And now she's falling through a thick layer of clouds! And it's really cold and wet!

Owl wings owl wings owl wings owl wings owl wings. There. No longer falling; instead, gliding, and then diving, when she's had a moment to get her bearings and decide she'd rather be closer to the ground than farther from it.

The wind isn't behaving as she's used to. The air feels different somehow. It might just be the fact that she seems to be in a storm. Thunder rumbles from somewhere, surrounding her in the darkness.

Diving doesn't take her out of the thick bank of clouds particularly quickly. She sees a vague oval shape below and to the right, lit up by a flash of lightning.

...the roof of some kind of tower, maybe? Extra tall tree? She heads for it. She'd like to phase out, in case of lightning, but she's not cute enough, drenched.

It's a... Floating island? A floating rock with a thin spattering of vegetation clinging to the top, being whipped about in the storm.

That's, uh. That's not great. She's pretty sure if floating islands were a thing, she'd know about it.

How badly is the storm tossing it around?

Rather badly. She probably couldn't successfully cling to it - it looks like the miserable looking squirrels huddling in a small hollow in a tree trunk are barely managing it.

She doesn't want to be on it, she wants to be under it, but it doesn't look like that would be all that much more fun if she stays close enough for it to shelter her.

She continues descending, gliding now, trying to get out from under the storm as she looks for the ground.

She eventually gets out of the storm.

She doesn't see any ground. There's just - a vast gulf of sky around her, a space almost too big to be real, like the blue dome of the sky is above and below and all around, obscured by patches and layers of clouds.

There are more floating islands, mostly distant and half-obscured, most of them a lot bigger. It's hard to make out detail from such a distance, but some of them have a blockiness to them that might be buildings. There are floating plants, and floating animals, that look like something out of science fiction.

Yeah, that's definitely not great.

She heads for the nearest one that seems to have buildings.

As she approaches closer, those definitely are buildings. The floating island she approaches is partitioned into neat fields and little patches of forest with slender trees. There is a block of tall buildings with rooftop and balcony gardens sits in the middle of the large island, sort of sunken into the middle of the place. A few buildings are built into the outside edge of the flying island too. It's about a mile across, all told, and mostly fields and woods by area. People are working and walking around.

She makes for the nearest edge, and stumbles a bit, landing; she's not prepared for how the surface isn't steady under her feet. Once she has her balance, she checks to see how this has been received by the locals.

She has wings - if this isn't a mass hallucination it's clearly some kind of lost tech, a flying child with such an elaborate outfit? Then again, she's a small child. Some of them are backing away or going to the central buildings, but the man nearest her is glancing around at his fellows and back at the flying girl, unsure what to do.

It's not heard, or felt, or imagined, they just suddenly know, as if it was their own thought: She's sorry to scare them but she's very lost.

Aaah! Aaah?

A few people stumble. A few more start to head for the buildings.

The dithering man says, in deeply accented but recognizable English, "Do you - know where you're from?"

Yes, but she's not sure it's going to help. Where she's from looks like this, and doesn't have sky cities.

"...That's Earth. Solid ground."

Also, this is freaky, don't panic, panicking doesn't help. He tries and fails to not fidget much.

Yeah. And a cryptid ate her, and now she's here.

Is there a way to get back, at all? Or send messages, or anything?

"I've never heard of - there's supposed to be a, a gate to Earth, but it broke centuries ago. Or something. We don't know much about Earth."

Okay. (She fidgets slightly herself.)

She's going to need help, she's not ready to be on her own yet - is there someone she should talk to?

"You should talk to the President. Well, the - everything, the wings and clothes, the talking thing - it's a bit unnerving, because when something strange comes along it's very hard to be quite sure what it does. But I'm sure we can get him to come talk to you. And get you some food and water if you need it? Or a towel? You look like you've been through a storm."

She'd appreciate that, yes. And she can explain to someone how magical girls work, if they'd like.

