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]

"Okay, good." That seems to be that. She wanders off.

[or_coincidence]

Meanwhile, in a very different library, a tiny blue unicorn is preparing a spell. She double-checks her parameters, squints at her scroll of notes one last time, then lets it snap shut and drop to the floor while she concentrates. It should work fine, as long as there aren't any dragon-like creatures close enough to Joy for it to get confused about; she's fiddled with the targeting as much as she dared, and can't refine it any farther without compromising safety measures.

And... cast.

There is an enormous puff of faintly glittery red smoke. Blueberry squints into the cloud, then clears it away with a little subtle telekinesis.

[alicornucopia]

A beige mammalian biped who is wearing clothes and has red eyes and appears to have been sitting before he was violently removed from his chair falls to the floor. "Ack!"

[or_coincidence]

"You don't look very dragon-like," Blueberry says dubiously.

[alicornucopia]

"Excuse me? You don't look like the treatise on spell invention parameters volume three!"

[or_coincidence]

"That is because I'm not a treatise," she says reasonably. "I'm a unicorn. And I was trying to bring back a dragon who disappeared a little while ago, but the spell I'm using has trouble distinguishing people except by broad obvious categories like species... maybe it got confused some other way. Do you know anything about a green and purple dragon suddenly appearing somewhere near wherever you just were? He's about this tall," she floats a book to a Joy-ish height to illustrate, because even if she stood on tip-hoof she'd be much too short to gesture it herself, "and his name is Joy and he's very friendly and helpful."

[alicornucopia]

"I'd figured he was messing with tasteless illusions. I'm a dragon, I'm just not shaped like one right now."

[or_coincidence]

"Oh, that makes sense. Well, it shouldn't be very hard to put you back now that I've got you... you're definitely the only dragon-like creature in Ponyville right now. Do you want me to do that? I'd just have to reverse a few things and then check my work, it won't take long. But then I guess you should tell Joy to go somewhere there aren't any dragon-like creatures for a size-of-this-roomish distance anywhere around him, before I try again."

[alicornucopia]

"What is going on?"

[or_coincidence]

"From my perspective, Joy disappeared mysteriously a little while ago and I went and looked up some spells until I found one that told me where he went, sort of, and then I went and looked up some more spells until I found one that could get him back. But it isn't very good, so it accidentally got you instead."

[alicornucopia]

"Aaaand where did you get me to, pray tell?"

[or_coincidence]

"Equestria! Ponyville specifically. The Ponyville public library, even more specifically."

[alicornucopia]

"So I'm gathering I'm not in Elcenia anymore, is that right?"

[or_coincidence]

"If Elcenia is the world you were in a minute ago, yes."

[alicornucopia]

"Ooookay. And I am here because your spell is badly targeted."

[or_coincidence]

"Yes. I could've refined the targeting, but only by sacrificing important safety precautions, and I didn't want to do that. It's better to accidentally get the wrong dragon for a few minutes than to risk somepony getting hurt in the process of getting the right one."

[alicornucopia]

"Your language is really speciesist, did you know that?"

[or_coincidence]

"Yes, but it's the only language around unless you count animal speech and that's not learnable, so I have to put up with it."

[alicornucopia]

"Rrrright. Anyway. I would like to be put back eventually so it's comforting to know you think you can do that, but I am pretty curious about this place I find myself in, what with it being magical and unfamiliar."

[or_coincidence]

"You can ask me about Equestria if you want, I won't mind answering things."

[alicornucopia]

"Right, so is more or less everybody ponies and dragons?"

[or_coincidence]

"Equestria is a pony country. I don't know if there are any dragons living in it at all other than Joy, and if there are, they don't live in pony villages with ponies like he does. But there's dragons in other places farther away, and griffins, and certain kinds of sea monsters that can talk... I could probably look up a list of all the non-pony creatures who're known to use learnable language, but I might have to send away to another library in Canterlot for it."

[alicornucopia]

"Learnable language as opposed to?"

[or_coincidence]

"I mean, you can teach a dragon or a sea serpent Equestrian, but you can't teach a bear or a bunny or a bee Equestrian. But certain ponies who have the right kind of special talent can understand and communicate with bears and bunnies and bees; they just don't use a learnable language to do it. Someone who tried to learn how to talk to bears might get pretty good at it, especially if they were an earth pony to begin with, but they'd never be as good as somebody with a special talent for it."

[alicornucopia]

"Explain 'special talents'."