It's a really pretty sword, but kind of hard to clean. Scouring the blood out of that gold filigree might take more time and better tools than she has available. The glass-slick black blade, on the other hand, comes clean in about one and a half wipes with a damp cloth—

—and as it does, a rippling gleam spills down its surface, not born in any external source; it's just there, shifting like the shine of sun on water, a wavering thread of light.

She pauses.

"Sword?" she asks, tentatively.

??

"...Are you awake?"

maybe

"Oh! Oh wow! Um, what do you - remember, know, uh I've never had a weapon wake up before so I don't really know how to explain everything, sorry."

The sword gives off a general impression of sleepy confusion.

"Um! I'm Kate. We're in a dunj, which is sorta a magical dimension full of monsters? They were messing up my village's crops so I went in, I noticed you were getting magical so I took you but I haven't had you for long - sometimes weapons get magical and kind of wake up as people?"

oh. huh.

Another ripple of light traces the blade as it—he—takes a moment to think this over. (It's not clear how a sword can project an emphatic sense of gender but this one definitely is.)

i like being awake, he concludes. c'mon let's go kill more stuff

"Alright!" she says. "That's what we're here for, I guess." Hopefully she didn't get a bloodthirsty sword. Well if she did she can hand him off, she's not like planning to be an adventurer, and hopefully he wouldn't mind too much.

An excited gleam flickers across his surface.

She'll valiantly set off into the dunj then, suppressing her nerves not very well but decently. She doesn't know much about how wielders and weapons work together, but sort of tries to communicate what she does know - wielder makes a weapon-appropriate gestured, like swinging or stabbing, weapon does. Something? And the coordination makes an effect. Like, this traveling adventurer had a staff that did fire this one time. But wielder and weapon need to work together and what happens is influenced by both.

Calling him 'sword' is weird, so she asks, after their first successful attempt at stabbing a weird bird-lady, "Hey, do you have something you want me to call you?"

i don't really know how names work

"Uhhhhhh. They're sounds that someone consistently calls you by. A lot of them don't mean anything anymore but some are words, I know a 'Joy.' I was just named after my grandma, Katherine, but I go by Kate because it's shorter. So, like, if you're naming yourself, you'd probably go by a nice meaning or sound, and people naming others usually do honor-names, after some other person, or virtue-names, of some trait they want someone to have?"

He glimmers consideringly.

all right, I'll think about it

"I can list some if you, like, don't remember hearing names? But yeah, it's not something I've thought a lot about."

Trudge trudge trudge, practice switching between stabs and swings, trying to get a feel for the sword, but it's hard.

On her next little break, something occurs to her. "Oh, hey, a lot of weapons can shapeshift. You want to try? - Maybe not while we're in the dunj, but, like, you can walk back to the village with me and maybe get some food or something. I'd miss food if I was a sword..."

shapeshift??

There is a pause.

Then there is a man.

He's tall and broad-shouldered and built like a dancer, strong but streamlined. He's wearing mostly black, with a few subtle touches of red and tasteful accents in gold-filigree embroidery. His hair is black; his eyes are black with flecks of gold.

He beams, radiantly delighted, and twirls with joy and overbalances and rolls and bounces up again and scoops her into a crushing hug.

She helps with the transformation as best she can. A dramatic pose is involved. She's not sure it helped any, and feels a bit silly.

Random hugs are unexpected but not too surprising, she'd want to hug someone maybe if she had arms for the first time.

(Oh wow he's cute, not the time brain.)

She does though 'eep' when hugged, because not too surprising on a meta level or not she was surprised.

The eep makes him giggle.

"Having a body is the best thing," he says, somewhat muffled because of how he's smushing his face against her shoulder. "It's so good!!! It's even better than stabbing things!"

Awkward wriggle because her arms are trapped that really should've been an awkward shoulder pat. "I approve of it too?" she says. She's not sure how normal it is for weapons to actively like stabbing things. Maybe it's, like, a doing a good job sort of thing? And that's kind of what weapons are meant for?

...How does she ask the overexcited sword to stop squeezing her ribcage, is the tricky part here.