'Magic' is just tech that nobody understands anymore, but, "Well, I'd be happy to listen. Maybe I should go get the President out here so he can talk to you instead, though? He's the one who'll know what to do here."

All right. She'll wait.

She's going to dry off, while she's waiting; this might involve manifesting some things. It's safe, but she doesn't want to startle anyone.

"I'll try to keep anyone from being - er - startled."

She seems harmless. But who really knows with lost tech. Time to wash his hands of this; He goes and informs President Mills.

After about five minutes, a thoughtful-looking middle-aged man with a beard in the same strange clothes as everyone else walks towards her, carrying a covered basket.

"Hello! Bread, water and juice, and a towel." He sets the basket down and backs up a few feet, then sits cross-legged in the dirt. "I'm the President of this little commune. Gorvan Mills."

She's swapped out her clothes for identical dry ones, by then, and is using a very strange-looking, very noisy handheld machine to blow air at her hair; it vanishes when she notices him getting close.

Thank you, she sends. Would he like a chair? One of her spells makes things.

"If you're sure it's safe. We're pretty wary of things like what you can do, lost abilities, lost technology. It's an abundance of caution. You said you were - eaten? And then found yourself near here?"

She's sure it's safe. It's not technology, though, it's magic. She can make technology with the magic, but only simple kinds. (She manifests a chair, the simple sort you might find at a kitchen table, and a matching one for herself, but explores the basket rather than sitting immediately.)

The basket contains the promised bread, half a baguette, a section of squash, and plastic jugs of water and apple juice. And a thin towel. The President dusts himself off and sits on the chair.

"See, there's an old saying - 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. We don't have the ability to make advanced technology anymore, but once in a while something from the old days turns up in working condition, and we usually can't figure out how it works. But lost technology isn't magic."

She starts on the baguette.

She really doesn't want to argue about this, but if they expect her stuff to work like technology they're going to be confused, and that might be bad. But they don't have to talk about that first, anyway. Does he want her to explain what she can do?

"We expect what you can do to work like lost technology. We expect to not understand how it works, and only be able to understand what it does... Which might be just the same, really. I'd appreciate it if you explained."

All right.

All magical girls - that's the term, she didn't pick it - can shapeshift and make clothes and accessories for themselves. The shapeshifting is limited in two ways - she can only look so close to human (like this, for example, tiny claws and pointed ears and something odd about the example girl's posture), and if she goes too far from human, she'll stop being herself, mentally, and instead be a cryptid. Cryptids are weird and nobody knows very much about them but she's not going to become one, so it doesn't matter very much unless there start being other magical girls here somehow. Clothes she can do whatever she likes with, and the prettier she is the better her magic gets.

For magic, she has the two spells he's seen. The first one is the one she's using to talk to him right now, and it's not very complicated. The second one makes cartoon things; it can make anything she imagines, but the things always look fake, and they don't always work - books don't work, complicated electronics don't work, decks of cards look like they work but the cards don't have the right values, that kind of thing. Anything without moving parts or information on it works fine, writing things down works fine, bikes work fine, hot air balloons work fine, she could probably make a plane if she wanted to. Things with moving parts will stop working if she's not paying attention to them. Some girls get more spells than that, if they're pretty enough, but her second spell is really good; it'd probably take a lot for her to get a third one.

None of that is so out-there that it requires closer examination. Though he's not sure if she's very lost, or delusional.

"That does sound very useful. We don't have electricity... Some people here believe in an old religion about winged people and might think you're something from that religion. None of us here would, but others might. Just wanted to warn you. Now, I was told you're very lost and that you might need a place to stay?"

Yes - she might not stay for very long, it depends on whether she likes the place, but she needs to know how things work here before she makes any decisions about that, and that's going to take a little while.

"How things work here as in, in our commune? Or as in, on Cloudbank?"

She doesn't know those words. She meant the world, if this is a different world, which it seems to be.

"The planet is called Cloudbank. I imagine it's very different from Earth. I'm not sure where to start explaining, but I can answer any questions you have. Our commune is this island here, and the people living on it. Our community."

