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]

She goes next through some adjectives and some sensing verbs (when you talk, I hear with my ears; when the sun is up it is easy to see because the sun gives off much light and when the sun is down it is hard to see because the moon and stars give off little light; with no light I could not see; we use our eyes to see; etc.)

[endragoned]

"With no light you could not see," the demon echoes, regarding her thoughtfully. "With no light, I can see."

[small_magics]

"You can see in the dark," Isibel says. "Elves cannot see in the dark."

[endragoned]

"Demons can see in the dark," says the demon.

[small_magics]

"When the sun comes up, it gets lighter, and when the sun goes down, it gets darker, and when the moon shrinks, it is darker still, and underground away from stars it is completely dark."

And then, after a moment, "Demons are also sometimes called Endarkened."

[endragoned]

"Endarkened," he echoes, nodding, and says a word in his own language.

[small_magics]

Isibel shrugs; she doesn't know what the word means unless it's his own word for his species. She's covered the word 'want' now, right? "If there is something you want to learn to talk about, I will listen," she volunteers.

[endragoned]

He shrugs, too, flicking the tip of his tail against the side of the bench.

[small_magics]

All right then, she's stuck with whatever curriculum she can devise. Let's see. What would she need to tell him the story of her life? Well, "life", for one thing. She thinks, then goes back to the poisons. "If I eat a berry I cannot eat anyway, I will get sick. If I get sicker, I might die. If I don't eat anything, I will die. If I eat things I can eat I will live. I am alive right now. You are also alive."

[endragoned]

"I am alive," he agrees. "You are alive. I want you are alive."

[small_magics]

"You want me to be alive," she corrects with a small smile. "I want me to be alive, too!"

[endragoned]

"I want you to be alive," he says, grinning. "I want you to eat things you can eat."

[small_magics]

She laughs. "To be alive I need to eat food that is food elves can eat, and I need to drink water -" She mimes, both drinking from a cup and then from cupped hands in case he is not familiar with dishes - "and I need to sleep, and not fall, and I need other things not to eat me."

[endragoned]

The demon giggles.

"Demons eat elves," he says. "I won't eat you."

[small_magics]

Isibel pauses, then slowly says, "If you won't eat me, then demons don't eat elves. There is only one demon."

[endragoned]

"...Only one demon," he repeats, staring a little.

[small_magics]

She nods. "The other demons died." She sketches a square of dots, ten to a side, one hundred in total. "Ten times ten is one hundred. Four hundred sunrises is one year. One hundred times one hundred is ten thousand. Magania said you have been on this island for ten thousand years. Two thousand years ago, the other demons died."

[endragoned]

"Two thousand years," the demon murmurs. "Two thousand years ago the other demons died. Demons don't die easy."

[small_magics]

Isibel nods. "There was -" How does she mime or draw war? Well, that's not the ultimate explanation anyway. "There was a Wildmage, who died so that the demons would die easier, and then they all did. Her name was Idalia."

[endragoned]

"Idalia," the demon repeats, and nods firmly.

[small_magics]

"Idalia Wildmage was a human but then she died and then she was an elf," Isibel adds. "A small -" she gestures - "elf had Idalia in her. Then she lived a thousand years."

[endragoned]

"Elves live a thousand years."

[small_magics]

Isibel nods. "I have lived twenty and one years," she says, "twenty-one years. I am twenty-one years old."

[endragoned]

"I have lived... eleven thousand years," says the demon, shrugging and waving his hands a little to indicate that this is an inexact figure. "I am eleven thousand years old."

[small_magics]

Isibel draws a new map - the old one was sketchy - and puts in rivers and so on, and she marks the location of Silverbranch. "I live there," she says, pointing it out. "I have lived there for twenty-one years. I was born there."