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]

"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."

[nonbird]

"Hmm. Well, it was just a thought."

[alicornucopia]

"Getting CCs to entities that do not have them does seem like an interesting problem, but has limited application at home, since everyone has one there."

[nonbird]

"It seems like the sort of thing one could potentially wish for."

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe - I wouldn't know. Do you have any wishes going spare?" inquires Kaylo.

[nonbird]

"I do not," he says. "Or I would probably try it."

[alicornucopia]

"You would also need to be in Elcenia to cast spells," Kaylo points out. "Can you even get there from here? I have been assured that I can..."

[nonbird]

"Oh, yes, visiting other people's worlds is possible."

[alicornucopia]

"Would you want to? I have also been told I can't count on getting here whenever I feel like it."

[nonbird]

"Well, I could go for either a very short visit or a very long one. Although I suppose that if there are a lot of dragons in Elcenia, you've probably cornered the market on interpretation and translation. But then, if I was going to revolutionize magical analysis I guess I might not need another job on top of that."

[alicornucopia]

"...wait, you can see magic, no one else can, and you work as a translator?"