"Pretty durable. The only thing I've ever seen break one was another person who had powers specifically about breaking things. I usually make them midair, but I thought it might be easier to enshine one that was against a surface."

"I might not be able to do one in midair at all, but if I could I could probably move it around more easily too."

"Let's try it." She creates a barrier midair, still horizontal, this one in the shape of a star because why not.

Lu pinches it and tugs.

It goes.

And now it can zoom around in the air, quite freely. It spins. "This is amazing! There aren't any servants that work like this - shines have always been limited to surfaces and puppets and automata and golems can only fly if you make them with wings or propellers and you can't directly move a pet."

"I don't know for sure that it'll still work when we're in different universes again," Helen says. "But I suppose we could test it--if I go out and Marie closes the door and opens it again a little later to let me out, that should at least test whether it needs my continued presence."

Nod nod. "If it doesn't I might want a fleet of them."

"Sure." She unhugs so Marie can open the door.

Marie opens the door.

Helen goes through.

Marie closes the door.

The shine stays.

And does a pirouette. "Looks like it works."

Marie opens the door again.

"Oh, looks like it worked," Helen says as she comes back in. "I couldn't tell it existed while the door was closed, though. Felt like it flickered off and back on."

"It works and I can still control it. I'm going to have to figure out how to program for three dimensions instead of 'flat with corners', it'll be fun."

"I wonder if I could make those, it would be so useful."

"I can try to teach you! But if you don't have any kind of servantmaking in your world it might be that you can't do it. ...Programming them isn't magical, though, so you could still feed them programs as long as you didn't feed them glitches and send them someplace you couldn't find them again."

"We'd want to figure out how to program them in three dimensions before you leave, then." She makes a barrier. "If I can shine it, how do I do it?"

"...If I were you I'd start with something you wouldn't accidentally interact with some other way." Lu pulls out her lens. "This can take hours to get the first time and I've never actually taught it before, mind."

"Okay." She dismisses the barrier. "I'm patient about things I'm actually interested in."

"This looks like it's going to take a while. Can I borrow a book or something?" Marie asks Bar.

"Looks awesome," Marie says, and takes it and goes to sit by the fireplace to read it.