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

[joyfulnoise]

Purple and green guy: Still sitting behind an increasingly large stack of books, munching on gemstones and reading about... Linnipese history, currently.

[alicornucopia]

"Hey, uh, Joy? You know Blueberry?"

[joyfulnoise]

"Huh? Yeah!" he says. "Why, have you seen her?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, she summoned me and said to tell you that if you want to go home you need to go someplace that isn't near any," he raises a hand, "spell-confusing dragons or dragonlike creatures. If you aren't in a hurry though I'm gonna summon her in about three angles - hours - anyway I'm going to summon her soonish and you could talk to her then directly."

[joyfulnoise]

"Okay. Thanks for telling me! Did she really summon you by accident trying to get me?" He giggles.

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah. It was startling, but you know what, I will take the inconvenience, we're gonna swap knowhow about magic, it's gonna be great."

[joyfulnoise]

"Have fun! Blueberry's pretty great, she knows all kinds of stuff. And she's cute and tiny."

[alicornucopia]

"She is!" agrees Kaylo. "Anyway, I'm off to convince a teacher to let me summon her." He waves and wanders off.

[joyfulnoise]

Joy goes back to his reading.

[or_coincidence]

As promised, Blueberry checks up on him every so often.

One hour into the three-hour interval, she sees him hanging out by the side of a pond, not doing much. As far as Blueberry can tell, there isn't anypony nearby, unless they are hiding at the bottom of the pond or something.

She casts her spell.

This time the cloud of smoke resembles billowing black glitter.

[alicornucopia]

"QUACK!"

[or_coincidence]

"...oh dear," says Blueberry. "You don't look much like a dragonlike creature either... but last time I thought that, it turned out to be shapeshifting. Are you a shapeshifted dragonlike creature? I can put you back where you came from without much trouble, but if you're not a shapeshifted dragonlike creature I want to find out what you are instead first, in case there's something wrong with the spell."

[alicornucopia]

The duck looks around and quacks again.

[or_coincidence]

"Oh, dear," sighs Blueberry. "I'm going to go get Cordy. I'll just be a minute."

And she darts out of the library and conscientiously closes the door behind her and gallops off.

[alicornucopia]

The duck... waddles up to the window, peers out of it, and then looks at the spell scroll.

[or_coincidence]

The spell scroll contains Blueberry's notes on a spell to bring a person from one world to another. It pays particular attention to safety measures, and there are some scribbled laments in the margins about having to sacrifice accuracy to make sure nopony gets hurt.



Blueberry comes back, leading a bigger, older pony with spiderweb marks on her flanks.

[ipso_amore]

"Hi," says Cordy to the duck. "What's up?"

[alicornucopia]

The duck just looks at her.

[ipso_amore]

Cordy sits down on the floor.

"I know it's probably confusing, but I promise we can get everything sorted out," she says. "You just have to give me something to work with."

[alicornucopia]

"Quack."

[ipso_amore]

"...Blueberry, could you give us a minute?"

[or_coincidence]

"Sure," says the blue filly. She goes outside again.

[ipso_amore]

Cordy waits until the door is closed.

"I have a special talent for communication," she says to the duck. "Which means I can tell when creatures understand me, and I can usually guess how to get them to understand me, and I can understand them if they mean to be understood. My name's Cherry Cordial. I don't want to make trouble for you, but it's important for Blueberry to know if you're a dragonlike creature or not. The spell she used has a known flaw where it can accidentally grab the wrong person if the person it's looking for is near other people of similar species. If it can accidentally grab random sparkly ducks when it's looking for a dragon, that's a whole different thing. If you really don't want to answer, I can just tell Blueberry I couldn't talk to you and get her to send you back, but it'd cause a lot of trouble that could be avoided."

[alicornucopia]

"I'm not a dragon. I want to go home," says the duck.

[ipso_amore]

"Are you a dragonlike creature?"