He giggles again and rubs his cheek against the side of her face like an affectionate cat and then shifts back, sparkling excitedly. c'mon I wanna kill something!!

"Uh. Okay."

Fight fight stab, ugh why do these monsters have to be so human-like and pretty. This dunj feels deep and exhausting and long, worse than the tales she's heard - she's not sure if they establish themselves more when left along, if the long trudges just get left out of the tales, or what. At least they've only found hoards so far, no bosses.

...She really shouldn't have jinxed herself like that.

She runs into another small hoard, and swings her sword with a little dramatic flick to her wrist that she hopes will help the magic. They're not syncing well yet. A bird woman lunges at her from behind, and Kate spins, bracing herself and thrusting for the monster's chest with a 'hiya!', sword gripped tight in both hands.

The only magic she's gotten out of him so far has been inconsistent flickers of fire, too brief and weak to have much effect.

This time she gets more than that.

He glows red-hot and sinks into the bird-woman's body with a crackling sizzle. The impression he gives off is of exhilarated laughter.

!!!

She did not expect that and yelps in surprise a little, and okay burned monsters are ew and at least it dies and starts doing that weird pixely thing quickly.

She regains her footing and keeps fighting - stabs to the heart seemed to work so even though she super doesn't like doing this she throws herself at the next bird woman with a half-hearted war cry and the same power stance.

Stabs to the heart are so effective. Her sword is getting kind of giddy.

She kind of hopes this stabbing hearts thing isn't a metaphor for something. Weapon magic seems to involve metaphors an uncomfortable amount.

Also the sword is weird, and she's steadily updating away from 'oh he's cute' to 'yeah I'm gonna be polite and suggest he find someone more compatible.'

As soon as there are no more bird women on the way, he sends a wordless burst of excitement and the desire to shift human again. The impression of what exactly he wants to do is a little vague, probably because he is two hours old and has very little idea what he's doing, but it definitely involves him having a body, and her also having a body, and the two of them interacting, with their bodies. It does not seem to have occurred to him that she might object to this suggestion.

...How does she explain the concepts of 'not the time,' 'people don't always do that spontaneously,' and 'you're cute but also creepy so uhhhhhh how about no' to a two hour old sword. Why did nobody ever teach her how to do this.

"Um. I mean I don't mind taking a break and you being human-shaped for a bit, but this is super not the time for body interaction stuff. Nowhere really appropriate - friction burns aren't fun - and also a bird-woman could wander by at any moment. Also I don't super know you well, a lot of girls in general prefer knowing someone better before doing body interaction stuff."

—and while she is saying all that, he's trying to shift, and it's not working. He can't do it without her - cooperation, permission, something - she's stopping him from being the shape he wants.

Light spills down his blade in a furious flash.

He's still too emotional to use words, but now that emotion is mostly rage. He wants to shift and she's not letting him—the confused impression of his desires has taken on a decidedly more violent tone—there's no sense that he might realize how self-sabotaging it is to accompany his demand to shift human with vivid imagery of several reasons why it is extremely advantageous for her that he doesn't currently have limbs. He's just VERY MAD and YELLING ABOUT IT.

She drops him.

Well now he's EVEN MADDER. Not much he can do about it like this, though.

She'll stare at him for a bit, contemplating 'asshole sword' versus 'non-magical dagger' in getting out of here.

She pokes him with her toe. "So. That's not happening. Either you can cooperate with me getting this dunj shut down, and I'll pass you on to someone else - with hella warnings - or I leave you here. In the dark. In a dunj nobody's entered in years."

He does not have even a tenth of the emotional maturity it would take to seriously consider this offer and respond in some sort of sensible way. Instead she gets MORE YELLING.

"Have fun rusting, asshole," she says, before stepping back, drawing her dagger, and walking into the next room.

He yells for a long time, although he's not sure if she can still hear him.

Nope. They don't know each other well enough for telepathic contact outside of touch, fortunately for her.

It's hard, and she gets a small collection of injuries doing it, but she gets the damn dunj shut down.

