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

[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?"

[aestrix]

All of them! says Yvae. Magic is fun and I like it and want to have lots!

What's a god? Pyranir asks, tilting his head.

[pythbox]

"A god is... something like the Wild Magic," says Elasirae, tilting his head and sounding vaguely apologetic about the obvious inadequacy of this explanation. "I'm not sure how to define them. But the Wild Magic in particular is... well, it's sort of like all the magic in the world is collectively a person, and it's very big and knows almost everything and wants to make the world better but it can't do very much except pass messages through unicorns and set Mageprice for Wildmages. My friend Sherial's Bondmate Lissa explains that part much better than I can."

[aestrix]

That must be annoying, says Pyranir. It can only pass messages and - what's a Mageprice?

Do mages have to pay hoards to do magic? That's almost as bad as not having any! says Yvae.

Their parents are perfectly happy to let little dragons play twenty questions. They seem to think it's adorable.

[pythbox]

"Mageprice is part of doing one of those kinds of magic," he explains. "When a Wildmage does a spell, the Wild Magic sets a mageprice, and if they want the spell to happen they have to agree to whatever it is. For small spells it's small things, and for bigger spells it's bigger things. But it's usually not paying things like money or treasure; you could think of it as... doing the Wild Magic a favour in exchange for the spell. And whatever the favour is, it's always either something that helps the spell come about by you doing it, or something that helps make the world a little better even if it's not in an important or obvious way, or both."

[aestrix]

Ooooo, says Pyranir. That's not so bad, then. I think I like the Wild Magic, if it does nice things like that! Why would the 'Endarkened' all die, then? Wouldn't the Wild Magic send people to help them? Or what about the dragons?

[pythbox]

"The Endarkened were mostly evil," Elasirae explains. "They're what everyone else was saving the world from, all the times the world was saved before they were almost all killed. Aianon wasn't evil like the rest of them, so he ran away to a remote island long before that and he and his Bondmate Ansharil, who is a dragon he met on the way, lived there alone together for thousands of years."

[aestrix]

Ooooh, says Pyranir, solemnly. That's sad. Do you know if there are any other not-evil Endarkened? Maybe they were like us and had an urge to hoard! Or something.

[pythbox]

"The thing the Endarkened seemed to have an urge to do was hurt people in terrible ways," says Elasirae. "Aianon is the only one who wanted not to hurt people in terrible ways, at least the only one I know about. And I don't think there are any more that are still alive, or we probably would have found them by now. I'm sure someone looked."