how are you feeling?

[small_magics]

[It seems that perhaps we should speak,] Isibel says to Lycaelon. She wishes him a cup of tea, wherever he is, hovering in the air waiting for him to take it. [Though I confess I do not know where to begin.]

Comments

[small_magics]

"There are as many ways for magic to be known or hidden as there are worlds. For example, on Angela's world Samaria, only a handful of people know that magic of any kind exists at all. The world has none of its own, and she has not told more than a few family members and friends about the sort she has brought in from elsewhere. In Glass's world Chronicle - this is the only other world with elves or dragons - there is no particular secret about magic existing; the local sort is abundant and varied and Glass has no reason to be secretive about the exotic varieties. In Pattern's world Origin there is no native magic, but she has been using foreign kinds for more than a decade and a half. While most people do not know how it works or where it comes from, and she might not like to explain you if you asked to visit because people would think she had made you instead of realizing that you could have come from somewhere else, she performs useful workings openly. In Rêverie, enchanting - what I have mostly done, if you have heard much of how I spend my time - is the native sort of magic, but few people knew about it until my alt there, Rose, began using it on a grand scale; other kinds are not common knowledge, but nor are they secret, and so you would be puzzling but not alarming to a typical resident."

[pythbox]

"Elasirae will want to visit some of these worlds," Sherial predicts. "And learn all about their magics. He'd probably even change his shape for it."

[small_magics]

"I am not surprised."

[pythbox]

"I wonder if he'd decide to look like you, or like something else?" Sherial wonders, studying Lazarus. "Do alts of the same species always look the same?"

[nonbird]

"Looking like me would at least be a reasonable default," says Lazarus. "I'm not actually sure about alts - I know there's a little variance at least, but I don't know how much we've seen so far or how much we can expect in the future."

[small_magics]

"We can present this curiosity to Glass, when she arrives. But we do learn that things previously invariant are not so on a regular basis and she is not always equipped to provide advance notice without examples to look at. For instance, I expressly wished that the five dragons I conjured up be unrelated to each other and the existing dragons, yet in all other cases where Tonies and Sherlocks have existed in pairs, they are genetically identical."

[pythbox]

"That is interesting," says Sherial. "I wonder if Tianthonet got distracted. She does that sometimes. Not usually when it's important."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Should we brainphone her?" (Brainphoning is this thing -)

[pythbox]

"I'd better do it if anyone does," says Sherial, curling her tail around her forefeet. "Otherwise she might be needlessly alarmed."

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth adds the relevant parties to the brainphone network and makes it clear to Sherial that she has done so.

[pythbox]

Sherial gazes thoughtfully into the distance.

[small_magics]

Her visitors wait.

[pythbox]

She snorts.

"Tianthonet," she says, "has chosen this of all moments to find her first Bonded. Impeccable timing as always."

[small_magics]

"There are," says Isibel, "some non-dragon templates who I recently discovered, also."

[pythbox]

"...Go on," says Sherial.

[small_magics]

"The names would mean nothing to you as yet, but -" She takes a look at Tianthonet's new Bonded.

[pythbox]

Tianthonet's new Bonded is also the local Virginia alt.

[small_magics]

"Tianthonet's new bonded is an alt of a template of whom there are two others. They call themselves Virginias."

[pythbox]

"And do they normally associate with Tianthonets?" inquires Sherial.

[small_magics]

"One of them does. The other is primarily associated with a Libby, although the world does contain a Tony. There is also a Libby here, who is human, but we have been addressing the dragon alts first."

[pythbox]

"Tianthonet finding her Bonded just now, who just happens to be of a template previously associated with hers, is the kind of coincidence that usually isn't," says Sherial. "Who are all of the other unaddressed templates, and do they come with any existing associations to one of us like that?"

[nonbird]

"Well, there's apparently a Kolya," volunteers Lazarus. "They're attached to mes. And vice versa."

[small_magics]

"The Libbies have no obvious attachments to any particular other template, although Glass has said they are slightly attracted to your own template even if we haven't routinely seen the combination appear together. I... suppose we could expect Arianna to wind up attached to the elf of Sandy. There is no one obviously lying in wait for Sidanar."

[pythbox]

"'Sandy' is a template attached to Arianna's?" asks Sherial.

[small_magics]

"Yes, they've appeared together three times now and never separately."