They appear in midair, visible out of a few thirtieth-floor apartments.
One starts to fall. The other catches her by the arm, flings out - wing-shapes of light - and slows her, spiraling down until they're at street level.
They appear in midair, visible out of a few thirtieth-floor apartments.
One starts to fall. The other catches her by the arm, flings out - wing-shapes of light - and slows her, spiraling down until they're at street level.
Probably. They had an argument and then someone punched the Ice and hurt her hand and then someone pulled out a welding torch and buzzed him with it and then he reacted dramatically and some of the other ones got welding torches too.
Well. Maybe they'll find the Ice and maybe they won't. At any rate she advises not attacking elementals.
The free(ish) elementals on her home world find some more high-profile targets. They take all their elementals.
Amentans continue to derive satisfaction from hearing about elementals freed from slavery. Aitim arranges for the stories to get lots of publicity so people have a harder time getting their own ideas about slavery.
"Of course!" He's having a kid this spring; the mother is eating lots of clams even though it's still winter. "How's preparing your curriculum going?"
"Pretty good. Might all fall apart when I have students, though. I'm probably going to want to hire some oranges for kid-wrangling parts that aren't directly about magic."
"I'm slightly worried about whether I will be able to find local oranges who can handle red students fairly. Or, uh, handle blue students fairly."
"There are oranges who teach in blue schools and they are not intimidateable into not giving us homework or anything."
"I don't think you're going to find anyone who'll treat the reds fairly. 'no favoritism among clean castes' seems entirely reasonable and not hard to get."
"Suppose. Well. The reds are my weird alien project, I can just give them extra attention if they need it."
"On the occasions I have talked to random purples they seem smarter than random humans, honestly, I think I'll cope."
"We've been selecting for intelligence in almost every caste for generations. They'll be fine. But if you're expecting to get equal results from equal opportunity, it won't work that way."
Anitam's colonization project is making exciting progress! Some Earths and Woods could maybe keep some plants alive if they wanted.
Other places want colonization projects too! If Maurabel won't help they will try to corrall Shadows themselves. Some of them are effective at this.
Maurabel's usually willing to help but if they can get Shadows to assist on their own that's fine, she doesn't own them.