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]

"The entire world doesn't have a name that I know of, but I'm from a town called Lyndonville in a country called America on a planet called Earth in a world that isn't this one."

[alicornucopia]

"What, really?" asks Thiies. "How did you get here?"

[missnicegirl]

"Some nice people in Linnip summoned me as part of a research project they're doing on kinds of magic in different worlds, and they found a witch to teach me witchcraft and a dragon to teach me Ertydon, and when I figured out how to give ialdae to more people I gave it to some people the researchers found and now I'm teaching them how to use it."

[alicornucopia]

"...Linnip," says Thiies, "is doing a research project on magic in different worlds?"

[missnicegirl]

"Apparently!" She blinks up at him. "Is that especially weird?"

[alicornucopia]

"Excuse me," says Thiies, "I'll just be - darling, look after the -" He kisses his husband on the cheek through the cloak and then turns into a bat and flies away very fast.

[missnicegirl]

"...Do you know why he did that?" inquires Matilda, gazing after the fleeing bat.

[alicornucopia]

"My husband works in Parliament, who will be very interested in this development," says Kheeeahh. "Where are your parents?"

[missnicegirl]

"On Earth. Why?"

[alicornucopia]

"Do they know where you are, or will honoring my husband's invitation mean inviting a small unescorted child whose guardians do not know where to find her into my house?"

[missnicegirl]

"I can go home and tell Miss Honey what I'm up to if you want, but she can't travel between worlds by herself so when I'm in Elcenia it isn't especially imprtant to her to know which part of Elcenia exactly. Miss Honey is my adoptive mother," she adds.

[alicornucopia]

"You may visit briefly, as Thiies said, if your mother says you may."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay," she says. "I'll go tell her."

She vanishes.

Several ticks later she reappears. "I said I was going to visit with a family I met in Esmaar and she said 'okay, have fun,'" she reports.

[alicornucopia]

Kheeeahh regards her from the shadow of his hood. Then he turns and continues leading his children down the street, hand still on the shoulder of his youngest.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda follows along cheerfully. She does mostly understand why grown-ups are so frequently concerned about parental permission, even if it is a very silly thing to be concerned about in her particular case. They don't know that and it is usually not worth the bother to explain to them.

[alicornucopia]

Their house is a couple degrees' walk away from where Matilda joined them. They pass shops and many tall, roomy houses with a lot of windows arranged in circles around yards. Their house is in such a circle. Kheeeahh opens the door and ushers the children in.

"I'll let her look at me," pipes up Leekath.

Her father looks at her.

"So no one else will have to sit quiet for her."

"Very well."

Leekath pushes her hood back and sits on a couch in the living room. Her brother runs up the stairs, her sister out into the backyard; her father goes into another room on the same floor.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda sits next to Leekath on the couch.

"Do you want me to explain the things my magic finds out, when it does?" she asks.

[alicornucopia]

Nod, nod.

[missnicegirl]

"Okay."

She looks at Leekath and concentrates on understanding.

[alicornucopia]

Leekath is a vampire. She last ate five days ago, and the person she bit was an elf, solidifying her lifespan's tendency to float at around three hundred years give or take.

Leekath can hear things. They never lie.

[missnicegirl]

"Oh!" says Matilda, blinking. "You have a whole extra kind of magic that isn't anything to do with your lifespan at all. Do all vampires have that? The hearing thing?"

[alicornucopia]

Leekath shakes her head.

"Not most of them."

[missnicegirl]

"Oh. Well, it's neat," says Matilda. "Do all my clothes and things sound strange because they're from a different world?"

[alicornucopia]

"They sound like normal voices, but they're saying strange things," says Leekath. "That's why I asked where you were from."

[missnicegirl]

"That makes sense! Okay. I can also see the lifespan magic but the other thing was a surprise. Let's see..."

She peers contemplatively at Leekath, and through her at the lifespan magic. It's pretty straightforward.

"It just does exactly what you'd think, makes your lifespan average out with the lifespans of whoever you bite," she says. "I don't think there are any weird surprises here like with dragons and how their magic kept running away on them. Do you want me to try changing it so your lifespan is forever instead of three hundred-ish?"