She's not really sure where to start asking questions... well, actually, yeah, she is. On Earth, it's too complicated for someone her age to live on their own; they need to have a job and a house and buy groceries and all sorts of things that take a long time to learn. Is it like that here, too - will she need to find grownups to help her until she can learn what she needs to know - or is it simple enough that she'll be okay by herself pretty quickly?

"Well, you need to either live with some people, or in a community, and help each other, or be able to get everything you need on your own. If you can hunt or farm and make a house, you could go off on your own and live on an empty island out there. Some places use money, and if you can earn money and know what you need and buy it, it wouldn't be a problem that you're still young. If you want to be as independent as possible, you can probably manage it. But I think you are probably young enough you'd find living with someone and having them help take care of you useful, still."

She'll have to see what the adults here are like, then.

Are there any places that he thinks give a particularly good impression of what it's like here?

"Every settlement will be different in a lot of ways. We're unusual - we don't use money much internally, we share things like food and houses and help each other. I don't know what other islands are within flying range of us right now or I would suggest you could visit one of those and see what they're like once you feel ready. Perhaps you can talk to the traders that come along sometimes - town life and ship life are very different, ship life might suit you. I don't know you yet so I can't tell."

She relaxes, a little, at that.

What about places here in the commune, anything she should see?

"Well, all around us you see our fields. We have apartments and a community center in the middle, everything we need - school rooms, storage, a plaza, places for relaxation, workshops and an infirmary, art rooms. I could also show you one of the houses we've built into the island, or the sports fields, the woods, and the airship landing. None of the houses are meant for a single person, but we could free a small apartment for you alone, if you wanted that."

She'd like to see the art rooms, if that's all right. And the workshops, maybe, if there's anything interesting.

"Alright. I'll show you the art rooms. People will probably be pretty curious about you, but I can ask them not to bother us if you'd rather."

He stands up from the chair. "Bring along the basket, if you don't mind. No sense making a second trip out here to come get it again. Oh, and I don't think I've asked for your name yet...?"

Her name is Dusk Glory. She won't mind if people are curious but she'd rather not be touched by strangers.

She takes the basket, dismisses the chairs, swaps her wings for her more customary ones, and follows.

"That's quite a name! I like it."

Gorvan Mills walks calmly into the central area, tells everyone he sees that he's giving their visitor, Dusk Glory, a tour of the art rooms to start, and she prefers not to be touched so be mindful of that. Someone asks him if Dusk Glory is going to be staying here and whether she'll go to the school, and he says 'that's a bit premature at the moment, we'll see what looks reasonable'.

"That was one of the teachers. Hila. She teaches students older than about ten until we figure out what job suits them and they go learn from someone who does that job most of the time."

The buildings are neatly laid out and clean, all bundled up near each other in a small area in the center, with small gardens and green areas here and there. There's a few murals on the walls, nature scenes - including the strange critters that are natural here.

That's cool. She was learning about technology and can probably continue on her own a little bit but she'd like to know how things are made here, too, and might pick something up in that area.

"That's one of the things we focus on most when teaching. I know we can't match the technology of Earth, though - there's too much lost knowledge, and metal is very scarce even besides that."

He indicates a certain building. "Most of the art rooms are in here. We have fabric art, paints, sculpting and carving, a little library and writing area, a music room, and papercrafts."

Not having metal is a problem, you really can't do much without it.

Can they go in and see what people have been working on?

"Of course. Someone's probably working in any given room right now, in fact. Which room?"

She's not picky - painting, maybe, and she'd like to see the library.

They go into the painting room. It's an open space with easels, chairs, and a few tables, plus shelves, cabinets, and a couple of sinks. Natural light is coming in along the walls somehow. A man is painting something impressionistic, lots of silver and grey, what looks like the tall spires of an imagined city.

"Hello, Dorian. Don't mind us - this is Dusk Glory. A lost visitor. I'm giving her the grand tour."

Dorian nods. "...Wings?"

"They're not dangerous, the thing that created them is under control."

