something she can use

[alicornucopia]

Ehail blinks, when she finds the bar instead of her room.

She goes in.

She looks out the window, at the exploding things.

"I don't think this is my planet," she observes to herself, tucking silver hair behind her ear.

~~~

with Elysse

with Lazarus

Comments

[prima_sequentem]

"Good to meet you."

She finds herself a seat, within a comfortable conversational distance.

"Has Lazarus said anything to you about exactly how I might try to fix your problem?"

[alicornucopia]

"He said he was going to get in touch with people who have wishing magic."

[prima_sequentem]

"But he didn't say anything about how the wishing magic works, specifically? How wishes are made?"

[nonbird]

"I don't actually know," says Lazarus. "I know they come in coins and I know the coins come from people who make coins but I don't know how you produce them."

[prima_sequentem]

"Coins are made out of pain," says Libby. "Which is why it might be relevant how much it hurts to be most of a dragon. Normally, coins being made out of pain is a significant limiting factor, because there aren't many people willing to make them who I'm willing to trust with the ability, and the ones who fit both those criteria aren't willing to make very many. But from what you've said, if I gave you the ability to make coins, you'd have a much easier time of it coming up with enough of them to complete a lot of dragons."

[alicornucopia]

"Oh. Yes. I mean, as long as it's not something about the pain that we don't have any more, like - paying attention to it or caring. Then it wouldn't work."

[prima_sequentem]

"I don't expect it to turn out that way. But maybe Lazarus has better information."

[nonbird]

"I still haven't seen anyone make a coin," Lazarus points out. "But I'd guess the same way you'd guess. For however much that's worth."

[prima_sequentem]

"It's worth something. So - Ehail. Do you want to try making coins?"

[alicornucopia]

"I will if it will help," says Ehail.

[prima_sequentem]

"I will be a lot happier about trying to solve your problem if I'm spending coins you create without much trouble instead of taking them out of my limited and limitedly renewable supply. But once I give you the ability to make coins, I can't take it away again," she says. "So if I do, I'd like you to think very carefully about how else you use it. Wishes can do a lot of things, and it's important to use them responsibly. Does that seem reasonable?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yes, I suppose so. I'm a wizard," Ehail adds. "I'm not a very good wizard, but when I'm at home I can cast spells that can also do a lot of things. Except not this thing. I haven't gotten anywhere trying."

[prima_sequentem]

"Maybe wishes can do something wizards can't. All right," she says. "Coins come in five varieties that I know of. I have them named for the number of points in their shape; the higher the number, the more powerful the coin. Four of them are simple - threes, fours, fives, and sixes."

On each word, a dark purple coin appears in her hand, and she sets them out in a row on Lazarus's coffee table - triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, each with a hole through the centre.

"Sevens are different." She shows Ehail a dark purple seven-pointed star, but vanishes it again without putting it down. "The other kinds of coin are safe to use as far as I can tell, but without special preparation, wishing on a seven can have disastrous consequences. I've heard of things like someone losing the left half of their body, or exploding with enough force to destroy the house they were standing in at the time. I know how to safely use a seven, but because they're the most powerful kind of coin, I try to make sure that as few other people as possible find out."

[alicornucopia]

"That makes sense," says Ehail.

[prima_sequentem]

Libby smiles slightly. "I like to think so. All right. I think the most sensible order of operations here would be to design a wish, see if small change" (she gestures to the row of coins on the table) "will do the trick, and if not, I'll make you a mint - someone who can create wishcoins - and see if you can produce them easily enough to be happier about forking over a seven than my next best source."

[alicornucopia]

"I don't - think I'll be able to tell, if it works, without trying to fly," says Ehail. "If you even want to test it on me instead of someone else. I guess we would have to wait for the door to that place to come back to get anyone else though."

[nonbird]

"I will be able to tell," says Lazarus. "It will be extremely obvious."

[alicornucopia]

"Oh. All right then," says Ehail.

[prima_sequentem]

"In that case... what exactly needs to happen, to complete a dragon? Lazarus?"

[nonbird]

"Well... there's a kind of magic that dragons and most-of-dragons have," he says, "and it comes in amounts. If you have a dragon amount you are a dragon, and if you have a little tiny bit less than that you are most of a dragon, and if you have even less you are dead. And apparently there are dragons with more than the regular dragon amount, but I haven't met any of those. There's also some complicated stuff going on with Ehail's magic besides it being a most-of-a-dragon amount, and I think those are most-of-a-dragon things - it's sort of - continually slurping up something that is definitely not the right kind of magic from something that isn't here, to cover the gap between the amount it has and the dragon amount, and the doing-thatness of it is sticky. You said you're contagious, right?" he asks Ehail. "I think I might understand how. So my guess is that in order to properly make her the rest of a dragon, you'd have to fill in the gap with the exact right kind of magic, and stop the slurping, and ideally also ward against the possibility of someone else's slurping getting stuck on later because it definitely looks like that is how the contagiousness works."

[alicornucopia]

Ehail nods when he mentions contagiousness.

[prima_sequentem]

"I see," says Libby. "All right. I think that's enough to be going on with."

She touches each coin on the table in turn, briefly. Three, four, five, six.

"No dice. Somehow I expected that," she remarks, scooping up the row of coins and returning all but the six to whatever mysterious form of storage she took them out of in the first place. "All right. Still want to try minting, Ehail?"

[alicornucopia]

"If it will help," repeats Ehail.

One might almost develop the impression that she's not in the habit of forming wants for other reasons.

[prima_sequentem]

One might indeed develop that impression.

The six-pointed coin vanishes out of Libby's hand.

[nonbird]

Lazarus blinks.