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

[alicornucopia]

There are a lot of people outside. Some of them are shaped like humans and some of them are shaped like animals but most of them are shaped like dragons and most of those are in the air.

[prima_sequentem]

Does any of them look like Ehail, is the question. Or look like they can spare the attention to tell her where Ehail might be found.

[alicornucopia]

Nope, Ehail is not out here.

[prima_sequentem]

Well then. She goes inside.

[alicornucopia]

The hall has flying babies in it, and in a room to her right that looks like it might recently have housed all those babies all of the time, there is a dark-haired man lying on the couch with his eyes scrunched shut and his forearms over his ears, taking deep, deliberate breaths.

[prima_sequentem]

She pauses and watches him for a few seconds, evaluating whether or not this is something she can help with.

[alicornucopia]

He does not seem to notice that she is there.

[prima_sequentem]

She didn't really expect him to. And she doesn't really know enough about the situation to be helpful.

Onward she goes.

[alicornucopia]

There are a lot of excited dragons who are paying approximately no attention to her, running here and there.

If she looks long enough she'll eventually find Ehail in her little office, sweeping papers into stacks.

[prima_sequentem]

"Hello," says Libby. "It looks like everything went well."

[alicornucopia]

"Yes," says Ehail. "Ludei's in a bit of a panic trying to rearrange the last of the house funds before donations and parental grants dry up to get places in boarding schools, for the kids, if their parents still don't come and they don't want to go off with their favorite adults."

[prima_sequentem]

"I'd help, if this were my world, but I don't have those kinds of connections here. If you decide to try making money with wishcoin magic and want some help with that, though, I'd be happy to consult."

[alicornucopia]

"I don't know what I want to do yet," says Ehail. "I suppose it's lucky that a miracle is a dragon and not something else... in the worst case any of us can turn into a bird or something and get by for a bit while looking for other options."

[prima_sequentem]

"That does sound handy. In case it comes up, I should also mention that any adult miracle who doesn't know what they want to do yet is welcome to talk to me about moving to my world to mint for me if that seems like an appealing option. Or, for that matter, moving to my world to take some miscellaneous other job. I have a lot of connections at home and can probably come up with something to fit just about anybody's interests. What do you know about local interworld transport magic, by the way?"

[alicornucopia]

"There are a lot of adult miracles. You might spend a lot of time doing job interviews if that gets generally known... I could probably find at least one or two basic summoning and sending spells within my capacity. But I can't send you directly home because this isn't your native world, so the sending won't work. And I can't unsummon you because I didn't summon you."

[prima_sequentem]

"Good to know. I don't think I'll mind spending a lot of time doing job interviews," she says. "I enjoy that sort of thing. So your interworld transport magic is - temporary? Conditional? In the sense that someone who is sent stays sent for some amount of time and comes back when they stop being sent, and the reverse for summoning? In that case Milliways is probably a better choice for permanent migration, but the local version might still win for commuting."

[alicornucopia]

"Yes, that's how it works," says Ehail. "Oh, and - the same caster can't have the same spell active more than once at the same time. So you need one summoner per summonee."

[prima_sequentem]

"That seems potentially troublesome. Well, maybe the practical problems can be worked out."

[alicornucopia]

Ehail nods. "The spells aren't very hard. They're diagrammed, and the caster doesn't have to do their own diagram, and the diagrams can be reused to a point."

[prima_sequentem]

"I see. I'm going to have to entice Lazarus to learn all about local magic for me. I suspect it won't take very much enticement," she says.

[nonbird]

With impeccable timing, Lazarus pokes his head in the door.

"Oh, hello, Libby. Hello, Ehail. I found all the baby home shrens the dragon council knows about and miracled them," he says.

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, good," says Ehail.

[prima_sequentem]

"If anyone's going to go looking for miscellaneous shrens the dragon council doesn't know about, you're the obvious choice," she says. "Ehail, what do you think - are they likely to prefer finding out later from the news, or finding out today from a door-to-door miracle distributor?"

[alicornucopia]

"It might depend on how hidden they are and why. The houses have current addresses for most..."

[prima_sequentem]

"On the one hand, the least hidden ones are probably the likeliest to welcome door-to-door miracles; on the other hand, the most hidden ones are the ones most worth sending Lazarus after, and least likely to hear about it any other way. We have time to think it over, I guess."