If she asks around at the Toronto Avalon, on a weekend, about the wyvern, she will be directed to a girl who is in the Avalon park, displaying no non-human parts at all besides some artful swoops of ice-blue along her cheekbones, sitting in a wheelchair with a spiral-bound notebook and a lapdesk and a pencil, chanting in French at a necklace.

Vivian speaks no French, and has the misfortune of walking up from an angle that is mostly behind the bench. Unaware of what she's interrupting, she walks over. "Hello, are you May Swan?"

The girl startles and drops her necklace and stops incanting. "I - yes? Hello?"

Vivian looks at the necklace, and at the runes on the ground in front of her, and bites back a number of horrified different curse words. "Did you just- swallow that?" How is she okay? How is she alive?!

"Eugh. Yeah. It's going to take a while to redraw, but it should go faster the second time," sighs May. "Can I help you?"

"Noooo, I mean, you can't- you don't- wasn't that a spell? Aiyaaaa, I just interrupted a spell. I'm so, so, so sorry, I had no idea- you should be dead! Best case, you'd be coughing for the next six hours- I don't- what did you do?"

"...What are you talking about?"

"Once you start a spell, you can't stop it. Swallowing a spell half done will explode in your lungs. Didn't your teacher explain...? Aiya, they didn't even mention you did magic or I'd have been more careful, I'm so sorry."

"I'm self-taught and the thing you are talking about has never happened to me. I try to avoid interrupting spells because then the diagram is expended but my lungs are fine."

"...Okay. Anyway, what did you want me for?"

"Wyverns?" asks May. "I haven't got a spare medallion to try on my parents. No guesses about anyone else. Speculation goes that I'm a weird offshoot - there's like a twenty percent chance one of my great-grandfathers was a random G.I. during World War II or something. No telling."

"No aunts or uncles, no living grandparents, no extended family in Yellowknife or Osaka. What an interesting series of questions you have."

"You're an interesting person."

"Oh?"

"Well, you're the only person I know who can swallow a spell."

"You didn't know that before you came up to me, knowing my name. Obviously. What's going on?"

Vivian thought about this in advance. She'd rather not spill about Isabella quite yet. Just in case. "I'm an environmentalist," she says instead. "I- invented? Rediscovered? A little of both- a spell that can restore extinct species," she explains. "But funnily enough, when I tried it on dragons, it didn't work. So I'm more than usually curious about spontaneously discovered wyverns."

"...Restore extinct species. Like, what, resurrecting them from the dead, or just spontaneously creating more of them out of thin air...?"

"Spontaneous creation. I do not traffic in zombies."

"And you traffic in... magically spawned passenger pigeons?... instead, and now you're looking for dragons and think wyverns may be related to dragons?"

"...well, I started with beetles. But my main concern right now is that if I were to return dragons and sphinxes to the world, I might trigger a second war. So I've been looking for dragons, yes."

"Did you already find sphinxes?" wonders May.

"Sphinxes would have the same problem as dragons," Vivian points out. "One war was enough."

"Obviously. But you said you were looking for dragons."

"Well, wyverns aren't particularly feline looking. Are there other newly discovered critters in the area I should be talking to...?"

"Your story doesn't hold together," says May, shaking her head. "If I knew where to find hiding sphinxes why would I tell you? You're an environmentalist? That's a hell of a way to talk about species of people who were genocided."

"I'm hoping to bring them back without causing a second genocide."

"Because of their effect on the ecology?" wonders May.

"It seemed the obvious next step once I learned to restore animals."

"I'm sure the falafel and peanut butter of the world will delight in the return of its keystone predators."

...?

"I don't think you're telling me everything, if you are telling me everything I'm deeply unimpressed, and as far as I know I'm just convergently reptilian. Thank you for telling me that it's unusual for me to survive interrupted incantations before I tried to teach anybody magic. Good afternoon."

Vivian can't leave without answers. Her daughter. "Do you have ideas?" she asks. "I'll take whatever help I can get, honestly. I just want to try to fix things."

"Okay, first, if you think somebody might be a member of a species you're interested in... let's say 'helping'... or might be friends with them or whatever? Don't describe it in the same terms you'd use to talk about reintroducing spotted owls to a region or saving the honeybees. That's gross. Do you understand?"

Vivian hadn't really thought about it like that before. Isabella mostly focuses on the healing everybody aspect of critterdom. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Two. Preventing wars is all very well and good. A million people do miscellaneous activism about it every day, mostly ineffective, and you are not presenting any reason to believe you're competent at wrangling historically antagonistic species. Do you know what their grievances were? Do you know how these species would reintegrate into the general critter population even in a best-case scenario, let alone how to bring that about?"