The place sort of pixelates, and then each little color block is replaced by the real world, slowly and then rapidly - and she's under a familiar sun in familiar hot weather she's never going to complain about again.

The sword, in fact, didn't follow her.

There's a loud sound-sensation within the dunj itself, a deep thrumming ringing of the world as it jerks and shudders. The reforming bird-women stop, melting into tiny color blocks. The ones off Kate's path all shriek, then cower and go silent.

This bizarre happenstance provides a welcome distraction from lying on the floor fuming.

He's really not clear on what just happened. Is the place about to explode? He hopes it is not about to explode.

It doesn't explode, but does eventually settle. The few remaining bird women slowly start to wander. Some of them are interested in him - he's strange and doesn't belong in the dunj - but their attention spans are short and they're not very intelligent.

One moderately clever and curious bird woman pokes him after a bit of eyeing him, approaching, backing away, and circling. She makes a trilling chirp.

... does being poked by a random monster count as getting wielded enough for him to shift if she lets him? He tries to do the thing.

She doesn't seem to really get what he's doing, but there's wielding-like interaction. She doesn't know how to do the other end of the shape-changing.

Oh come on - can he get her to try things??? He would really like to have limbs. Having limbs is very important.

He can with some prodding get her to repeat mental actions he takes.

He tries anything he can think of that seems like it might be the right thing.

This will work after a few iterations - the mental action's fairly obvious, at least. She chirps when she succeeds, tilting her head at the odd sensation.

He has a body again!!! It feels sensations!!! This is still the best thing!!! He bounces delightedly and then hugs the bird-woman.

She squawks, alarmed.

He lets go, giggling.

She hops away a bit, feathers ruffles and arm wings flapping some, then once she's a satisfactory distance she starts preening, trilling a bit as she does.

It's funny. Everything is funny. He has a body and he can take actions with it.

Giggling is a funny noise and she starts chirping in the same pattern.

...Okay that's actually hilarious. Now he is laughing even more.

Why is the flesh person making such weird noises. This is vaguely concerning.

Bird lady, I regret to inform you that that is like objectively the least concerning thing about this particular flesh person.

He calms down after a few minutes, anyway, although he's still kinda bouncy.

She tries poking him again.

He giggles, and pokes back.

Squawk!

Her feathers ruffle a bit. She then starts turning her head side to side to better eye him. He's weird and shiny and probably not food so she doesn't quite know what to make of him. (Flesh things are usually food but metal is not and she has no real priors about not-food that started looking like food.)

Poking her again seems like a fun game!

She tries to peck his finger. She's fast and her beak is sharp, but it's an awkward angle for her.

He's quick enough to avoid being pecked, at least this time.

She pulls back a bit, and her third eyelid slides over her eyes briefly before retreating, making them milky.

A sort of melodious sound halfway between a croak and a scream escapes her throat. She's curious and determined and really wants to know if he's food, but she's not quite ready to peck him again. She starts circling a bit.

He watches her, smiling.

She makes that half-scream noise again and tries to peck him.

He laughs and dodges again. This time he is not so fast.

!

She keeps trying. She doesn't seem ruffled, though, and might even be amused.

Dodging while she tries to peck him: a new fun game!

She gets bolder, and therefore faster, when he doesn't retaliate.

This time her beak scores a line across the back of his hand.

"—!"

He pulls back, startled. This is a NEW EXPERIENCE. For a second he's too surprised and overwhelmed by this novel and alarming sensation to even begin to decide how he feels about it.

He tastes like metal instead of flesh. His body is a DECEPTION.

She squawks, highly offended.

He blinks, then giggles again.

Offended ruffling of feathers and almost frantic preening to get that taste out of her mouth.

"Well don't do that then!" he says, logically.

Unfortunately she doesn't know words, and he persists in using those weird mammal noises instead of chirps, squawks, and trills like a reasonable bird.

That's okay, he doesn't really mind that she can't understand him.

She eventually stops doing the bird equivalent of spitting in disgust, then trills again and hops away, looks at him, hops half a step towards him, then away again.

"...?"