"Ah. Good. Well, nice to see someone new."

It's nice to meet him. Is that a real place?

"No. Well, it might be, but I've never seen it. It's supposed to be Noctis City. On Mars."

That's cool. It's very pretty.

"Thank you. I wasn't sure whether to do the background red, or more green... Mars is supposed to be red, but they also say they turned it green under the domes."

She's from an Earth, but her world's Mars doesn't have cities yet, so she doesn't know how they look. Mars is this shade of red, though, she thinks the green he picked is nicer.

"Yeah, I think it is. A little green against the red might have been nice too, show something growing, but I'm already past the background."

It would have, yeah. Well, he can always try something like that next time.

"Yeah, next time. I'll probably finish this one and try something else for a while before using more paint. Enough to go around won't be anymore if nobody thinks like that."

(The President is tidying up the art room a bit and watching them interact, smiling slightly.)

She can make paint if it's just for practice or trying things out. She has magic - that's why she looks strange, she's a magical girl - and one of her spells is making fake things.

The President comes back over. "That's a good idea! Especially for the little kids. They'd find it fun."

Yeah. And art is important. (Wingflutter.)

"I wonder about that," the painter says, "I like it, but there's lots of other things the time and effort could go to. Art's probably worth it, it's a luxury in itself."

Art gives people hope, and makes life tolerable when things are bad and better when things are good; of course it's worth it.

"I'm not arguing with that. Art is nice. The murals around our commune are very good. I'm just saying that art might trade off with other luxuries, sometimes." He shrugs. "In any case, I think I'll keep working on this tomorrow some time. It's probably about time to check on my apple trees."

She looks forward to seeing the finished piece.

Library, next?

"Of course. Mind, library is a bit of a grand title - I don't want to get your hopes up. Reading room, perhaps?"

He leads Dusk across the hall. The library has eight tall shelves, mostly full - some books in proper bindings, some scrolls. There are comfy-looking chairs and tables near the front with more natural light, plus a couple of lecturn type things with stacks of blank paper and scrolls and some relatively crude writing supplies.

It's little. Seems like they care about it, though. (She keeps these observations to herself, and looks through the titles.)

It's cozy, she likes it. How often do they have a chance to get new books?

"We write some. And sometimes visiting ships will be interested in buying or selling books. I'd say, once every month or so we get something new."

That's not so bad. Is the poetry written here?

There's three shelves of nonfiction, mostly textbooks and bestiaries and such. Much of the rest is various flavors of novels, but poetry has a decent sized area.

"It's what we have. Even this much of a library is a luxury - books are heavy and a bit expensive. Glad you like it, though. Most of the poetry is copies of older things. There's a few collections from locals, though."

That's cool.

She thinks she'd like to stay here, at least for a while. She's not sure she'll be okay someplace this small in the long run, but she does like it enough to give it a try, if there are adults here she gets along with or she can figure out how to manage on her own.

"Alright. We can dig up a room for you, perhaps introduce you to some folk you might get along with. I'll let you know, most places at high altitudes tend to be small, like us. Down lower is where you get really large towns."

That's good to know. She started out even higher, she was trying to find the ground when she spotted this place.

"If you go too much higher than we are now, the air starts getting too thin to sustain lift easily. How-" He cuts himself off. How she ended up there probably wasn't a 'cryptid', but no sense bringing it up and worrying her. "How would you like to see one of the empty apartments we have, see if it'd be alright to live in?"

That sounds good, thanks.

He leads her to the apartments. Along the way he asks,

"How would you like to meet other people? Introductions? At your own pace?"

A little bit of both? She doesn't need to be introduced to everybody but she'd rather not leave knowing the important people up to chance. And it might be a good idea for everybody to know who she is, so they don't freak out about how she looks or what she can do.

"I told the folk who saw you first to spread the word about you, that you're just lost and not hostile. They might startle the first time you, erm, use magic, but anyone might. As for 'the important people', who would you consider important? My wife and I handle most of the big decisions and planning, Harold is the one you'd go to if you have a problem with somebody..."

