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

[nonbird]

"I have large amounts of offworld magic," he reminds them. "May I?"

[alicornucopia]

"Go nuts," says the red one.

[nonbird]

Now they are all on the bottom of the world. It's very boring here.

Lazarus reaches for a sparkly red baby dragon.

[alicornucopia]

She peeps at him. Her sister squawks.

Her father turns into a human with a fierce, suspicious expression on his face, but doesn't interfere. His wife shifts, too, when he does.

[nonbird]

He is not paying much attention to either of them right now; all of it is going to the very-little-of-a-dragon.

All the right structure is there - she doesn't have any extra troubles like a shren would - she's just... drastically undersupplied. As far as he can tell, after studying her intently, that is her only problem. The same with the black opal boy - he doesn't have to pick him up to be sure, the cases are similar enough.

He tries filling in the missing magic in both of them, as a batch. The coin doesn't go. In which case... so many problems seem to result from there not being enough of this stuff to go around. He double-checks how the structure will handle it if he puts in extra.

The structure will handle it just fine.

He spends an eight on each, and wishes for the maximum amount of magic the coins can supply. The previously precarious dragon babies are now each carrying a comparable amount of magic to that extremely shiny green-group he saw earlier.

"There," he says, handing the red baby to her mother because she is closer and less intimidating. "All fixed."

[alicornucopia]

The red baby promptly sneezes a gout of fire onto her mother, who frowns, sets the baby down, and drops to roll over and put it out. Her husband looks alarmed, but doesn't seem inclined to blame Lazarus for that, until he looks at his other newly supplied son.

(The black opal boy has scrunched his eyes shut, curled up in a ball, and folded his ears down.)

"What did you do?" asks the father.

[nonbird]

"I gave them more magic!" says Lazarus. Quietly. "It's safe, I checked - I think they're just not used to it. I, um, gave them lots more magic. They're now - whatever the thing is when you are a lot of extra dragon, I don't think I know the term."

[alicornucopia]

"Uniques? Both of them?" murmurs the mother. "I - if we can't shift how are we going to take care of a unique red opal baby, they're sure to be taken as soon as she set something on fire and we can't -"

"Unless he was telling the truth about the other part too," says the father.

[nonbird]

"You know, the fact that shrenness is contagious seems to cause a lot of trouble," he says. "I'm going to see if I can fix that too."

A five won't do it, not that he expected it to. A six won't either. He doesn't have any sevens. He could go back to Ehail or someone and get one, but he'd be leaving these people stranded on the bottom of the world, however temporarily, and that is very different from walking off with someone's communications crystal.

So he just uses an eight.

It works fine.

"There," he says. "Now it isn't. I suppose you don't have a better reason to believe me about that than about turning you into dragons, though. How far away would you have to be before it wouldn't stick - wouldn't catch, I mean? I can take you twice that far that way," he waves in an arbitrary direction, "very quickly, and come back and watch your babies while you fly back."

[alicornucopia]

"I don't remember exactly," murmurs the mother. "At least - well, anyway, a quarter mile will be safe and I'll still be able to see them from that far away."

[nonbird]

"Okay."

Lazarus and the miracles are now a quarter mile thataway.

[alicornucopia]

Nervously, the mother shifts, first, and peers at the children (the newly uniqued red one is now playing with fire on purpose). Scales clatter off her. She -

Flies.

Her husband's jaw drops.

[nonbird]

Lazarus beams.

[alicornucopia]

He follows her, and they both fly towards their children and land beside them. He picks up the red opal girl. She breathes fire on him and he does not care. The mother flops down among the babies and lets them climb on her.

(They are both noticeably smaller than Ehail was when Lazarus saw her, and dropped considerably fewer scales.)

[nonbird]

Lazarus teleports back to the general location of the children as soon as their parents land, although he keeps somewhat more distance than he did when they were duck- or human-sized.

"I don't want to leave you on the bottom of the world indefinitely but I'm not sure where to take you back to," he says. "Any suggestions?"

[alicornucopia]

"Uuuum," muses the red one.

"I suppose we can try to get jobs again," murmurs the black one. "Without anyone trying to take our children... Eret? Daasen temporary housing until we find something?"

He nods. "Can we have an angle or two for this one to stop sneezing?"

[nonbird]

"Okay," he says. "I'll go away and come back. Hmm—" A five, he discovers, will produce a linked pair of those speaking crystals. He offers one to the nearest miracle. "So you can call me in case I get distracted and forget the time, which has been known to happen."

[alicornucopia]

"How far are we from the edge, if you don't show up when called?" asks Eret.

[nonbird]

"Exactly as far as you were before; I just took us through the planet. I can move you closer to the edge before I go, if you want."

[alicornucopia]

"Sure."

"Thank you," adds the mother.

[nonbird]

"You're welcome!"

He takes them to halfway between their current location and the nearest edge of the world, then teleports back to the pond and goes looking for Kaylo.

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo is in the beige institution!

There is a back entrance to the beige institution near the pond. It leads to a small box. The small box is magical.

[nonbird]

The small box is magical. It is very helpfully magical! Lazarus inspects its magicalness for a minute, and then tells it to take him to the library, reasoning that even if the library does not contain Kaylo it is bound to contain interesting and potentially useful things.

[alicornucopia]

As it happens, the library contains Kaylo! He's at a desk with a stack of books and some notepaper.

[nonbird]

"Hello!" says Lazarus. "Are you terribly busy? I have arcane questions about dragon magic. Actually - I forgot to ask the miracles - is it a common thing for small baby dragons to mysteriously die? Because if that is the case then I know how to tell which ones it's going to happen to and then fix it, and I need to know who to talk to so I can save any who are in danger from that right this second. Oh, and also what do dragons with lots of extra magic do, exactly? Those are the important things, my other arcane questions are much less time-sensitive."