chalk

[alicornucopia]

In Paraasilan, Esmaar, a pair of roommates are about to break a rule that, compared to the one about running in the corridors or even the one about unlicensed teleportation, is there for a good reason.

In unison, they complete their shared spell.

~~~

with Adarin (Aestrix)

with Ekador (kappa)

with Brilliance (kappa)

with the admin (kappa)

with Teah (kappa)

with Katran (lambda)

with Hall (kappa)

with Joy (kappa)

with Kalinda (Christy Hotwater)

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"Hhikiiias don't really care about that. I can tell it to skip to something else if I think of what to ask."

[cardistry]

He giggles. "I don't know why, but I'm imagining a disembodied voice listing all of my hairs and it's really adorable."

[alicornucopia]

"It's not exactly disembodied. It's coming from you and it sounds like you."

[cardistry]

"It sounds like me? Really? But - I dunno, it's still not me, it's not embodied in the sense of belonging to the mind that goes with the body, you know?"

[alicornucopia]

"It sounds like you," repeats Leekath. "And - I don't know, hhikiiias never belong to minds generally speaking, but if I hear a voice talking about this chair and it's coming from the chair it's mostly like the chair is talking. You just have two voices."

[cardistry]

"...But one of those voices is me as in my mind talking, and the other one is - a magic thing you can do that tells you stuff," he says. "If you ask what the incantation is for my built-in torture function, only one of us is going to answer. - And please don't ask that, and if you find it out anyway don't say it to me, even though you don't have a linker core and wouldn't have the privileges to use it if you did, just - don't."

[alicornucopia]

"Um, okay," says Leekath. "I'm not used to people having hhikiiias, I don't know how to - be polite about describing it."

[cardistry]

He shrugs. "And I'm still trying to figure out what a hhikiiia is like in the first place. I don't know what would be polite if you were talking to somebody else, but for me - the difference between my voice and a voice I can't hear or control that just says things about me is important."

[alicornucopia]

Leekath nods. "Okay."

[cardistry]

He smiles at her.

[alicornucopia]

"You have five million six hundred and four thousand eight hundred ninety-six hairs, if you wanted to know."

[cardistry]

He giggles. "And that's still weirdly adorable."

[alicornucopia]

"Huh. Your clothes don't have their own hhikiiias, I didn't notice until yours started talking about them."

[cardistry]

"Course not, they're part of me. I can change 'em the same way I could with my deck, see?" He inverts the black and white parts of the colour scheme with a shimmer of rainbow mana.

[alicornucopia]

"Now they're talking about the colors they are now. That was a pretty - magic thing you did."

[cardistry]

"My magic's pretty!" he says cheerfully. "Wanna see something else?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah!"

[cardistry]

He giggles, puts his hand on the table, deploys a magical diagram, and lifts his hand away from it. The centre of the diagram fountains tiny glowing spheres in a dazzling rainbow of colours; they rise into the air in a streaming column and then drift away like soap bubbles, slowly fading as they go.

[alicornucopia]

"What's that spell for?" asks Leekath, watching the spheres float away. (The display attracts a little attention from some people nearby, too.)

[cardistry]

"It's not really for anything, I just made it up on the spot."

[alicornucopia]

"It's pretty. Is it easy to make up spells that do kind of complicated things like that on the spot?"

[cardistry]

"It's easy enough for me. I don't know how easy it'd be for somebody who wasn't a Device."

[alicornucopia]

"Are you planning to just stay in Elcenia forever?" asks Leekath.

[cardistry]

"I dunno. I don't even know if I can come back when the spell that's holding me here breaks. I think I can, but it's hard to be sure."

[alicornucopia]

"I don't see why you couldn't, if somebody else summoned you," says Leekath.