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

[alicornucopia]

So they get the (copper) leader of the Corentan house, and the (amethyst) leader of the iceberg house, and then they find an elderly garnet miracle and an elderly black opal miracle to round out the set.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda spends a few ticks peering at each of them, and then replaces their firebreathing and shapeshifting and colour-group magic and reproductive magic and language magic and name magic. Everything works just fine. Everyone's used form slots retain splashes of dragon magic.

[alicornucopia]

Jensal and Ludei then each try it on other elderly miracles, and succeed without any disaster.

[missnicegirl]

Magic transplants are distributed. Hooray!



It occurs to Matilda to ask Jensal, "Why did you need to make sure the people taking care of the babies were fixed first out of the grown-ups?"

[alicornucopia]

"The dragon council would have made a fuss if we'd had baby dragons looked after by shrens," says Jensal. "It wouldn't have been much of a problem, in this case, because those babies have parents to go home to anyway - most of them are already gone now - but better to avoid in the first place."

[missnicegirl]

"But why is it bad to have baby dragons looked after by shrens? Is this about Draconic's opinions again?"

[alicornucopia]

"Draconic's opinions, dragons' opinions," shrugs Jensal. "It would be inappropriate. Dragons can keep their baby shrens if they want to; shrens raising dragons isn't done." (Were it not obvious from context that Jensal does not share these opinions, her tone is dripping with contempt.)

[missnicegirl]

"Draconic has bad opinions," says Matilda.

[alicornucopia]

"Draconic has one large and despicable blind spot," shrugs Jensal. "We can think around it if we really try. But the Dragon Council doesn't try, so the baby-minders were early in line for miracles, and shrens generally avoid having children because they'll just be whisked away and given to some dragon couple who's failed at producing surviving offspring."

[missnicegirl]

"...Some dragon couple who's what? Is that a problem dragons have a lot?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yes," blinks Jensal, "actually, it is."

[missnicegirl]

"Why?"

[alicornucopia]

"Nobody knows. You're going to go find out, aren't you."

[missnicegirl]

"Of course I am. Where should I look? Who should I talk to? Do you know?"

[alicornucopia]

"I don't know any dragon couples currently mid-harrowing-attempt-to-reproduce personally, no. I'm sure some miracles are trying now that their kids wouldn't get taken away, but it'll take a while for any of them to get around to laying the eggs."

[missnicegirl]

"Who do I talk to to find out who to talk to, then?"

[alicornucopia]

"The Dragon Council would know, if nothing else; I can loan you my crystal to them."

[missnicegirl]

"That would be helpful."

[alicornucopia]

Jensal goes and gets her crystal and hands it over. "Do you need me to explain how to use it?"

[missnicegirl]

Matilda peers at it. "I'm getting better at seeing wizardry," she says. "I just hit it with something and then it's like a phone?"

[alicornucopia]

"...I don't know what a phone is, but hitting it with something is the operation procedure."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay." She hits the crystal.

[alicornucopia]

The crystal rings. Someone answers it. "What is it?" they ask in Draconic.

[missnicegirl]

"Hello," says Matilda, also in Draconic. "I'm the person who figured out how to fix shrens, and I want to find out why dragon babies die a lot so I can fix that too. Do you know where I can find dragon babies to look at?"

[alicornucopia]

"...You mean, ones less than a month old, who might still die?"