"I'll spare you my history as an activist." And her family history, which is probably more relevant. "But a good first step is finding them and talking about it, I think."

"That is like step three or four, at the earliest. First you need to tighten your information security, because you're probably not going to find sphinxes and dragons living together under a rock, and if you find them living under separate rocks, you might not want them to be able to find each other right away. Second you refine your diplomatic approach so you don't find someone in a delicate political situation and then give offense when you compare them to charismatic megafauna and thereby damage your anti-war message. Third you come up with anything that makes you seem less like, well, a nosy neighbor. Maybe you care if sphinxes and dragons exist and get along; why should sphinxes and dragons care if you exist and want to know how they're doing? Do you come bearing gifts? Are you yourself one or the other authorized to sign a permanent peace treaty? Thirty seconds of perspective taking, if you find yourself The Last Unicorn, this is very exciting for you but not very exciting for The Last Unicorn." Pause. "Don't go attempting to conjure unicorns just in case they once really existed to see what happens, please, not without actually thinking about it."

"I cannot direct you to any capacious rocks."

"I am also losing track of your metaphors," Vivian admits. "What?"

"I said you weren't likely to find sphinxes and dragons living together under a rock...?"

"Back to discussing your tactics, do you have any way to credibly indicate that you are a well-intentioned... environmentalist... and not, say, an assassin?"

"References, mostly. The critter community is fairly small, and the runecaster community smaller. Nothing's perfect, but your magic store owner at least would likely recognize me."

"You didn't lead with that," points out May.

"Well, I mostly led with confused incoherent spluttering," Vivian says ruefully. "And knowing runecasting is usually an identification by itself. You're the first self-taught caster I've met, actually."

"Nobody here had the time and inclination. I'll be elsewhere come summer vacation and may try again there, but I'm making good progress. Not that it isn't a rude awakening to learn that I've only narrowly escaped death by swallowed incantation."

"I respond well to glue. And, maybe. What's your best guess about whether my ability to swallow spells will suddenly fail me?"

Glue? Oh, repair. "Honestly? My best guess is that if you've managed it this long," and are in fact a dragon, "it's not liable to disappear. The etiquette around casting interruptions would mostly only be useful to you when interacting with other runecasters."

"Noted. I've been working out of Connie White's Rune Dictionary and Spellcraft For Theorists and The Wizard Book, mostly. Opinions?"

May has been diligently taking notes this entire time. "Does Connie White's Western bias make her book worse as reference material? I'm not trying to calibrate my cultural relativism with my spellbooks."

"If you look up a rune in there and you find it, you're fine. But I picked up a dictionary the last time I was in Shanghai and there's definitely some runes missing. Incomplete, but not inaccurate that I've seen."

"Does your dictionary from Shanghai come in English? My epicanthal folds are, A, Japanese, B, just for decoration."

"I haven't looked, since I'm fluent, but I can give you the author's name and the title." She considers. "If you have a piece of paper I can write it down; Chinese names don't always translate well."

May has a notebook in her lap. She opens it to a blank page and hands it over, with the pencil.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." She looks down at the necklace May is holding. "Would you like any help with- whatever you were casting? To make up for my interruption."

"I think I have it worked out, but I thought so last time I tried it, too." May flips pages and shows her a diagram. "Supposed to turn me invisible. I have a working per-occasion version out of a book but I want a necklace for it." There is an English incantation at the bottom and two drafts of a French translation.

"I know that handwriting," Vivia blurts without thinking. "That's my daughter's handwriting, how did you do that?"

"...This is my handwriting," says May. "Maybe we had the same penmanship workbook or something?"

"And the same vocal coach, apparently. You sound like her, too. It's bizarre, you look nothing like her."

Vivian chokes. "The eyebrow thing too. And if you're religious about notebooks I officially eliminate coincidence."

"I... like to... write... things... down? Look, what do you think is going on?"

"I have no idea! I've never met a Canadian Japanese version of my daughter before!"

"Look, I will grant that if I sound and write and... raise my eyebrow... like your daughter this would be unusual but aren't you jumping to conclusions?"

"Oh, of course. I'm just a bit unsettled at the moment. It'll wear off and I'll feel horribly dumb. The handwriting just startled me."

May shrugs. "Anyway, does the diagram look right?"

Vivian looks over it again. "I could nitpick a couple things if you want to be exact, but it'll work as written."

"Right. Here goes." May holds her necklace and recites her incantation.

Vivian does not interrupt this time. The spell goes off without a hitch.

