why me?

[small_magics]

Isibel spends her last day on the island flying, and then she rejoins her expedition, and packs, and sleeps, and in the dawnlight she gets back on the boat to sail back to the Elven Lands.

She is kept quite occupied with small magics to keep the ship operating smoothly, and also with notebooking - writing quite small, as she brought more than enough notebooks for three weeks but then unexpectedly used many of them to draw and write with the demon and has only half of one left for several days at sea.

They land on the shore of the Elven Lands on schedule, and disembark.

Comments

[small_magics]

"I See you," murmurs Isibel.

[pythbox]

"And I you," says the scarlet dragon. "Now what?"

[small_magics]

Isibel barely even flinches. There's a world of difference between someone being verbally inquisitive and someone actually prying into her brain. "Now I go find my teacher again and learn Elfmagery," she says, "I suppose."

[pythbox]

"Have fun," Saravasse says dryly.

[small_magics]

Isibel shakes her head. She heads for the elven settlement and looks for her teacher.

Her teacher takes her back in. Her same guest house is available.

While the demon sleeps, she can write. She can write all the shuddering confused violated adoration into a book and shut it away and sometimes she can listen to her teacher describing the synaesthetic spell-impressions even without hyperfocus. She learns to do everything, because she has no idea what she will have to do.

She's out in the forest on the second day, trying to make a berry bush yield fruits more to her taste and a different color and in a different season. It's difficult. Her demon-beloved is better at this; she's not sure if it's practice or a better match to his magic type or both. At any rate, her teacher will move on to the next spell when Isibel returns with an altered berry branch.

[pythbox]

With a unicorn's characteristic grace, Liselen bounds into view and stops next to the bush.

"Hi!" he says. "Are—I mean, it would be good to know that you're all right."

[small_magics]

"I don't much care if you ask me questions, now," Isibel says. "I'm all right while my beloveds sleep."

[pythbox]

"Oh," says Liselen. "That's good, I guess. Um so anyway, the Wild Magic has a message for you, again! It says your magic and your Bonded's magic have to work together to stop whoever it is from calling up the Dark again. Which doesn't make much sense," he adds, "because isn't that the whole point of dragons already? I mean, here you are, doing magic, because of your Bonded."

[small_magics]

"I have a co-Bondmate," explains Isibel. "If it were more specific, that would be more helpful."

[pythbox]

Unicorns cannot exactly shrug, but Liselen tosses his head in a similar attitude.

"I'm not sure," he says. "I don't think I understand the message as well this time. I got the part about working together, but then there's a—like a blue flower made of light, but it smells like blood?" He shivers. "And some more stuff I don't understand at all."

[small_magics]

"Elfspells are not always easy to describe without words designed for them. I may be able to receive instructions from my teacher about one that could be described as a blue light-flower that smells like blood," Isibel says. "I would hear of the other part of the message. If it was sent, it may be important to me, even if you don't understand."

[pythbox]

"Um, okay," says Liselen. "But it was very unicorn, I don't think it'll make sense to you either. Unless you know what touching a clear well with your horn feels like. And I don't think you do."

[small_magics]

"I don't," admits Isibel. "It is very puzzling indeed that something so specific to unicorns would be included in a message intended for me and my Bondmates."

[pythbox]

"Yes, well, the message is getting sent by unicorn," says Liselen. "There's probably something I'm missing. I was probably supposed to interpret that part to mean something, like I did with the rest. Maybe it means everything will be fine after you and your co-Bonded do what you're supposed to," he says doubtfully. "But that sounds really redundant too, and I don't think the Wild Magic usually sends redundant messages. Especially not by unicorn."

[small_magics]

"Perhaps I could help you translate if I knew more about what it feels like to touch a clear well with one's horn," Isibel says. "Though I do not know to what extent it would admit description."

[pythbox]

"It feels like... it feels right," he says. "Good. Purifying water feels good too, but differently. When the water's already pure, it's like... I don't know." He swishes his tail. "It's just nice. Are those berries any good, can I have one?"

[small_magics]

"Perhaps the pure water represents something," suggests Isibel. "I have not finished the berries to my satisfaction, but they will not harm you if you would like a taste now."

[pythbox]

Liselen nibbles up a berry.

"Tasty!" he declares. "Maybe you're right. But I don't know what it represents."

[small_magics]

"Something that is - already pure, I suppose, or that might be expected to become impure but will not," Isibel speculates. "I am not familiar with whether it is likely to be a person, or a place, or an object..."

[pythbox]

"I don't really know," says Liselen. "The idea is, by the time I really need to know it, I'm supposed to have figured it out somehow."

[small_magics]

Isibel thinks. She tastes one of her berries, then tries her spell again.

Then she says, "My Bonded's other Bondmate is a benign demon. Perhaps it has to do with him."

[pythbox]

Liselen prances sideways in surprise.

Then he says, "Wait, he's Tialle's Demon?!"

[small_magics]

"Yes. Unless she had associations with more than one of them."

[pythbox]

"There wasn't more than one of them that she liked," he says. "Oh, everything makes so much more sense now."

[small_magics]

"The new sense that your message makes would be good hearing."