a little young for that

[alicornucopia]

There is a red-eyed teenage boy - or so it would seem - positively interrogating the bar.

"Redreed wine?"

Aren't you a little young for that?

"I don't actually want any right now, but you know what it is?"

Of course.

"That... is interesting." He taps his fingers on the bar. "All right - I do, actually, want a chocolate iced planet."

And he gets a little square pastry, frosting on the top, and turns on his barstool to watch the comings and goings.

~~~

with Giles

with Lazarus

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"I'm occasionally asked to stop speaking in jargon. This is the first time it has occurred to me to ask someone else to start."

[nonbird]

"Unfortunately, I don't have a jargon, because there is only one of me and only one of my power and it doesn't really sort itself into a vocabulary."

[alicornucopia]

"That's a shame," says Kaylo. He finishes his iced planet. "One of each power, huh? Not very - systematic."

[nonbird]

"No, indeed. Well, there are exceptions. There's one of each power of the kind that I have, but there are also mints, who are special."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, what do they do?"

[nonbird]

"They make coins that grant wishes," he says. "For which one possible use is turning more people into mints, and there is only one way to be a mint."

[alicornucopia]

"How peculiar."

[nonbird]

"Yes," he says. "I have not entirely figured out mints."

[alicornucopia]

"What do you have left to wonder about them?"

[nonbird]

"Where they came from, mainly. All of the mints that are around now got it from somewhere. Maybe once there was someone who was a mint like I am a what-my-power-is, and they passed it on because mints can do that, but they seem like such a different kind of thing that I'm really not sure."

[alicornucopia]

"Huh. I'm not sure if I'm in a position to help you, but it sounds like a fascinating question!" says Kaylo earnestly.

[nonbird]

"It is! It fascinates me. Someday maybe I will figure it out."

[alicornucopia]

"Do you know helpful mints?" asks Kaylo.

[nonbird]

"Not especially."

[alicornucopia]

"Then how're you going to make progress?"

[nonbird]

"Well, that's why I didn't say 'Someday I will certainly figure it out!'"

[alicornucopia]

"Fair enough. I guess you can tell whether someone you might be about to meet is one easily enough, huh?"

[nonbird]

"Yes," he says. "Sooner and more easily than I can tell anything else about them. Mints are distinctive."

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo laughs. "That sounds really useful. I'd have a huge head start on my career if I could see things like you. I wonder if I can invent a spell that'd - probably not, it'd just wind up being another analysis."

[nonbird]

"And analyses do not see things like me?"

[alicornucopia]

"People have been trying to come up with exotic ones that do all sorts of interpretation for you, but they don't work very well, and I don't think having met you as inspiration would give me enough advantage to promote 'revamp the entire field of analysis' to particularly high on my to-do list."

[nonbird]

"I wonder if I could revamp the entire field of analysis."

[alicornucopia]

"Do you have a channeling capacity?" asks Kaylo skeptically.

[nonbird]

"No. Do I need one? How does inventing spells work?"

[alicornucopia]

"It does involve actually performing the spell," says Kaylo, "which you can do only with a CC."