May puts the necklace on, and vanishes! Only her wheelchair remains. She reappears in the process of taking it off. "Woo. Flying to school, here I come."

"Your wheelchair didn't vanish," Vivian mentions. "Do you have an extra at school, if you fly?"

"I don't always need it. My legs can move and support weight and so on, it's mostly a clumsiness issue, and I leave it home half the time anyway when there's no ice on the ground. I can make a separate doodad for the chair if I want, though, since the spell works."

"I have some preliminary notes on that, although I didn't put a lot of time into developing it without the necklace, since an invisible chair by itself would just mean I could appear to float around in a sitting position - admittedly cool but not practical. Here." May flips to another page and shows Vivian the notes.

Vivian skims it and suggests a couple alternate runes.

And May makes the suggested adjustments and then fairly adroitly composes them all into a tidy diagram.

"Hi, Anne!" (May has carefully memorized Jenny's siblings' names.) "How're you?"

Anne is not as careful about memorization, but she does at least know that May goes to school with Jenny and anyone she meets in Avalon already Knows About Things. This is good enough. "I'm a PEGASUS now! I got my medallion! Look look look, I have wings now!" She flails them around haphazardly, avoiding hitting anything almost entirely by accident.

"Can you fly yet?" wonders May. "That's what they're for."

"Looks like you could use some practice."

"This is - somebody who hasn't introduced herself," says May. "Who has been giving me runecasting tips. I have a necklace of Gyges now."

"Oh, sorry, I wrote it down in your book but didn't think to say..." Vivian trails off with a sigh at herself. "I'm Vivian Sun. I'm a runecaster from California."

"No, actually, I'm staying with a couple of college friends," Vivian murmurs, and leaves it at that.

"There's an old story about a ring that could turn people invisible, called the Ring of Gyges. I have a necklace that does that now," May explains to the little pegasus. "So I'm calling it a necklace of Gyges."

May holds up the necklace. Then she winks and puts it on.

"Oooooooooooooooooh!" Anne squeals in delight, flapping her wings excitedly. This time one hits Vivian in the shoulder.

Vivian barely notices. They are tiny wings and she has been smacked by many, many wings before.

May takes the necklace off and puts it in her pocket. "I can fly to school. And when school's out I can fly around in the middle of nowhere where my dad lives."

"Your mom drives you now, right? Are people gonna ask how you get around without her?"

"I'll tell them that's a rude question to ask someone just because she's handicapped. Besides, I don't think most people who don't know me well are aware of how I get to school."

"Sure!" And May helps braid the foal.

Vivian's not much use here- she's had short hair for decades and Isabella's never gone much for intricate braids. But she she contributes a spell to turn the hair ties Jenny brought pink and sparkly. They are very enthusiastic about the change.

May seems to have gotten over her offense at being considered charismatic megafauna.

"I want an invisibility necklace. Did you get a copy of her spell?"

"I checked it over for her, I remember it well enough, but I'll write to the Toronto magic shop if you'd like me to ask for an exact copy."

"Yeah! I could use it to fly around outside. The one-shot spells wear off way too fast. She sounds neat."

"She certainly seemed very smart. Would you rather write to her yourself?"

"Does that seem polite? She didn't meet me. Also you think she's a dragon."

"It's a small magic community, it's not unusual. And she seems, in the realm of 'possible dragons', close to our best case scenario. But I can write it for safety's sake."

"I'm tempted, but. Caution."

May emails her a photo of the diagram, a list of the runes and their size ratios, and the incantation in English and French. The email also says Are you going to fly around populated areas in broad daylight too?

I don't have enough of them for it to be worth the overhead in figuring out sales, but I'm planning to later on.

Well, then she may have a list of prices. It includes names, basic descriptions of the spells and prices in both US and Canadian dollars. (There's a footnote that she is not a money changer and she just rounded the Canadian prices to about a third above a dollar.)

Well, that warrants spending some of my summertime on arts and crafts to assemble useful objects, huh?

Absolutely. Though since I do this for a living, consider me biased.

It's an appealing career option. Trouble is I couldn't explain what I did to anyone who wasn't in the know.

I tell people, mostly honestly, that I sell custom made, very intricate jewelry. Though I think some people assume I'm paid for my volunteer work, too. There's options, if you're seriously inclined.

I am inclined. Although I came to magic pretty recently and have already learned enough to be stunned that more people don't take it up as a career. Competition is thin on the ground.

High margins but small market, few learning opportunities? Plus the danger factor, not everyone can swallow spells ;_;

Well, yes, but I didn't know I could do that when I took it up to begin with.

It's fun!

Sure.

I've never met any other wyverns except for the question mark that is my parents. Are we not related?