Hop forward, hop farther away, glance at him, glance in the direction she's going, repeat.

(She doesn't have a concept of 'grab someone's hand and drag them,' but if he doesn't follow her she'll start getting frustrated.)

...huh. Sure, okay, he'll follow her.

She'll lead him through the maze to a large nest full of shiny. (He is a shiny and she is tired, and there's an empty nest nearby). There's a few other occupied nests, and the other bird women poke their heads over to trill at her.

She makes the 'not a food, not a predator probably' chirp, and pecks at one that gets too close because he is her shiny and that one keeps trying to edge in on her place in the order.

Huh. Bird nest. It vaguely occurs to him that 'kill some bird ladies' is an option on the table, but it's hard to kill things when you have to pick one between 'sharp edges' and 'the ability to move under your own power', and also there's a bunch of them now and he has recently discovered that beaks hurt, so maybe he'll pass.

She flutters up into her nest and starts rearranging her shinies. A lot of them were taken from the flesh people. Flesh people have neat shinies.

Anything interesting in the collection?

A lot of coins and ribbons and pieces of jewelry (some of it has a bit of dried blood in a crevasse), a small collection of flashlights, some glass cubes with little designs in them, doll furniture, Faberge eggs, somebody's collection of Russian nesting dolls, keys, fancy scented candles, six different mermaid sequin pillows, a whole mess of sequins and glitter, wind chimes and Christmas tree ornaments she figured out how to hang over the edge...

It's sort of adorable. Nothing in there that he particularly has an urge to steal, though.

She starts settling in, cooing a bit under her breath as she does. Indeed, most of the bird women seem inclined to sleep.

Awwwwww that's a really cute noise!! Benefits of not murdering bird women: you get to hear them make CUTE NOISES.

Most of them quiet down as they drift off. One makes a half cooing noise just breathing. They usually ruffle their feathers and go 'wraaaaa?' if something makes them wake up halfway.

Cuuuute.

He's gonna get bored if he just watches them sleep for hours, though. Is he even the sort of thing that sleeps? He's not sure. How do you tell if you are? And what can a bored sword do around here?

The labyrinth still exists, with all its twists and turns and surprises, and there's holes high on the wall or in the ceiling that Kate hadn't gone through, on account of not either being particularly athletic or a bird.

Climbing through holes in the wall looks like fun! He'll try that.

The dungeon's fancier higher up, flecks of something shiny embedded in the walls, more perches and handholds and interesting spaces (some of them have clearly been used as a stash for everything from 'rocks' to 'jewelry' to 'bones'. The bone collection ranges from mouse skeletons to a complete human skeleton dragged up here a few bones at a time).

Gosh. What a variety of things. He finds that he appreciates the human skeleton especially.

The tunnels eventually lead to a massive chamber, with bird women sleeping along the walls, but far, far more empty nests, and tiny glittering cubes coating the floor and most flat surfaces, and a pedestal in the middle with a jarringly out of place dark black stone that's been shattered into pieces.

...huh.

He inspects the stone.

It feels weird, sets something in the back of his teeth to aching. The pieces don't shine or have shadows, looking like little flat holes in reality.

That's... concerning??? He is concerned??? What???

It looks like it broke when someone knocked it off the pedestal. Most of it's in fairly big chunks, but there's smaller ones scattered about.

He pokes one suspiciously.

It's slick, like watery glass. Feels almost goopy, and his finger tingles oddly.

That is weird and concerning.

He immediately does it again.

His finger bones might be humming.

Continuing to poke the Concern Shards is probably a bad idea.

Maybe this time... he will poke it... with a stick.

The stick doesn't catch on fire, turn into a serpent and attack him, fold in on itself until space is permanently wedgied there, or anything else strange. The shard also doesn't make any sound at all when nudged around.

? ?? ???

He has expectations about how objects behave and these objects are not being that way.

Probably it's magic. Probably some kind of dangerous magic.

He pokes it with the stick again.

Silently moving as he pokes it.

Also its shadow is staying in place, drawing out as it moves.

What.

He pokes the shadow.

