does not anymore work

[campanas]

Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:

an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.

with Prime (Aestrix)

with Edie and Emily (Maggie)

with Gloria (Maggie)

with Gren (Rockeye)

Comments

[campanas]

Yawn. "'Kay."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

Luckily, someone took care of the bed issue while they were out. There are four of the narrow beds lined up next to each other and covered with a pile of pillows and blankets.

[iamnotpolaris]

"Do you need a glass of water or a bedtime story or anything like that?"

[campanas]

"Stories good if knowing good stories."

Then again, this is coming from the girl who apparently grew up on tales of interdimensional adventure with magic and nukes and afterlives.

[iamnotpolaris]

"Well, what kinds of stories do you like?"

[campanas]

"Stories where lot of things happen! And things blowing up! And magic! And creatures! And going places where a lot of stuff!"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Hmm. Well, let's see what I can do."
She thinks for a minute.
"Once upon a time there was a very evil sorcerer. He went around arresting people, because he worked for a very evil king who liked people to be as firmly under his thumb as he could manage.
One day, the king sent him to arrest a little family in a cottage in the woods, because they were happy and carefree and not cowering in terror before him. But when he arrived and did scary magic to make them afraid of him, the couple's son accidentally did magic at him in self-defense."
She pauses for a moment to see if Pen has any commentary.

[campanas]

Pen has flumphed onto the bed on her front, wings splayed out and head turned to the side to listen attentively. "What kind magic?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"The magic the boy did wasn't trained, so it was just a burst of energy," Emily explained. "The sorcerer had little gestures and herbs that he would use to make magic do things instead of just fizzing out everywhere. They didn't have any other type of magic in that kingdom, so it was just called magic."

[campanas]

"Okay."

[iamnotpolaris]

"So the sorcerer decided then and there to make the boy his apprentice. His evil apprentice, to carry on his legacy of evil when he was gone, because the sorcerer wasn't smart enough to spend his time researching ways to not die of old age. Naturally, the boy wasn't at all interested, but the sorcerer threatened the boy's parents until he was forced to comply.
Every day, the sorcerer would teach the boy evil magics and assign him tasks while he was out arresting people. And every night, the boy would sneak out of bed and read what books the sorcerer had on magic that wasn't totally evil."

[campanas]

Pen nods solemnly.

[iamnotpolaris]

"One day, when the boy was sufficiently confident in his proficiency with not-evil magic, he ran away from the sorcerer's tower while the sorcerer was out arresting someone. He flew to his family's home in the forest.
His parents were overjoyed to see him again, but he could stay with them only long enough to layer them in magic protections and send them somewhere safer, because the sorcerer was not only evil, but proud and greedy, and the boy knew that he would never allow him to slip his grasp. So he needed to defeat the sorcerer once and for all, and probably the king too for good measure."

[campanas]

Nod nod nod!

[iamnotpolaris]

"However, the boy knew that the sorcerer was still more powerful than him by far. If he hadn't had his parents to think of, this might not have stopped him from running off half-cocked in some insane scheme for revenge. As it was, he knew he would need to find companions to help him defeat the sorcerer and make the land safe from innocents like his parents once more.
So the boy set out walking along a road through the forest, because everyone knew that the forest was a good place to meet interesting people. Mostly because it was easier to hide from people coming to arrest you amongst the trees, and interesting people had a habit of getting arrested because the king objected to their interestingness.
Eventually, the boy came across a swordswoman battling a fierce hydra. Every time she cut off one of its heads, it grew two more. Presumably she hadn't walked away and let it get on with its multicranial lizardy business because of the fair youth it had pinned menacingly under one foot."

[campanas]

"She should cut off its foot!" opines Pen.

[iamnotpolaris]

"She was trying to, but every time she got close enough, a head would get between her and it, and she would have to cut it off before it could bite her with its poison fangs.
But the boy knew from his evil magic lessons that a hydra could only grow new heads from clean stumps, so he began using the magic that the sorcerer had taught him to snap the hydra's necks. Because even magic traditionally used for evil can do good, in the right hands."

[campanas]

Nod nod.

[iamnotpolaris]

"Eventually, when all of the hydra's necks had been snapped, the swordswoman retrieved the handsome young man from beneath the hydra. He was only a little squished, and should recover shortly.
'Thank you for helping me save my brother,' said the swordswoman. 'He's not normally this useless.'
The swordswoman's brother made a vague squashed mumble of protest.
'Well, you were,' the swordswoman pointed out. 'What brings you through these woods, traveler?'
'I am seeking companions on a quest to defeat the evil sorcerer and his king and make the land safe for innocents,' the boy told her. 'But I know that I can't do it by myself, so I'm looking for people to help me.'
'My brother and I are on a quest to overthrow our stepfather, the wicked count,' said the swordswoman. 'We'll help you with your quest if you'll help us with ours.'
'It's a deal,' said the boy, and they shook on it."

[campanas]

"Yay!"

[iamnotpolaris]

"When the swordswoman's brother had recovered from his squashing, he revealed that he was also an apprentice sorcerer, like the boy. Unlike the boy, his teacher had been a good person, but he had had to flee when his wicked stepfather usurped the countship and tried to have him killed. He had been studying healing magic.
The boy expressed some doubts that a healer would be very much use on a quest to overthrow three people and counting, but the healer retorted, 'I sincerely doubt we're going to get through this with no injuries for any of us. I can keep the two of you in top fighting form even when by all rights you should be half-dead. And if it comes down to it, magic of the body is magic of the body. If I can touch someone, I can hurt them almost as well as heal them.' Because even magic traditionally used to help can do harm in the right hands.
The boy accepted this logic without protest. But the three of them still weren't sure that they could take down even one of the evil sorcerer, the bad king, or the wicked count with just themselves. So they journeyed through the woods a while longer."

[campanas]

Pen stretches a wing, lets it settle on the bed, nods.

[iamnotpolaris]

"So they journeyed through the woods a while longer. Along the way they found a woman who had been transformed into living fire by the sorcerer for rejecting his advances, and who wanted nothing more than to be detransformed so she could go home and take care of her little sister. The boy promised that once the sorcerer was defeated, he would search through his books to find a way to change her back, and she agreed to go with them. They met a man with a voice so sweet it would charm the woodland creatures into doing his bidding, who had fled to the woods to escape the king who wanted him to sing for his court, and he agreed to go with them. They met a very clever young sword-smith, who was charmed by the swordswoman's beauty, and he agreed to go with them.
At this point, they agreed that they probably had enough people, so they drew straws about whether they should deal with the sorcerer or the count first."

[campanas]

"Drew straws?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"When you can't decide on something, but it has to be decided, you usually settle it through chance. One of the ways of deciding things by chance is that you take as many straws as there are options, cut one of them shorter or longer than the others, and have an impartial party hold them in their fist so you can't tell which one is the odd one out. Then everyone who's arguing draws a straw. The person who gets the odd straw out either wins or loses depending on what kind of argument it is."