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, I'll go look at them."

[alicornucopia]

Terali leads her down the hall and down a flight of stairs and into a large room with a bunch of chairs containing women, all variously red-haired and between the ages of sixteen and forty-five.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda turns to Terali and asks seriously, "Are there no boys in Elcenia?"

[alicornucopia]

Terali blinks. "What? No, there are boys."

[missnicegirl]

"Oh. It's just I've never seen one," she explains. "And now I've seen a lot of people from Elcenia."

[alicornucopia]

"I don't think you've mentioned any boys from Earth, either," Terali points out. "We got these volunteers from a girls' school, some teachers and some students. If you want to meet Elcenian boys I could bring my son to work tomorrow."

[missnicegirl]

"I've mentioned some, I just didn't mention that they were boys. But there are boys in my class. I guess it doesn't matter too much. Are these just people for me to look at and see if they can catch ialdae or not, or do they all want to be ialdic too?"

[alicornucopia]

"If you can get any of these people to catch ialdae they'd be very pleased about it."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay. I guess I'll see."

She peers at the assembled women.

"I don't see anything... but maybe I just wouldn't. Are you very sure none of them is going to teach the magic bad things like kidnapping and lightning bolts?"

[alicornucopia]

"None of them has a criminal record or any worrying notes on their school history," Terali says. "I haven't met them all myself, but they've all been recommended by people who do know them."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay." She addresses the crowd. "Do you mind if I levitate you all?"

[alicornucopia]

"Go for it!" calls one of the sixteen-year-olds. There is general tittering and no objection.

[missnicegirl]

So she levitates them all. Chairs included.

[alicornucopia]

This is entertainingly novel for a few ticks, but most of them have brought books and go back to reading.

[missnicegirl]

Anyone who is watching the room through an ialdae analysis will note, after about a degree, that the sixteen-year-old who spoke first has a sudden flare of ialdae.

"Oh!" says Matilda. "I think one of you just caught it!"

[alicornucopia]

"Who?" asks Terali.

[missnicegirl]

Matilda points, and causes a little sparkling blue light to hover over the girl's head.

[alicornucopia]

Everybody looks at that girl, and she laughs, clearly delighted.

"What's your name?" Terali asks her.

"Annei Nepailah."

"Congratulations, Annei, you're the first Elcenian ialdae user."

[missnicegirl]

Matilda giggles. "I guess I can put you down now," she says, and she does that. "I don't know which parts of ialdae you've picked up... I think you might have some of the ability to teach it things, though."

[alicornucopia]

"How do I... do... anything, with it?" asks Annei, getting out of her chair and pocketing her book.

[missnicegirl]

"I think the first thing you should try is probably levitating yourself, but I can't really explain how very well. When I started using magic I had to concentrate very very hard on what I wanted to do with it, but now it's much easier and I hardly think about it at all."

[alicornucopia]

"Okay," nods Annei.

"Might be time to revise your schedule again," says Terali, almost teasingly. "You're conversational in Ertydon at this point, Fena says, so you could make time to teach Annei and anybody else who catches it by having fewer language lessons if your schedule's crowded back home."

[missnicegirl]

"Okay," says Matilda. "And I'd like to meet a light, please. I want to see if I can teach healing to ialdae."

[alicornucopia]

"I'm a light," call two different people in the crowd of would-be ialdae users.

[missnicegirl]

"Can you show me your magic?"