That, yeah, and who she should talk to if she doesn't know how to do something, and anybody whose permission she might need for things if it's not obvious. She'll need to know where to go for food, too, she can take care of basically everything else.

"We can meet Harold. Maybe Leah, she's the clerk, more or less. A lot of what she does is keeping track of everything and figuring out what happened if we suddenly don't have enough water or onions or cotton. If you want something and don't know where to find it or think you might need permission, you should talk to her. And then I'll show you the kitchen. You can get food for your room, fruit and veggies and little things of bread, but prepared meals all happen in one place. Ah, here we are."

It's a studio apartment with a bed, desk, and a comfy looking chair. There's a lot of space but not a lot of furniture. There's a flat abstract glass sculpture with blue and green swirls hanging along one wall and a big window overlooking the fields and the sky.

This'll do fine, thank you.

"Good, good. I chose this one because you reminded me of it. The dresser was taken for someone else, and from what you've said, you don't need one - and I remembered it had that." He gestures at the art. "Still not sure who actually made it. The whole floor shares a toilet and bath room. This floor has rooms for women and girls only, so they should be the only ones using it. If you want more furniture, we can probably find something."

She might want to decorate a little more, but if she wants furniture she can just make it. The art is very nice, though, it was a good choice.

"Oh, right, your other, ah, magic. I know some ways that could be pretty useful, but that can wait. Nothing urgent. Good. Let's see if we can go Harold and Leah, hm?"

Sure.

Harold is a big guy who greets her politely enough but shoots doubtful looks at both her and President Mills. When he thinks she can't quite hear, Harold asks him if he's really sure about this whole 'invite the mysterious stranger to hang out with them' thing. Mills is sure. Harold says, fine, you're in charge. But he doesn't like it.

Leah seems kind of sullen and angry at everything, but not at Dusk particularly. And she's polite enough, it's just that you can see it in her body language.

She leaves Harold alone, and points out to Leah that she really doesn't expect to need much, just food really, her magic can make just about anything else.

"Well, that's good for me. Another mouth to feed is no big deal. I dunno if they're gonna put your - thing - to work or what - if you can make metal that'd be good for us but it's not like I understand techmagic."

She can make tools and things for people to use that work the same as they would if they were metal, but she can't make metal itself. She can make organic things but only some kinds and only smallish pieces.

"That thing is neat. Tools're temporary? Organic stuff has to be attached to you? Yikes."

It doesn't have to be very attached. Like this -

She makes a pearl, embedded in her forearm, and then picks it out. There's a dimple left behind, but that's all; she doesn't even wince.

"...I'd be wigged right the fff - uh - out." She shivers. "So I don't actually feel like asking for for... Stuff."

She shrugs: Okay. The tools just appear where she wants them, though.

She gestures at a watering can sitting on a shelf, and then there are two, one looking distinctly drawn.

"Oh, I meant the organic stuff. Tools are nice. I'll have to think about things we only need once. Scaffolding for a higher-up mural maybe?"

Sure. And they'll last at least a month or so - she hasn't tested longer than that - and she can make new ones whenever, so things they need all the time are fine too.

"I don't like the idea of relying on them. I'm not going to scrap or sell all our ladders and use yours instead, like. Scaffolding's probably good. Novelty stuff for the kids would be fun. Can you do, like, big power machinery? Engines?"

Yeah, that's fair. She can do engines, but she has to pay attention to them or they stop working.

"We have a few hand-powered machines for the farms, running bigger ones of those with engines once in a while would save a lot of effort. Or we could organize a trip to grab a wandering island and haul it back over here and get a little annex, expand a bit. That's something Prez would decide we wanted though."

She can probably haul an island over. She won't know until she tries but she's pretty sure she can make a plane that'll do it. And she can definitely make something that runs a hand-powered machine.

"I'll probably end up bugging you for things. But not right now. And you know where to find me if you change your mind and want something after all." She gestures around at their current location, apparently Leah's office. "And I should get back to work now, 'kay?"

