"I just - don't see any use in giving up before I've had a good try. And my definition of 'a good try' is... pretty thorough."

"Pretty serious time limit though."

"Well I'm waking the spirits a lot faster than normal, I bet that's going to help."

"Happy to be of service."

"Being able to find them easily is going to help so much! We're sure about Camalirea being on Highpoint but Highpoint is, uh, a mountain, there's kind of a lot of it. And we don't have Laisanni narrowed down any farther than the province."

"I have a lot of range and speed and creepy detecty powers!"

"Thank you very much for helping save this world with them!"

"Well, you know, why stop at one."

"The right number of worlds to save is 'as many as you can get your hands on'," Riale agrees.

Giggle.

Ravkesial smiles quietly.

"Hmm, what else can we do on this trip that's useful... would you like to learn how to fly a swoop while you're here, in case that comes in handy?" he asks, glancing back at Cor.

"Sure, sounds fun."

"Okay, if you come up I can show you the controls—"

He does that. They're reasonably straightforward. Do this to turn, do this to tilt up or down, do this to go faster, do this to go slower, and this is the control that settles you onto the ground properly after a successful landing but it doesn't work while the swoop is in the air because that would just be asking for accidents.

Cor is a quick learner!

"And that's pretty much all you need to know to get around in a swoop," he says ten minutes later, "although if you want to do anything fancier than plain flying it's a good idea to practice first."

"Is there much call for fanciness?"

"Not usually. Especially for you, since you can fly faster on your own and with much less risk of crashing into anything. But if it comes up for whatever reason - the thing is, if you're doing tricks or trying to fit through a small space at speed or whatever, you kind of need to be at the point where instead of thinking 'okay I need to go up so I should pull that lever and then I need to turn so I should...', you think about how you want to move and manipulating the controls happens automatically. And practice is the only way I know of to get there."

"Makes sense."

"Yeah."

"We don't have anything this... purely vehicular... at home. There's carriages but those involve horses."

"Purely vehicular! Yeah, that's a way to put it. Horse-drawn carriages have been getting steadily less popular for a while now, because magic versions are more expensive but take less upkeep and, uh, don't poop in the streets. But anything that wants to get between continents has to fly, so most long-distance vehicles for travel and cargo are soars, and swoops for when you care more about how fast you get there than how much you can carry on the way."

"Those are cute names for them. Insofar as I have an aesthetic in this language, which to a surprising extent I seem to."

Giggle. "Well, I agree, for whatever that's worth. Evidence that your aesthetic is not wildly miscalibrated relative to local tastes."

"Cool. Thanks, language-granting magic sharp object."