They are, but the magics don't seem to overlap. It's not uncommon with critters; Nemean lions and gryphons and sphinxes all descend from lions in some way but they all have different abilities.

I like books.

"Does she know I'm a sphinx?" Isabella asks. "Or didn't you tell her that part?"

"I wasn't going to say anything without permission from you, sphinxette. What do you think?"

"It's probably safe. It sure doesn't sound like she has ambitions of starting a war."

Assuming you mean reveal to critters/knowledgeable humans instead of the general population, media probably won't be that much of a problem, but I bet people would be worried about a recurrence of the war, so I'd be inclined to do it with her. But I don't know which of my parents is a dragon or how many others there might be - known to themselves or not.

Revealing myself is definitely preferable to her coming out as sphinxy all on her own and getting who knows how many people concerned that they're going to have to take sides in another massive conflict. I support the dragon-counting plan if you can pull it off; I don't immediately know how you'd manage it but I haven't been doing magic as long as you.

My parents already know, May writes back. My mom wants to try a medallion if I find another dragon one, my dad doesn't, but I haven't run across one yet so it's moot. Some of my friends know about me but not, obviously, about Isabella. I think I want to meet her and talk PR.

Isabella is relieved that there aren't tons of dragons of unknown levels of hostility lurking in Australia or something. And is willing to meet May.

May is in her dad's front yard with a book and notebook when they arrive. She waves. Her dad is peering from the window. There's a cop car in the driveway.

Vivian waves back. "Hi May! This is my daughter, Isabella."

"Hi, Isabella."

"Hi, May. Nice to meet you. Let's not have a war."

"I agree completely."

Vivian laughs. Spotting the face peering out the window, she looks at May inquiringly. "Did your father want to join us...?"

"He's just a little worried about the whole thing. He'll calm down. You can meet him if you want."

"It's up to him. Critters are a lot to take in, I don't blame him. I was pretty overwhelmed myself! But I can be ostentatiously human at him if you think it would help."

"That's not his problem. He took me being a critter pretty well. He's less thrilled that I'm trying to prevent a massive critter civil war more or less by myself."

"Is he that worried about other critters picking sides? It's not like there are dragons and sphinxes going spare."

"He doesn't know how far to trust your count, or whether there might be factions other than sphinxes and dragons proper who'd try to rally around us, or whatever," shrugs May.

"Well, since you're doing this together, I'm not even sure who they'd rally behind."

"I haven't asked him for really detailed scenarios that concern him. He is generally cautious, I don't even think it's particularly silly, but you can meet him if you want and skip it if you don't."

"Depends on what May wants to do. Anything from 'walk into a series of Avalons in fullform' to 'get the addresses of Avalon community leaders and send them all letters' to 'go by word of mouth'."

"That's... basically what my list looks like. I was favoring the middle option, although it does mean pretty tedious envelope-stuffing. I could maybe hire some tiny pegasi to help if we aren't in a hurry."

"How internationally are you thinking?" Vivian asks. "The Avalons don't always communicate well across continents. I have contacts in North America and Asia, but not as much elsewhere."

"Runecasters know -"

"- second languages," say Isabella and May at exactly the same time.

They blink at each other. May gestures at Isabella.

"...And therefore even if we start with just the US and Canada and China, we're moderately likely to get decent coverage by including a request to put us in touch with bilingual people, runecasters or not, who can direct us to recipients in other places."

"And France. If they'll tolerate reading French from a Canadian."

"Post office box in Toronto," says May. "Or out by you, if you prefer, but definitely in a big city so people have a hard time knocking on our doors about it."

"Whichever is easier to rent anonymously, I suppose. We can look it up later."

"We could also get burner phones, maybe."

"Oh, nice."

"I have a bulleted list of content it should cover but didn't want to get attached to specific wording without discussing it."

"I have an outline. Dear so and so. We are writing to inform you that insert summary here."

"Well, that seems like the obvious next step. May? Where's a good place for us to sit and write?"

"Inside works, unless you are big fans of lounging around in Canadian wilderness that's very inconvenient to get to without wings and invisibility."

"Since I am tragically wingless, I'm happy with inside."

"Nice to meet you," Vivian says with a smile. "Thank you for having us. Just a glass of water would be great, thank you."

"No kidding. What the hell."

Vivian is a mature, responsible adult and will not be saying 'I told you so.'

"Why would that even happen. Do we have more eerie similarities? At least our notebooks aren't the same color."

"I mean, I have more notebooks."

"Ah-huh... Is that your wheelchair over there?"

"Yeah. I don't always use it. Mostly when there's ice. I'm not paralyzed, just clumsy."