It doesn't do anything interesting when poked.

Someone leans to look over his shoulder from behind him.

"What are you doing?" ze asks, voice melodious and liquid.

—?!

That person was not there a second ago!

"I'm... poking a weird shadow with a stick?"

Ze nods. "A good first investigation."

"Thank...s....??? Who are you?"

"I'm Tyrant. Who are you? I haven't met you before." Ze peers closer at him. "...What are you?"

"Oh, I'm a sword."

"Odd. Swords do not usually talk. I am a Lord of the Is."

"I don't know what that means!"

"I do not know what a talking sword means, either. Everything I have met that talks is a Lord of the Is. We Lords create the Is from the Not, and then shape what we have made to our liking. I have not heard of anyone making their automatons feel like people, so I do not think you are that, either. Where did you come from, and how did you start existing?"

"I don't really remember. By the time I woke up I'd already been around for a while. There was a person and she was using me to kill things and then I was awake and we killed things some more and then we had an argument and she dropped me and ran off." He scowls. "She wouldn't let me change."

"That is rude. Changing is important."

He nods emphatically.

"What was the rude person?"

"A... person? I dunno. Not a sword. Or a bird-woman."

"And not a Lord, if you didn't know what I am."

"I think she was probably not a you," he agrees. "But if she said what she was I don't remember."

"Fascinating, that there is more life out there than I knew. I had known the demesnes sometimes connect to a strange, hostile world, seemingly at random. I had not known any beyond us Lords were intelligent. I wonder if they have art?"

He shrugs. "I wouldn't know, I'm like a day old."

"I might try to find my way there. Perhaps I can find a demesne while it is connected."

"How does... being a you... work?" he wonders. "You go places differently than I go places."

"Are you not able to step between demesnes?"

"I don't know what that means or how to do it."

"Interesting. This is a demesne. The world as I know it is made of demesnes, some of which are connected, most of which are not. The demesnes - and I presume that strange world the rude person was from - make up the Is. Between and without the demesnes is the Not. I can step into the Not. From the Not, I can enter any demesne from which I am not banned, or I can shape new Is."

"...I wouldn't even know how to try to do that."

He pauses thoughtfully.

"...but making new places sounds like fun."

"I have never taught it before, but I know it can be learned. New Lords do not start with full knowledge."

"Well now I really want to learn it!"

Ze makes a considering noise. "If you do not know if you can enter the Not, the safer option might be attempting to alter this demesne. It is unclaimed. But even for the very young, it is much easier to form a demesne anew."

"Well - how?"

"I do not know how to explain the entering. But usually new Lords are taken with another, their first trip, to give the feel for it. The forming is - the Not is empty except for what our minds hallucinate into it. And our minds do not like the Not, so they often do. But things hallucinated into the Not become the Is by the act of being perceived. It is brief, fleeting, normally, but there is an act of will, a visualization, that can be done to anchor the Is and spool it out. And once you have your demesne, changing it is as simple as wishing so, and imagining what it shall become."

"Perhaps swords have an easier time imagining what another's demesne could be. It is not easy, for Lords. We cannot feel them."

If all it takes is imagining things, and wanting what you imagine...

He tries imagining the walls of this room covered in black glass.

The walls are possibly a bit shinier and darker? But they're not what he imagined.

Hey. He told them what to do. They should hurry up and do it already.

They're pretty sure they're supposed to follow the bird theme.

Well they are wrong about that.

He applies more concentration, more detail, more willpower. Black glass walls, accented in red and gold, and a red tile floor with gold-filigree detailing. His surroundings should be at least as pretty as he is, that's just sense.

Nature-y bird theme in black, red, and gold, and that's their final offer.

Is it.

They are fully willing to back entirely out of this negotiation.

If what this place wants is to keep changes within its theme then he's pretty sure he has better ideas of how to do that.

Dark glossy green-black leaves and feather-edged red-gold flowers; tree-trunk columns with vaulting branches, haloed in glittering golden specks that suggest fairies or fireflies. Swirling lines and flowing contours, touched by soft silver-grey streaks like wisps of veiling mist.

