“Who’s that?” Twig peered over Windmane’s shoulder as the strange human walked out of the darkness. Her clothes were flowy and pale green, her hair was flowy and pale yellow, and there was no way she had been there when they’d arrived.
“I’m a friend,” she said. “Or an enemy of an enemy, which amounts to the same thing.”
Beak stepped in front of the group, arms bent like she was flaring feathers she didn’t have. “Explain why we should trust you.”
The woman held her position a few lengths away. “I’d be happy to give you details in private. There are certainly listening spells at work here, and it wouldn’t do to give our common enemies more information than they already have.”
Twig tried to figure it out. “Did they steal your shape too?”
Beak hissed at him to be quiet. Windmane moved to cover his mouth, but he ducked her hands. Why did everyone keep doing that?
“No,” said the human. “But they have committed other offenses. Come walk with me. I’ll say more once we’re past the property line.” She waved for them to follow, and strolled toward the distant road. The trees on either side of the mage-lit path were very dark.
Beak, Windmane, and Stomp all took a moment to stare at each other before moving after her. Twig wondered if he should get off Windmane’s flying carpet, but she hadn’t suggested it, and he wanted to focus on the magic anyway.
Magic. Oh, how he’d missed it. But it was wrong, not responding to his thoughts the way it should. Clearly he needed to practice.
The blue lines that glowed through his sleeves when he tried to fly would take some getting used to, but at least it was some sort of glowing. Twig decided to look on the bright side. He lifted off carefully, awkwardly, overjoyed and frustrated in equal measures as his feet went skyward before the rest of him.
“Nope!” Windmane said, grabbing his wrist. “Don’t you dare! No getting lost in the sky! You can wait to mess with that until we’re somewhere safe!”
Twig pouted but didn’t argue. He collapsed back onto the carpet in a pile of limbs that nearly unbalanced it for a moment. Stomp put her hands out to catch him. It was fine. Everything was fine.
He sat upright in a huff, and waited for the carpet to make its snail-winged way to wherever they were going.
After a few seconds he realized he could sort of … fondle the magic without actually flying, get a feel for it. Gnaw on the shape of it like a child fresh from the cocoon. He had faint memories from when he was just learning to hover, and this felt similar. His arms still glowed, but Windmane didn’t notice, and Stomp only gave him a stern look. Twig smiled innocently and gazed into the distance, slowly flapping his hands.
It didn’t take that long to get to the road after all.
Metal gates swung open to let them out, then clanged shut in a way that seemed judgmental. Twig was looking for eyes when the human introduced herself.
“I’m Lanya Ticatite,” she said. “Trusted associate in the commoner faction, doing my part to help defeat those nobles in competition for the crown.” She pointed sharply toward the estate they’d just left. “I was keeping an eye on one of them, and now I’ve used my only teleportation-chasing charm to follow you lot. I suspect that wasn’t wasted. Who are you?”
When none of the others spoke first, Twig said, “We’re the ones they turned human. Can you help get our shapes back? Oh, and our dragons? The unicorns can probably handle themselves.”
“I would like to,” Lanya said. “Why did they turn you human?”
Windmane threw her arms in the air. “We don’t know! They wanted our shapes for something! That one guy seemed to just want to show off!”
Lanya pointed over her shoulder. “The minotaur?”
Stomp crossed her arms with a snort. “Yes. The minotaur.”
“He stole your shape, didn’t he?”
Another snort. “Yes.”
“And what were the rest of you before?”
“I’m a pixie!” Twig volunteered. Beak and Windmane chimed in to explain everything, with Beak taking the lead in making up for the lack of Razorscale’s grumpiness.
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“…Now here we are without any of them, with nothing to go on but rumors and rage, so yes, any ideas from your end would be just grand.” She scratched the pavement with slippered feet, a movement that would have looked better with talons.
“You definitely need to meet some people,” Lanya said. “Let me call for someone to meet us with a carriage so we don’t have to walk all the way there. Unless you have a faster way of traveling?”
Twig opened his mouth to suggest the unicorns’ glow-bubble, then remembered they were gone.
“We do have some pixie dust left,” Beak admitted. “But would that attract the wrong kind of attention here?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it would. Just a moment.” Lanya pulled a polished stone from her pocket and pressed several of the runes carved into it. They glowed blue where she’d touched them. After a moment, a voice spoke from it.
Twig leaned forward to hear better, but the human kept her conversation hushed and hurried. All Twig heard was a general sort of “important people” “please come get us” and “long story.” Twig realized that while the rock was glowing, the woman wasn’t. No mage lines at all. Was this rock special? Or the human?