Sure, thanks.

Cafeteria, next?

The President stops his conversation with someone else (he mentions that she's Camilla and she tends and grows the stuff the island is made of), and leads her to the cafeteria.

It's most of the first floor of a whole building, with dozens of little tables and one central long one, Great Hall style, all wood. There's a big mural of elaborate plates of food and ingredients at one end. The floor and the counters over there are all plasticky or glass, with a little bit of metal. Snack food and pitchers of water are laid out on two of the kitchen-end counters, and half a dozen people are here and there eating.

"We serve up hot food for a couple of hours three times a day. For holidays, we have a big feast and try to get everyone to eat together. There's a few too many people to manage it most other days, though."

That should be fine. Is it open overnight?

"I'll ask you not to use the ovens or stoves without someone to help if you want to cook, or eat too much of something we don't have a lot of, like cheese and meat, but other than that yes. We don't lock anything except two of the storerooms, the clinic - the drugs could be dangerous - and private rooms, so you can get food overnight if you need it."

She nods: That'll be fine, yeah. Thanks.

"I'm glad we could welcome you. I try to let people be as long as they aren't hurting things, and you don't seem like the sort of person to antagonize others, so this should work out well."

Yeah. She feels pretty lucky to have landed here.

The next day they mostly leave her alone. One of the little kids doesn't seem to have a concept of personal space and keeps trying to poke Dusk's nonstandard features. A couple of people pointedly don't interact with her. The school teacher would like her to go to the classroom most of the time. She gives lectures occasionally, and trips to the art room to do art, or to one of the orchards to talk about plants, but it's more than half the time 'do whatever interests you and get nudged if the teacher thinks you need a nudge' style schooling. She could do some of the work around instead if there's any interesting work, but she doesn't have to. Leah asks Dusk for a couple of very specific hand tools, a ladder, some scaffolding, a rolling pallet, and other such things occasionally.

She lets the kid poke her once, pokes him back when he tries it again, and thereafter avoids him. She's - let's say hesitant - to go to class, but after running into the group as she goes about her day a few times, she starts dropping by to see what they're doing most days after lunch, and sticking around at least as often as not, especially once the teacher catches on that she needs to keep the annoying poking kid away from her. The rest of the time she works, or hangs around to watch people work, or reads, or goes flying, or constructs elaborate and arcane cartoon contraptions out at the edge of the island.

She watches the sunset every night, sometimes on the wing, sometimes just sitting out on the west edge of the island. And as the weeks go on, she takes to spending more time out watching the sky, checking the other islands for signs of life.

The commune gets used to her and soon some of the adults wave to her cheerfully whenever they see her. The guy who was painting a city finishes his painting and starts one that's clearly inspired by Dusk, if not actually in her image. A couple of times, a ship comes in and ties down to a sort of pier on one end of the island, and trades, buying food and selling everything else. The ship people have very... Mixed reactions if they see Dusk. Some are spooked and leave right away. Some are just suddenly a lot more polite and accommodating. One was just indifferent.

Other islands are full of life, albeit mostly the non-sapient kind. Islands themselves are a bit rare, but there's often a couple of new ones visible each morning whenever there's not too much fog. Perhaps a fifth of the other islands have towns, some larger than this one, most not as neatly laid out.

She takes to flying over to the other built-up islands, when they get close enough for her to feel confident she'll be able to get back. Mostly she just overflies them, far enough up that she's not at much risk of getting hit by a thrown rock; if this seems well-received, and the town looks interesting or anyone tries to talk to her, she'll glide down closer.

Plenty of towns look interesting. People do look up, and mostly are fairly unnerved or frightened of her. One time they even start to aim a ballista-thing towards her before an argument breaks out, and they stop when they notice her flying away again.

Most of the towns in this area are small and dominated by farms. Standouts are: A patchy homestead sort of place with lots of individual islands and rope bridges... An neat and largely tree-covered place where all the homes are down below that looks like it's building an airship... An ugly amalgamation of airships, islands, and those floating mangroves... A perfectly ordinary island except that 95% of its population is pigs...