It considers that offer then reluctantly changes, details rippling away from him, overcoming the abstract-forest swirls of blue-green-brown.

Ha.

"Impressive. Most have more difficulty than that."

He grins.

"Do you wish to attempt forming the Is directly, or are you claiming this demesne?"

"It argues with me. I want a place that doesn't argue with me."

"Very reasonable." Ze holds out a hand.

He smiles and takes it.

And they're elsewhere.

Tyrant is even less person-shaped, here. Still fundamentally a being which can hold hands, but ze's more, wings spreading into the nothingness.

Oh.

That's a good way to be.

He would like to be more that way.

And -

He wants a place that won't argue with him, a place that's his from the start. Gold on black glass, high vaulted ceilings, intricately patterned floors.

It takes a lot of stubbornness, a lot of holding it in his mind - 

But the scintillating nothing slowly takes solid shape, at first as an increasingly real hallucination and then as the world.

His supply of stubbornness is more than up to the task.

He grins.

"You have interesting aesthetics."

"Do I? I don't really know what other people's aesthetics are like."

"There is more division between parts in yours. Most demesnes do not have clearly defined sections."

"I think I've... been in places that worked like that, before I woke up? Memory is weird."

"I have no memories prior to my conscious awareness, so I would not know."

"It's really weird. It's like... I was there, but... I wasn't? Things happened but I didn't have... thoughts about them?"

"I don't think I can quite imagine that. I have had thoughts for everything I have seen, and I know every thought I have ever had."

"...I was going to say 'imagine if all your senses were working but you weren't there to look at things with them', but that's not quite right 'cause I don't think my senses worked as well before I woke up as they did after..."

"My senses do not work if I am not interpreting things. I suspect our cognition may be fundamentally different. Interesting. I wonder what the inside of you looks like."

"Is there even a way to do that at all? For one person to find out how someone else sees things?"

"Some people know how to share vision. It is something I find difficult."

"Oh. It'd be nice to know how to do that. I think I'd really like being able to - show people things."

Ze nods, then: "You said earlier, that the other person kept you from being the shape you want. Was it something she was doing, actively?"

"I - don't really know. I think maybe... swords can't be our other shape unless somebody helps? But maybe it's something else."

"Interesting. I haven't heard of magic that requires two."

"I don't like it. I want to be able to be the shape I want by myself."

"My kind of being can craft new shapes for ourselves. Perhaps you could too, with practice."

"That'd be really nice."

"I can attempt to explain how the process works from my perspective, though it is - intuitive enough that it might be difficult."

"Sure!"

"I become other than what I was, and I identify what I am now, and then I visualize the actualization of myself. In the visualization I become. It is a related action to the creation, but looking inward, rather than out."

"...hmm. Maybe... I don't know. I half feel like I could understand it but I don't at all feel like I do. Maybe it'll make sense after I've got more practice with the rest."

"That is sensible. Most do not master changing their forms immediately, though for many it is easier than changing another's demesne."

"Changing yourself is probably more annoying to fix if you get it wrong, though. Or to live with if you can't fix it."

"I could see that, yes. I would not like being in an inaccurate form."

"Yeah. Or even one that was right to be but not for what I wanted to do right then. My sword form is right for me to be but not for most things I want to do 'cause it can't move around on its own."

"Do you know why you can't change out of your sword form on your own? I will admit it does seem a more extreme change than most are capable of, but - I am used to changes being either possible or not."

"I dunno. It sounded like that's just the way that weapons are."

"I'm curious to know why. Perhaps I will be able to find my way to this other realm of yours."

"Maybe! I don't know how you would, but it sounds like - these places and those places link up somehow sometimes."

"That's a mystery I would like to investigate, too."

"Yeah... I wonder why it happens. And how. It'd maybe make sense if somebody was doing it on purpose, but it sounded like the other place doesn't want anything to do with these ones, and the place where we were didn't seem like it had anybody doing things on purpose in it practically at all..."

"I do not know of any magic that could do such a thing, either, but you prove there is more magic than I have previously known of."

