well-behaved doors

[campanas]

Pen' was just going to go practice singing. (She likes singing. The words are all lined up for her already and she doesn't get them wrong.) But this doesn't look like the practice room. So it's probably the magic restaurant.

Pen knows about the magic restaurant! You can go in it, and get food or things to drink (she has bracelets!) and then you just go back out the door and it's been no time at all and you're right where you went in.

She goes in. She is going to have cake.

Comments

[beheld_beauty]

"Sarion is the Bell for his world, not me, and I do not expect she would think very highly of you barging in for the express purpose of giving someone a thing he does not appear to want."

[pythbox]

"...It's not that I don't want one exactly..." he says. "I mean, I wouldn't mind. I don't object. But I wouldn't know where to put it, and I don't know what the elves would think if it were in the Elven Lands but I'm not sure where else, and I don't need one, so I wouldn't want to put these nice people to the trouble."

[aestrix]

It's okay! says Yvae. We got fixed, so our hoard's not too big of a deal! And mommy and daddy can do lots of magic!

Brightly, Procellor adds, And since you seem to want one, even if you're being wonderfully polite - we don't mind. It's no trouble, I've wanted to explore a new world, anyway.

His mate nods along, to this. It would be no trouble, truly. I don't think we could make you a large lair, but a more modest one would suffice.

[pythbox]

"It really is completely unnecessary," says Elasirae. "But, well... your lair is very pretty. Much, much too big for me, even if I grow up to be the largest dragon in the world, but very pretty."

[aestrix]

Thank you, says the mate whose name is still unknown to everyone present that's not part of her immediate family. We do, however think it is necessary. What happens if you meet a lovely dragon in a thousand years?

Where will you take them? How will they know your power and strength if you don't have a lair and a hoard? Procellor adds. It wouldn't be anything really extravagant, we'd leave the rest up to you, but you need at least something.

Yvae gives Elasirae the sadface of doom. Do you not want a lair? she asks, in her very best sadvoice.

[beheld_beauty]

"You do realize that if you give Elasirae a hoard, he will be the only dragon in Thilanushinyel with a hoard," says Rose. "It really doesn't work the same way there."

[pythbox]

"I will. It doesn't," Elasirae corroborates.

[aestrix]

There's another moment of stunned silence from all dragons (Aside from Elasirae) present. Then Yvae says in a shrill voice, None of you have homes or hoards? Or magic?

Procellor looks solemn. If you don't want a lair and a starting hoard, we'll understand, but it - are you sure it's normal that you don't have either? Not having a hoard could be responsible for not having magic. Do you want us to give you some of ours anyway?

[pythbox]

He shakes his head. "We have homes, but we don't pile up shiny things in them. I don't really want a hoard. It would be very nice of you and I appreciate the thought, but I don't need it at all."

[aestrix]

What about a lair? Procellor asks. I mean... I suppose if you never had the hoarding compulsion maybe you'd never get hoards of treasure, but... At least a home?

Yeah! agrees Yvae. Where people can't bother you unless you show them where it is!

[pythbox]

"Er... I have a home... but it's in the same place as the homes of all the other twenty-six dragons in Thilanushinyel. We just sleep in different caves."

[aestrix]

Dragons present look rather sad. That seems awfully cramped. If that's what you want to do, we won't force you otherwise, but... Are you sure you don't need more space? asks Procellor's mate.

And maybe just a little tiny hoard? squeaks Yvae. In case you change your mind and want one after seeing mommy and daddy's?

[pythbox]

"I don't need more space," he says. "I think your home is lovely, but even though I could probably find a way to have someone else magic me a lovely place to live like this when I go home for hardly any effort at all, I probably won't."

[beheld_beauty]

"I'm starting to wonder if I made a mistake in excising your hoarding problems," comments Rose idly. "I'm not sure it took."

[aestrix]

Procellor tilts his head, then explains, I'd say no, but it's... Habit, now? Even if I don't have the seething urge to expand my hoard, it feels strange to hear about dragons that just don't have one. I mean my hoard helped win my mate over when I was courting her. It's... Not having it seems like it just wouldn't work? For dragons, anyway.

Meanwhile, the babies make a little synchronized sad sound. Oooookay says Pyranir. If you say so.

Dragons from other worlds are weird, says Yvae, to her brother.

[beheld_beauty]

"It might make sense to imagine the dragons from other worlds as being another species entirely."

[pythbox]

"In most reasonable senses, we are," says Elasirae. "As far as I know."

[aestrix]

But you look like a dragon! says Pyranir. You have wings and scales and you're not as big as mommy or daddy but I'm not as big as they are either, but I'm still a dragon!

[pythbox]

"In Thilanushinyel elves and humans are different species and they're all the same kinds of shapes as each other except for their ears," says Elasirae.

[aestrix]

Whaaat? says Pyranir, incredulously. But that's so similar! Are you sure they're not the same species?

[pythbox]

"They live in different places and act differently and they can do different kinds of magic when they do magic, and I've only ever heard of one elf and one human who ever managed to have children together, and they only did that after the human one died and was reincarnated as an elf and grew up and married her elf boyfriend."

[aestrix]

Reincarnation is common, in your world? asks the apparently nameless mate.

Ooo! Did she 'torch'? asks Yvae, excitedly. Do humans become elves when they die?

[pythbox]

"It isn't common at all. This was a very special case. She didn't torch - torching wasn't even a thing in our world when it happened - and no other human has ever become an elf when they died, that I know of. But she was very special and she sacrificed her life to save the world, so she got to have a second life as an elf so she could be with the elf she loved."

[aestrix]

Oooooh, says Pyranir.

Are you sure that isn't a made-up story? Yvae asks, skeptically. I've never heard of magic doing that!

Not all magic works like ours, little one, her father informs her. We hardly know what their world's magic is capable of. If you'd told me a day ago I wouldn't want to hoard anymore, and that I'd be immune to death... I wouldn't have believed it possible.

Oooooooooh... says Yvae, thinking. So what does magic do in your world? Do other people get reincarnated?

[pythbox]

"I think the reincarnation was a thing that just happened once," he says. "There are a bunch of different kinds of magic in my world that different species can do. Humans can be Wildmages or High Mages, elves can be Elven Mages, unicorns have special unicorn magic, the Endarkened had their own magic but now they're all dead except Aianon and he's different, and the Wild Magic is sort of like a god that oversees it all, but it interacts most with Wildmages and unicorns. Which kinds do you want to know more about?"