She takes a closer look at the one that seems to be building an airship.

There's halls cut into the island itself, and a big system of suspended structures and catwalks below, with giant tanks of water in the middle keeping it all balanced. About half of the adults are wearing similar clothes - almost but not quite a uniform. No teens or kids have the uniform, and the uniformed people don't really act any different...

The ones that notice her wave at her politely as she flies past.

Hi! It looks like they're building an airship, could she maybe land and have a look?

They hesitate a bit and talk to someone else but then wave her in; Sure. (Maybe she can help. And if she can fly she's not more dangerous inside than out.)

She goes where she's directed and thanks them.

She's - well, it's a long story really - but she's interested in engineering, and the island she's on isn't very good for it; she really appreciates the chance to have a look at what they're doing, and if anybody is interested in taking an apprentice, she'd like to meet them, too.

"We don't really do apprenticeships per se - well, I suppose we do sometimes, but mostly it's classes. Making ships and equipment is a profitable trade, even if we have to be pretty strict on weight allowances to maintain this kind of altitude. You want to see the Endurant Wing then? She's that ship under construction."

She'd like to, yeah.

They take her along the halls hanging under the island to a large open space in the middle, where the ship's frame is hanging. There's a wide and neatly organized workshop-y area and scaffolding around the vessel - a few people are working on things. Someone's using a power saw on a large timber, someone else is turning a chunk of metal on a lathe, two more people are picking at what looks like an engine, and three are hanging in harnesses putting wooden spars into the ship's frame. The ship itself is mostly a frame at this point, though bundles of equipment and a few deflated gas bags are in place here and there on the inside.

"So, whaddaya think?"

Very cool. Are they doing anything in particular to reinforce the gas bags?

"I'm not actually an engineer, so maybe we can ask those two." He points at the pair working on an engine.

If she won't be interrupting them, yeah, she'd like that.

"It wouldn't be an interruption!" The younger of the two guys says. "We're, uh, trying to figure out a problem and taking a break or talking about it helps sometimes. If you want to talk. Er, if that counts as talking."

She counts it, yeah. What problem are they working on?

"It was making a funny sound and then the pressure development dropped like a rock tossed overboard," the other guy says. "Noise stopped, though. We could take it all apart but it's faster if we figure out what happened."

She could probably help with that if she knew how the engine worked, but it might not be worth their time to explain it to her. Oh well.

"Oh, uh, you might be helpful actually - we call it rubber ducking. Er. I'm not sure why. But when you explain the problem to someone else sometimes that makes it easier to see what's wrong."

Well, sure, she can do that. And maybe her other spell will be useful, too - she can make things, they aren't quite real so they're not good to use as an engine or anything but she can still make a model for them.

"Wait, not quite real - That's awesome but what does it even mean-"

It means stuff like this - she makes a book, opens it up to show them the gibberish inside, turns several pages and shows them how the opening never moves from the center of it.

Some things work better than others, and she can get some use out of a magic engine if she knows how it works, but she has to personally be paying attention the whole time or it stops moving like it should.

"Well it's not like I understand how computers work so this isn't - hmm. The speaking-without-sound thing is even weirder now that I think about it."

It's magic, yeah. It's not a long story exactly but it's a weird one, they don't believe her about it where she's living now.

"I have heard many weird stories and they're usually pretty hard to prove, yeah. Might be better to just get to, uh, talking about engines instead."

Sure. So how's it supposed to work?

Well, hot gas expands. It works like this-

Teddy and the other guy trade off bits of explanations with each other. Teddy hesitantly asks for a model of the rotary chamber after a couple of minutes, to make explaining easier.

She builds as they explain, adding parts as she thinks she has a good enough understanding of them to get it right.

She can't make a rotary chamber without knowing how it works, though.

Well, then, this is how it works, and it spins like this, no that part should be shaped a little more curved, see how it fits against this other thing...