"Yep!"

"I will need to construct methods for investigation. Perhaps consult another Lord."

"I hope you find stuff out! I'll help you if there's things I can help with but I don't know how to do very many things yet because I'm like a day old."

"You could come with me," ze observes. "Or you could stay here, and experiment. Either way, I will give you a way to contact me."

"I think I'll stay here for now. Having a way to contact you is good! I like you much better than the only other person I've met."

Ze - shifts, into a many-circled Being, with feathered eyes and veins of gold in zir wings. A feather drifts off, and curls in on itself, loops within loops.

That's pretty!!! The sword is delighted!

"Speak to this with intent to reach me, and I will hear," ze intones, voice echoing oddly.

"Okay! It's pretty. You're lots of pretty things."

"Thank you. I enjoy being pretty things."

"Me too! Pretty things are great!"

"The purpose of life is to be beautiful, and have beautiful things exist."

"...huh," he says, thoughtfully.

"It is the entirety of being a Lord. We make, and what we make is beautiful, or it is not worthy of permanence."

"That... makes sense," he says slowly. "I think the point of swords is something different but I think I can decide what the point of me is and I like pretty things a lot."

"I do not think I would be a Lord if I was not the sort of person I am," ze observes. "Or perhaps I would not be me if I were not the sort of person who is a Lord."

"...hmm." He smiles. "Well, I like that you're you."

"You seem a good sort of person to be you as well."

He beams.

Ze hands over the contact orb. "Do you have any other questions of me?" ze asks.

He thinks about it, then shakes his head. "Can't think of any."

"Then I will go, and begin my search."

"Okay! Have fun!"

Ze nods, shifts - 

And exits this part of reality.

Well.

He starts playing with architecture.

It's a lot easier than in the bird-demesne. The place is his, and - there's a sense as he goes that it's not quite learning, but developing along the lines of his aesthetics, like a groove being formed, easier each time he does it. It's not obvious yet how to make inhabitants for it.

That's okay, inhabitants aren't a top priority here. The top priority is elaborate fancy architecture. And doing lots of creatively pretty stuff so that as it figures out what he likes it figures it out properly and doesn't get stuck in too narrow a rut.

Elaborate fancy architecture!

...As the demesne gets into that groove, it becomes apparent that it's possible to in a way reinforce or even suspend in mid-air anything big or swoopy or precarious, that won't hold up under its own power, but things so reinforced are harder to move or change.

Hmmm! That has possibilities.

He devotes a particular wing of the structure to experimenting with this ability. He likes having most things support their own weight, but adding in a few blatantly gravity-defying elements in key places, like a tall arch with a massive teardrop ruby hanging in midair just below the keystone, with enough of a gap to make it very clear that there's nothing holding it up but magic. Or a cavernous hall with a vaulted ceiling that takes him hours to get right without cheating, lit by crystal chandeliers in a jagged asymmetrical natural style that float unsupported high above the floor. He experiments with these and other notions, testing the limits of his ability to argue with physics and win.

Arguing a lot with physics is tiring, both mentally and physically, but once he wins things stay where he puts them. Unsupported items are more taxing than tenuously supported items. Smaller items are easier to make unsupported. Items that glow are harder than items that don't. Items that move are more taxing than statics, and simple movements like spinning in place are easier than moving in patterns. Items can be made to change colors over time, but it's apparently considered a movement. He can make things respond to changes in the environment some, though it takes a lot of effort.

It's tiring but it's fun.

He gets better at it, and fancier. A long chain of those vaulted halls, all in different colours and materials, each with a lighting scheme more impressive than the last: the floating chandeliers, then rows of lanterns hanging from the ceiling that cycle through every colour of the rainbow and reflect off the glossy white walls, then a flock of glittering diamonds—he wants to make them do interesting things like move away from moving objects while maintaining a certain distance from each other and the walls, but he'll settle for something simpler and less responsive if he can't figure out how to set up complex emergent behaviours.

Complex emergent behaviors are hard, requiring a lot of trial and error and energy expenditure, but they're definitely doable.