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!"

Matilda fiddles with the magic, sending ialdae to wrap around the lifespan counter and tell it that the number it wants is infinity, none of this nonsense about limitations.

Then she giggles.

"Wow, that's the fastest I've seen anyone catch ialdae who wasn't a dragon!"

[alicornucopia]

"Catch ialdae?"

[missnicegirl]

"When someone has ialdae done to them, sometimes they become able to do it themselves," she explains. "But I only did a little bit to you and everyone else who's caught it had a lot more. You caught it a lot, though. Do you want me to teach you how to use it? It can do all kinds of things, like teleporting and sorcery and lightcraft but better than the way those things work in ordinary Elcenian magic, and witchcraft but mostly exactly the same as the ordinary Elcenian way, and changing the colours of things. And seeing magic. It's getting really good at seeing magic."

[alicornucopia]

"I want to learn it," nods Leekath. "But I'm not sure Fheeil will let me. It was hard to convince him to let me go to wizard school."

[missnicegirl]

"...What do you mean?"

[alicornucopia]

"I go to a wizard school but it's on a break right now. Fheeil - that's my father, the one who's in the house, not the other one - didn't want me to go at first. I got Aaihhhi to help me convince him though."

[missnicegirl]

"Well, maybe your aaihhhi will help convince him about this too," says Matilda. She doesn't appear to have any trouble with the word. "Why didn't he want you to go to wizard school?"

[alicornucopia]

"He thinks I need to be kept at home because I'm a hearer. And I'm not sure Aaihhhi will be as interested in me learning to do ialdae as wizardry. Wizardry will let me work for him when I grow up and ialdae might not. How did you pronounce that?"

[missnicegirl]

"One of the things I did while I was doing things with dragons was give myself an ialdic version of their language magic, so I can speak vampire as well as a dragon can," she explains. "My first set of parents didn't want me to go to school either, but I convinced them eventually. And then I found Miss Honey and got her to adopt me because my first set of parents weren't very good and she is much better. Why does your fheeil think you need to be kept at home because you can do neat magic?"

[alicornucopia]

"He thinks hearers are crazy and it's not magic," explains Leekath.

[missnicegirl]

"Well, that's silly," diagnoses Matilda. "So I don't think you need to listen to him about whether or not to learn ialdae if you don't want, since he only has silly reasons."

[alicornucopia]

"But he might not let me."

[missnicegirl]

"Can he stop you? People mostly can't stop me doing things now that I have lots of magic," says Matilda. "They had some trouble even before that, but I had to hide and sneak around more."

[alicornucopia]

Leekath looks scared.

[missnicegirl]

"...What's wrong?"

[alicornucopia]

"I can't just do whatever I want even if Fheeil won't let me," says Leekath. "I'm not learning magic so I can - fight my family."

[missnicegirl]

"If you want to do what your parents say, you can," says Matilda. "But sometimes parents are wrong about things, or don't care. My parents were wrong a lot and didn't care very much, and that's why I got Miss Honey to adopt me. I think if you know your fheeil is wrong about you being crazy, then it's okay not to do what he says when you know he's only saying it because he's wrong about something."

[alicornucopia]

"Aaihhhi tells me to be good for my fheeil though."

[missnicegirl]

"I like your aaihhhi, he's nice," says Matilda. "But nice people can be wrong too. Does he think the same thing as your fheeil about you being crazy?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yes."

[missnicegirl]

"Well, then, it makes sense that he'd tell you to be good for your fheeil since he doesn't know your fheeil is wrong about something important," says Matilda. "Maybe he'd say something different if he knew."

[alicornucopia]

"Everybody," says Leekath, "thinks that hearers are crazy. We're just not dangerous so I can still go to school and stuff if my parents let me."

[missnicegirl]

"Everybody is wrong about hearers being crazy," says Matilda. "It's really real magic and anyone who can see magic with ialdae can say so."

[alicornucopia]

"But my parents can't do that," says Leekath.

[missnicegirl]

"No, but lots of people can, and I bet if I found an agreeable wizard I could get them to invent a wizardry analysis for it and then anyone who could cast the analysis could say so too."