exploratory kidnapping

[alicornucopia]

In this room are two women, one gray and sixty years old, one just thirty and red-haired, both wearing elaborate outfits. The younger casts a spell.

In this room is now also a third person. (On whom the elder woman promptly also casts a spell, which she had at the ready.)

Comments

[missnicegirl]

"Okay. Bye, Quaro."

She takes Jensal to Ludei's house.

[alicornucopia]

Where Ludei assembles batches of kids for her.

[missnicegirl]

And she takes them to the bottom of the world and fixes them all.

"I think ialdae's learned this well enough that someone who's not me might be able to do it too," she says to Jensal and Ludei when she has fixed all of the kids. "But I don't know how to safely teach a person how to do it, because it's not like moving things or changing colours or making healing lights or even teleporting where if you get it a little bit wrong you're probably okay. If you get this a little bit wrong somebody dies."

[alicornucopia]

"You've already got most of the shrens in the world," says Jensal.

"But if you can teach us to do this safely and we can pass it on to others, then shrens who hatch in the future will be able to receive cures even when you are not here anymore," says Ludei.

[missnicegirl]

"I think... if I can teach someone how to see magic, and they're shiny like you are, and they could find a volunteer who was okay with being fixed less safely so someone can learn, then I'd be okay trying to teach them how to fix shrens. I'm not sure how to teach someone how to see magic, though, except the way I learned, which is having someone put a wizardry analysis on me and then it just sort of stuck when they took it off. Is there a wizardry analysis that sees dragon magic?"

[alicornucopia]

"...I'll ask Ehail," says Ludei, and he goes off into elsewhere parts of the shren house.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda awaits Ehail, whoever that is.

[alicornucopia]

Ehail turns out to be a silver-haired wizard. "I... have a prototype of an analysis that sees dragon magic," she says.

[missnicegirl]

"Can you cast it on Ludei and Jensal and then take it off? Or is it the kind that only works on the caster?"

[alicornucopia]

"It only works on the caster... I didn't know anybody else would need to look at dragon magic," Ehail apologizes. "I can walk them through casting it. The intentionality is pretty simple."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay. And I can fix you and see if you catch ialdae, and if you do you can try too."

[alicornucopia]

Ehail nods.

"We'll learn the spell," Jensal tells Matilda. "We'll see you tomorrow?"

[missnicegirl]

"Okay. Bye."

Home she goes.

[alicornucopia]

The next day, Jensal and Ludei are both going around with their dragon magic analyses on continuously so they don't have to reverse and recast the spells.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda collects Jensal and goes to Ludei's house and asks for Ludei and Ehail.

And she says, "I think it would make sense for you two to watch me fix Ehail so you see how it works. But it'll be better if you can watch it through ialdae and not through wizardry. Can you take the analysis off and see if it stuck?"

[alicornucopia]

Ehail teaches them to do the gesture for the spell backwards; Ludei takes his off first to check.

[missnicegirl]

He can still see dragon magic. But after a few ticks he can see it much more clearly, and with a kind of aura of understanding that explains which parts are important for what; and a few ticks after that, he can see ialdae, on himself and Jensal like bonfires and on Matilda like a tiny sun.

"Did it work?" asks Matilda.

[alicornucopia]

"I... believe so, though I presume what I'm seeing on you is not dragon magic," says Ludei.

Ehail helps Jensal undo her spell too.

[missnicegirl]

"No, it's ialdae. I'm not surprised about that," says Matilda. "I think it makes sense that if your ialdae can see any other magic, it can see itself too. Jensal? Are you seeing it?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yes," Jensal confirms.

[missnicegirl]

"Okay."

She brings them all to the bottom of the world.

"Natural form, please, Ehail. And watch what I'm doing, you two."

[alicornucopia]

Ehail shifts. Jensal and Ludei watch.

[missnicegirl]

"See the hole in her magic? And see what it's pulling on? What I do is I put my ialdae there instead," she does this, "and then the hole in her magic is pulling on my ialdae, but I've got lots and lots and I'm not going to run out so it's okay, and then I tell it to stop going through," she does this, "and it stays in the hole and fills it up with ialdae and the ialdae knows its job is to stay there and keep her alive, so it does that. And now she's fixed."

She looks up at Ludei and Jensal.

"Did that make sense? Do you think you could do it too?"

[alicornucopia]

"I think so," says Jensal; Ludei nods slowly. "I might want to see it again, first," Jensal adds.

[missnicegirl]

"Okay. Well, we can go back to Ludei's house and get the next batch and you can watch me fix all those. I usually do it faster than that but it's the same set of steps every time."