English?" (If the answer is no she can repeat herself in four other languages, but English is usually the best bet with white people.) 

"Technically, no," the lady says with a smile, in what certainly sounds like English. "I have a spell that lets me speak and understand any language. I can cast it on you, if you like." 

She has WHAT! That's amazing! 

"—uh, how long does it last and what do you want in exchange?" 

"Oh, it's permanent, although of course I can undo it if you ever want it gone. You may find magic in this world works somewhat differently than you're used to! Welcome to the planet of Lore, by the way." 

Okay, sure, fantasy world with dragons has a different magic system, why not. 

"...thank you? So, what do you want for the translation spell." 

She smiles. "How about a small favour? We're a short walk from Oaklore Keep, the local knights' garrison, and I'd like you give Captain Rolith there a message from me." 

"Is there a path or something I can follow to find this keep?" 

"There is. Twilly and I can walk with you until we reach the path, and then our journeys will diverge." 

She starts leading the way deeper into the woods, still walking at a sedate pace so as not to jostle the chest she's carrying. 

"Then that doesn't sound too hard. Message for the captain...is there only one captain or do I need to remember his name? And, actually, who am I saying the message is from?" 

She giggles, but not meanly. "Rolith is the only Captain stationed at Oaklore Keep, although you might do well to try and remember his name anyway. And I am Lady Celestia." 

Saira nods. "Lady Celestia has a message for Captain Rolith," she repeats, trying to commit the names to memory. "Alright, what's the message?" 

"First, I should cast the spell on you. If I may?" 

At Saira's nod, she raises one hand and speaks a few words. A stream of golden light leaves her hand and curls around Saira's head, splitting into three to enter her ears and mouth. (It feels like air and tastes like sunlight.) 

"Oh, I wasn't expecting it to be pretty! Is it working?" 

"Yep! Twillies can understand you now!" the small red ?person? contributes. 

Saira is a 14-year-old girl and is not immune to the Cute. 

"Hi! What...are you?" 

"I'm Twilly and I'm a moglin!" 

"What's—" a moglin, Saira starts asking, but cuts herself off when there's a loud CRASH of breaking branches in the undergrowth nearby. 

Something big and clumsy approaches, crashing and smashing its way through the bushes and even toppling a small tree. 

Bellowing, it pushes its way out into the open space they're standing in, and they can see its shape clearly. It resembles a giant grey gorilla with elephant ears and tusks, and it's clearly pissed off about something. 

"Oh noes! A gorillaphant! Don't worry, ladies, I'll protect you!" 

Twilly rushes forward and brandishes his tiny stick. 

MAL. BIG MAL. 

Run—no, there's a cliff. Shield spell—won't hold for long but there's a stronger wizard right there—okay, yes, shield spell. She starts chanting in Hindi. 

The gorillaphant swipes out with one massive paw, not even seeming to feel the impact when it knocks Twilly flying.

Twilly sails through the air and lands in a heap. "Oww..."