When she put the rock away with the announcement that a carriage was coming, Twig asked her. “How come you don’t have mage lines?”
A glare from Windmane said that might have been a rude question. Whoops.
She didn’t seem offended. “Clearly because I’m not a mage. This way, please.”
“But that was magic, right?” Twig pressed. No one was stopping him, and he wanted to know.
Lanya explained as they traveled down the well-lit street, past elaborate entrances to other homes. “Mage lines only show on magicians who have spent many years working with magic. The more practice, the stronger the glow. Officially it’s only those of noble blood who have the ability to learn it.” She dropped to a loud whisper. “But the official story is a lie.”
She spent the rest of the walk explaining the dramatic conspiracy keeping several noble families in power. Twig was shocked and indignant on her behalf, though eventually when the talk got into the intricacies of human politics, his mind started to wander. He let Beak ask the important questions. Practicing magic was more fun.
This was a darker area, and his mage lines threw blue light onto everyone. Lanya turned with a sharp motion for him to stop whatever he was doing.
Twig did. “What?”
“Save it for indoors, okay?” she asked. “Mage lines that come and go look extremely suspicious. No one has that.”
“Razorscale does — oh. Right. Okay.” Twig sighed and resigned himself to being bored again.
Thankfully the carriage driven by Lanya’s friend caught up to them soon, pulled by two white horses that reminded Twig strongly of the unicorns. But there wasn’t a sparkle or a fang to be seen.
The driver was a male human who ushered everyone inside quickly. Twig hopped down from the carpet and was first through the door that Lanya held open. He settled onto one of the cushy benches while Stomp helped Windmane inside and Beak rolled up the carpet. Lanya sat with her friend, and they were off.
What a novel way to travel. So bouncy and loud! It wasn’t fast by pixie standards, but it would do. And the view in this neighborhood was a different type of fancy with every house. Twig enjoyed the ride while the others talked and worried.
The carriage left the rich neighborhood for a more humble part of town. Still interesting; weird architecture. Eventually they pulled up to stop at what must be a house for regular people, and Lanya chivvied them all out. Twig didn’t ride on the carpet with Windmane this time. No need. The house was close by and full of humans.
“Lanya, come in!” said the gray-haired woman at the door. “Who’s this?”
Introductions waited until the door was shut and the many humans were all staring, then Lanya went over it all again. Twig waved when appropriate. He demonstrated the mage line flare when asked, and lifted off the ground without being asked, only to be caught by at least three sets of hands and told to stop please.
Twig sighed and agreed.
Something caught his eye. “Can I go look at the bird?” he asked.
“Sure, just don’t bother her too much,” Lanya said. “She should be sleeping right now. Her name’s Nibbles.”
Twig made his escape to the other side of the room where Nibbles the green parakeet fluttered from one perch to another in a large cage that might actually be big enough for a bird her size. It certainly took up a fair chunk of the wall.
“Hi, Nibbles,” Twig said. “Do you speak?”
Nibbles made parakeet noises. She stayed on the other side of the cage.
Trying very hard, Twig activated his stolen human magic and tried again. “Do you understand me?”
He got an impression of surprise in that squawk, though it could have been from the sudden blue light.
“How’d you do that?” asked a young voice.
After a heartbeat of confusion, Twig realized that it wasn’t the bird who had spoken. He dropped the magic and turned to see two human children staring at him with wide eyes. “Oh, hi! Do what, the glowing? It’s just magic.”
“But it went away,” the taller child said. “People who glow are always like that.”
Twig shrugged. “I’m a different kind of people.” He didn’t want to explain it again.
“What are you doing?” asked the shorter child.
“Trying to talk to the bird. Nibbles.”
“With magic?”
Twig nodded. “Normally I can do it easily, but this magic is weird.”
The child looked thoughtful. “I don’t know how to do that, but I can do a different spell. Wanna see?”
“Sure!”
“It’s a spell to hear things far away,” the child said. “This room is really loud, but it’ll let me hear what my aunt is saying way over there.”
Twig followed the pointed finger. “Wow, that sounds hard! You must be very good for your age. How long since you pupated?”
“Since I what?” The child’s face twisted with confusion.
“Oh right, I keep forgetting humans don’t do that.” Twig smacked his own forehead. “You hatch in adult form, right?”
“We don’t hatch!” the child laughed at him. “That’s birds!”
Twig cocked his head with a smile. “And pixies.”
The conversation that followed with the two fascinated children was far more interesting than anything the adults would have come up with. And that was even before the child showed him the spell for spying on grownups.