"Do you mean that you're not sure if they were made with drawing magic, but you think so?"

"Right. The knowledge of how to do it was lost but drawing magic is the best candidate followed by it being something sphinxes could do directly back when they were alive."

"Sphinxes?"

"Another species of critter. Like dragons, widely understood to be extinct, but I'm not counting on it."

"And they could do more magic than just the drawing magic?"

"Maybe! There's not a lot of information that's survived that long."

"Hmmm," she rumbles.

After a few seconds of contemplative silence, she says, "How would I bring back the scavengers from the classroom?"

"I don't think you have to fetch them, I can't see any reason you'd need to make a round trip so I can extract them. I just need to - know what I'm grabbing, so I grab the right people."

"...what do you need to know about them, then?"

"I'm not sure, this is my first time deliberately yoinking somebody from another planet. Do they have names?"

"I don't know names for them."

"Can you describe them - or draw them -"

"Hmm... I think I can draw them," she says, and looks around for where the pen and paper have run off to.

Right over there with part of May's backpack keeping them from blowing away.

She settles in to draw. Since there is no need to maximize precision, her drawing takes up most of the page. It's quite good—not necessarily the most technically competent, but with an excellent eye for how a scene really looks.

The drawing focuses on two figures, though there's enough background to tell that they're in a sort of terrarium or hamster cage type situation. They're both human, or nearly so. One is sitting, the other standing. Their hair looks very poorly cared for, and they're wearing rags that barely qualify as clothing. They seem well fed, but tired and unhappy, with downcast eyes and hunched, tense posture.

"I'm not sure I ought to bring these people to the woods in the middle of nowhere, B.C.. I don't have - a hairbrush. I don't have clothes for them. Also they won't be able to talk to anyone besides me..."

"It is very unlikely that they will be eaten anytime in the next few months," says Whiteout, perhaps less reassuringly than she intends.

"Okay I'm gonna see if I can summon them to the woods in the middle of nowhere B.C."

Draw draw draw. Great big runes.

Whiteout blinks curiously at this outcome, and, half a minute into the drawing phase, ventures the conclusion, "Even very unlikely is too much chance of them being eaten for your comfort?"

"Yes??"

Thoughtful nod.

"Like, even if they definitely wouldn't be eaten because someone regarded them as beloved pets they probably know that dragons eat their species, right, and they're around dragons all the time."

"Yes," she agrees.

"And I think that would be very bad for people and they do not look well." Draw draw. Protractor. Compass.

"It is hard for me to tell how well people look even when they're dragons."