what are you doing here?

[small_magics]

Isibel has never seen an odder collection of fauna. She has not traveled extensively, but she is sure that creatures of this size - lizards as heavy as ten elves together, beavers eight and nine feet long, turtles with shells the size of small houses - are not customary. Yet the island is riddled with them.

The creatures have no particular fear of elves, but nor do they seek them, and none of her party have been attacked; she feels safe enough traveling through the forest on her own, stepping lightly, looking for the sweep of the treeline and any springs that might be useful for settlers if elves settle here. Besides, she is a student of the small magics, some of which may be cast quite rapidly if there is need; she could frighten away an animal that took too much interest in her. The ribbons tied around each of her knees and ankles (blending seamlessly with the rest of her travel outfit) are some of her finest small magic, guiding her steps so that she may place her feet as elves ought to be able to and bring no embarrassment to her House. They don't make her truly graceful, but she can walk, and care will do the rest.

She's deep into the forested part of the Unknown Island when she starts finding statues. Old statues. The trees have grown up around them, it looks like, they've been here that long; they're worn and weathered and have lichen growing on them.

And they're all of unicorns.

The oldest sculptures are none too skillful, but as she proceeds inward towards the center of the island, they become newer and better and it's plain to see that they're not of unicorns, but a unicorn. A unicorn with a broken horn; this is not, it soon becomes apparent, random damage to early statues. Someone has carved a specific unicorn, dozens - hundreds? thousands? - of times. And the art has been made with such intense love, and the newest of the statues are so delicately done that they look almost like real unicorns, with all the magic that implies, though they hold still and are on closer inspection all still carved from stone.

Someone loved this unicorn, and lived on this island, and made a thousand statues of her, and now the place is inhabited only by giant animals that certainly could have done no such thing. Isibel wonders what happened to the sculptor. To the unicorn, too.

On she walks.

Comments

[small_magics]

"Earlier, you were talking to Magaria in your language, and I don't know your language, so she talked to me in my language," Isibel says.

[endragoned]

"Talking," he repeats, nodding. "Talking, I, Magaria, my language. Talking, you, Magaria, your language."

Well, he certainly seems to be grasping the new vocabulary, even if his grammar could use some work.

[small_magics]

"Magaria knows both languages," Isisbel says. "I know only one language." Oh dear, has she neglected numbers? She draws dots, teaches him to count to twenty. "Magaria knows -" Well, Magaria could easily know more than two languages, but for simplicity - "two languages. I know one language."

[endragoned]

"Magaria knows two languages," he repeats. And grins again, and says, "I know one language."

[small_magics]

"Later, you will know two languages," says Isibel. She doesn't know how to actually go about teaching tenses and time words except by example - even using things like sunrise and sunset have the problem of being cyclic. "Because we are talking."

[endragoned]

"I will know two languages," he repeats carefully. "We are talking two languages."

[small_magics]

"I am talking one language. I don't know your language," Isibel replies. "You will know my language and then you will know two languages. Then we can talk more easily." She's not sure how to illustrate easy; eventually she decides on "If twenty elves are on a dragon, it is hard for the dragon to fly. If one elf is on a dragon it is easy for the dragon to fly. It is easy for you to talk your language. It is hard for you to talk my language, but later, it will be easy."

[endragoned]

He laughs.

"It is hard for you to fly," he says. "It is easy for me to fly."

[small_magics]

"I cannot fly," corrects Isibel. "Because I do not have wings, I cannot fly. Only things with wings can fly."

[endragoned]

"I can fly," he says. "You can—" he picks up a rock from the ground next to him and drops it.

[small_magics]

Isibel laughs. "I can fall," she agrees. "If I go up," ("going up" has been explained in terms of sunrise and sunset already) "then I will go down. I'll fall."

[endragoned]

He nods. "I can fly. You can fall."

[small_magics]

And so the lesson continues, until the sun is near the horizon.

"The sun is setting. I will go back to the other elves. Tomorrow I will come here again and we will talk more," she tells him, closing the book.

[endragoned]

"Tomorrow," he repeats thoughtfully, and nods, and smiles.

[small_magics]

"Tomorrow, after the sun rises," Isibel says. And she gets up and waves and walks back towards camp.

[pythbox]

Magania is waiting for her on the way.

[small_magics]

"I See you, Magania," says Isibel, when this sentence becomes true.

[pythbox]

"I See you, Isibel," says Magania. "It would please me to hear all that you may wish to tell of your time spent with Tialle's friend, before we must return to camp."

[small_magics]

"We spoke of speaking," Isibel says. "He can count to twenty, and name dragons and unicorns and elves, boats and islands and the lights of the sky, and make intelligible sentences of them."

[pythbox]

"When I spoke with him, some words passed between us that I did not translate," says Magania.

[small_magics]

"I am not surprised," says Isibel. "He did not tell me what they were; perhaps we have not ventured into the necessary vocabulary."

[pythbox]

"You may become surprised if he tries to mime them," Magania says dryly.

[small_magics]

"While a life without surprises would be dull, I believe I could happily pass my days without that one, were I warned in advance," says Isibel, equally dry.

[pythbox]

"He chose to express his gratitude for your company by offering you the use of his body," Magania explains. "In some detail, which I am not prepared to repeat even had I understood it all."

[small_magics]

Isibel makes an eloquent face. "Ah."