"This is very cool you know."

She definitely knows.

And then there's a rotary chamber, done up in something like colored glass so all the moving parts are visible.

"So, do you think it could be the, uh, air intake here, it could've been vibrating and then snapped off maybe...?"

Technical discussion ensues.

She listens politely and asks questions when she has them. It's pretty obvious that she has a bit of an engineering education already; not enough to contribute, really, but enough to avoid asking questions more annoying than 'what does this term mean'.

Here, the local sort of English rears its head - a lot of the jargon is different. They eventually decide that it's probably the air intake bit, here, but it might be this gear over there instead, which would be bad.

"I'm honestly not sure whether you want to watch us try and open this up."

(She keeps her terminology questions to a minimum, once it's obvious that asking every time she's curious would be obnoxious. They're pointing at things often enough that she can figure most of it out anyway, with a little effort.)

She'd like to see, if they don't mind her sticking around. She can put shields up if it's dangerous or anything.

"Not dangerous, just a bit messy and maybe boring," comments the older guy. "Ye've got all those nice clothes and everything. Mostly you want to work on engines in rags and aprons."

Oh, she can fix her clothes if anything happens to them, it's part of her magic. An apron wouldn't be a bad idea, though -

And now she's wearing an apron in silver cloud-painted denim with shimmery tulle ruffles at the edges, just as fancy as the rest of her outfit.

"...Woah, I didn't catch that bit at first. Do they go away after a while like the other things?"

"Engine, lad. Focus on the engine. Trying to understand that stuff's all but a lost cause anyway."

"But I'm interested!"

She can explain it later, but it's a different part of the magic with different rules, they don't go away until she makes them.

"Then you can end- No. Transportation issues. You could alleviate material scarcity with that."

Hmm?

"Fresh metal is pretty hard to come by. Recycling and old wrecks are where we get at least ninety nine point nine percent of it. Lots of useful stuff, like air conditioning, we use sparingly because there's only so much metal to go around. So if you make yourself be wearing something with a lot of steel hanging off it, or something, and then take it off over and over again it'd improve everyone's lives in a sort of... Distributed way... Or does it not work that way?"

It doesn't work that way. She can make organic things like that - most organic things are dangerous and painful to remove, though, she has to make them as part of her body - but clothes and anything that couldn't've been part of a plant or animal will disappear if she removes them. If they want a bunch of, like, pearls, or wool, she can do that, but not metal.

"Ouch."

Pause.

"...Blood contains... No, fu- Forget I mentioned anything. We can get wood and cotton and stuff from regular old farming. No need for anything drastic and dangerous or painful."

"So, time to actually open up the engine?"

"Yeah, time to open up the engine."

He turns and grabs a wrench.

She watches.

It's the air filter. They spend twenty minutes pulling it out, fifteen fixing it, and ten putting it back in, then turn the engine on, chatting about the mechanics of it a bit during the process.

Engine turns on. They rev it up some. "Seems good!"

That was really cool! She appreciates them letting her watch.

"Yeah, mechanics is neat - I first started watching people work when I was, like, ten. Actual classes came a bit later."

She didn't have a chance until recently, but she's been learning a lot. She hasn't had any classes, though, she mostly learned from books.

"Well, we have some books, but mostly it's experts teaching new people. We build or fix ships and engines and everything else and sell them to keep our stocks of food up, so we have to be good at it."

That's very cool. Are the teachers nice? Does he think they might be interested in taking her on as a student?

"The teachers are... Teachers. I'm not sure how to tell if they're nice. Mr. Dunlop criticizes assignments very thoroughly and says 'the laws of physics don't give partial credit'?"

Hm. She might have to just meet them. (She's still calm, but it seems a little forced, now.)

"It's pretty useful for getting everything right, actually. And he'll help you fix what you overlooked." He shrugs.

The engine cuts off behind him, and his friend says, "Not to interrupt but, uh, we should look over everything again and then tell Vane it's working again."

She's not in a rush, she can wait.