"You're kidding."

"I mean, I live in California, I don't have an ice problem, but I'm not kidding."

"How old are you?"

"I will be eighteen on -"

"- September thirteenth," May murmurs along with her.

"Okay, but how spooky does this get before it's obviously...?"

"Do you have the three -"

"I am a magical conjuration," Isabella points out.

"Well, yes, that makes you a sphinx. I didn't exactly put a 'please duplicate this infant dragon's personality' clause."

Vivian throws up her hands helplessly. "I really have no good response to that except runecasting!"

"It's okay, do we look like we mind? It's cool."

"Well, it might bother me academically. It doesn't seem to be a problem otherwise."

"I think it's very, uh, convenient."

"Hell yes it is."

Vivian smiles. "If it means the two of you get along better, so much the better for everyone."

"Do I not seem like the kind of person who'd get along with a duplicate of myself?"

"Oh, you do, love. I think that's established. I meant more generally, the whole theory of 'opposites attract and like repels like'. Would have made the cooperative reveal much more exhausting!"

"Anyway. So tell me about dragon stuff, May."

"Do you want to see?" May asks. "I'm not a huge dragon, I can fit in the living room. But I know about as much as you do on every subject besides what I look like." She slides off the couch onto the floor, checks the curtains, and shifts.

Vivian 'ooooohs' admiringly.

May preens.

Isabella reaches out and pets the scales on her neck. "Snakey," she laughs.

"Yeah. Come on, you too."

Isabella goes fullform likewise, purring on May's couch.

Vivian absently pets Isabella's back. "Sorry, none for me," she laughs.

"Poor Vivian," says Isabella. "Would we look good on a black and white informative flyer together, do you think?"

"You'll miss the dramatic blue and gold effect, but I think being a dragon and a sphinx will make up for that just fine."

May lashes her tail. "How long are you guys going to be up here?"

Vivian shrugs. "I'm self employed and Isabella is home schooled. We planned for a few days, but we're not in a rush."

"That's long enough to be worth checking out the local Avalon, maybe starting there as a testbed and gauging responses?" suggests May. "I don't actually know how to drive there, I found it on a really old map and that was after I made my charm, but I've made more since so I can show Isabella and we can look at the roads as we go."

"Sounds good to me, if Vivian doesn't mind hanging out here in the meantime?"

"I can amuse myself," Vivian promises. "I still want to tweak that composting spell, and I have to write back to that couple in Michigan, and... well, whatever else is scribbled down somewhere," she sighs. "Go on, you two, have fun flying."

"Will do."

May gets herself and her magical sphinx duplicate each an invisibility charm. They turn invisible, the door opens with some giggling and sounds of teenage girls bumping into each other, the door closes, and they fly away.

Vivian introduces herself to Charlie and asks for someplace out of his way to write some letters. The kitchen table turns out to be the easiest solution, so she fetches her stationary from the car and starts working on a response to the Michigan gryphons. Charlie inquires if she minds if he turns on the game; she somewhat distractedly assures him that she doesn't. The equilibrium seems to work for them both, broken only by occasional yells from the television set whenever a goal is scored or the hockey players get into the inevitable fights.

Vivian accepts it with a smile and a thank you. It's not fine cuisine, but it's tasty enough. When she's done, she washes what few dishes resulted; it seems only polite, since Charlie made the food.

"Sphinxette, you've still got the invisibility spell on," Vivian reminds her.

Vivian has never managed the arched eyebrow of surprise that Isabella is so fond of, but manages a look comfortably close to "raised eyebrows" anyway. "So you two had fun then?" she asks dryly.

(Giggling. Lots of it.)

"Yeah! It's tiny, but really cute."

"Did you figure out a way for us poor, wingless humans to visit while you were at it?"

"Yeah, I can point out the route on a map if you want to drive there, but it's really nothing much and kind of far away if you can't just coast over the mountains."

"All right. Sphinxette, anything interestingly magical there? Otherwise I won't bother."

"Nah. It's two tiny apartment buildings and a cafeteria and a general store and a schoolhouse, that's about it."

"I think I can live a full and happy life without visiting. I'd rather worry about your... coming out, so to speak."

"We didn't do it there today, but it might be a good trial run. May doesn't live here most of the year, and it's just a few people."

"Do you want to start near where you live?"

"Tiny Avalons in general are going to be inconvenient to get to, so if we want to start with a tiny Avalon, this one is good."

"I suppose if you aren't here most of the year..." Vivian says doubtfully. "Do you know who's in charge, May? We did discuss letters."

"A white stag fellow named Joel. We can write Joel a letter first and see how he takes it."