—and a shower of golden sparks marks the appearance of a peregrine falcon.

"Aaah!" she screams, falling buttfirst on the grass.

"Aaah!" the falcon replies, scampering backwards awkwardly and falling to its side.

"Aaaaah!" she continues. "You can talk! You did just scream, didn't you? That wasn't my imagination." She feels silly, talking to a falcon, but hey, if it doesn't actually reply, who cares?

The falcon collects itself and shakes its feathers, then clears its throat. "I can, and I did, yes. Terribly sorry for that."

She gets her bearings and crosses her legs, leaning forward to peer at him. "How? I mean, sorry, that may be a rude question, but I'd never seen a talking peregrine falcon before."

"I can't say I have had the pleasure of seeing a talking human before, either."

She blinks. "Erm."

"Or a talking anything," he clarifies. "I think I didn't exist until just now. Very disconcerting."

"Didn't... exist...?" She looks at the portal she's just stepped through, then at him. "Did I create you? I did, didn't I."

"I can't say for sure..." he starts carefully, "but it does seem that way. I know a few things about you. Or a great many things about you. I know you're called Sadde Woods, I know you used the subtle knife to open that portal," he gestures at it with a wing, "and I know you've been looking for a world that has something you can use to solve the little pesky problem of the spectres back in your world."

She blinks. "And just how do you know that?"

Winged shrug.

"Well, do you know anything else? Can you tell me stuff about this world? What's your name?"

"I think it's very possible that I know everything you do, and not a single thing more, including my name."

She looks around, then stands up and closes the portal with her left hand. She flops down on the grass again. "You know everything I do. You came into existence as soon as I stepped through this portal. A few possibilities spring to mind. You could be a hallucination, maybe this world has some weird pollen or something in the air that makes me hallucinate about talking animals..."

"Terribly hard to verify. We could go back to the world you came from, see if I still exist after a few minutes there. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure I exist, so while we're verifying that, please don't treat me like a hallucination."

"If you're a hallucination, is that idea mine?" she asks as she reopens the portal she just closed and steps through.

"Yours, clearly. But I'm not," he says, jumping through the portal.

Both sides being very similar, she once again flops down on the grass, after closing the portal. "Well, you still exist here, so if I'm not hallucinating you're something that persists. You could be a... spirit animal? I should verify that you know everything I do, shouldn't I. Though you already knew my name and my tragic backstory..."

"You were thinking of finding a world similar to the one with the witches before you opened the portal."

"Wait, whoa, can you read my mind?"

"I cannot. I only know you up until the point where I began existing."

"...okay... so... Either that universe created you with full knowledge of my mind or something, or you were living there and the universe just brought you out."

"That seems to be the case. From your vantage point I could still be a hallucination, I suppose."

"A very specific hallucination. Very vivid, too. Why would I hallucinate a talking falcon that knows everything I do up until the point I started hallucinating?"

Shrug.

"Okay, well, we could wait here for a few more minutes to see if the effect will... pass... But you could be a permanent hallucination, if you're magical, or something."

"In which case it's hardly fair to call me a hallucination, if as far as you can determine I'm enough of a person to meaningfully interact with."

"I suppose you're right. A better test would be other people being able to see you."

"Which you could also hallucinate, if whatever this is is thorough enough."

"Well, yes, but at some point I have to stop doubting my senses and just take them at face value or I won't be able to do anything."

"Yes, that was indeed what I was getting at."

"Well... fine, I suppose. We can wait a few more minutes and then get back to that world."

"Yes, we can."

"So, what can you tell me about yourself?"

"That I would like to have a name. I think 'Luca' is a good one."

"It's not bad. You're naming yourself, then?"

"Or you're naming me, since I seem to have your memories. I can also speak Italian."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Luca."

"I cannot say the same, since I seem to have met you before I actually existed."

She giggles. "I suppose that's true." She cocks her head a bit. "May I pet you? Is that a rude thing to ask? You look adorable."

"Might as well," he shrugs, and flies over to her.

Pet pet! "Okay, I like having a hallucination falcon or spirit animal or whatever." She tentatively moves to hug him.

He allows this.

She hugs him! And buries her face in his feathers. "This feels weird."

"It does. Spirit animal or something."

She continues hugging him for a couple more minutes then determines she won't get any new information from just staying there. "I'm gonna reopen the portal."

He dips his head.

She does, and steps through, then closes it after him. No new showers of gold. "I wonder if other people in this world have spirit animals, too."

Shrug.

"We should probably get back to town, then, see if we can figure anything out. Library's always a good bet."

"Yes. I'll scout ahead." So he takes flight, and—

—she cries out—

—he falls out of the sky—

—she runs after him (bloody backpack why are you so heavy go bugger yourself she drops it and continues running) and sweeps him up in a hug. "Oh, Luca, my Luca, that, oh."

He makes a few noises in her arms, with his eyes closed.

She snuggles him. "That was horrible. What was it?"

"It seems," he says, keeping his voice level, "that we have a maximum distance. How peculiar."

"Some sort of magical spirit animal. You fell. Are you hurt?"

"I am not, but thank you. It wasn't that high a fall." He shakes his feathers a bit and preens himself. "But I think I'm going to stay around you."

"Yes, that's a good idea," she says, and wipes a single tear from her cheek with her sleeve. Still cradling him, she returns for her backpack, and then puts him gently on the ground so she can grab it.

"I can probably fly if I stay close enough to you. It's better than being cradled around."

"Yes. That sounds like a good idea." She inhales deeply, then starts making her way to town.

Luca takes off and follows, flying in circles around her, zigzagging and making sure he's within the not-in-horrible-emotional-pain radius.

Eventually they reach this world's mirror of the town they'd just left. It's more different than town-mirrors usually are—they'll probably need to ask for directions to a library. She looks up at Luca. "I don't know if you'll have that much space to fly around me here."

"...what's your suggestion? My talons would probably hurt you."

"I could carry you like a baby!"

He sighs and lands on the ground. "And here lies my dignity. At some point you should find and purchase falconry gloves or pauldrons."

She scoops him up. "Eventually. You're really fluffy, and it's cute how you look all grumpy all the time."

Luca does not deign to respond.

She hugs him and then starts exploring a bit of the town.

There are people! All sorts of people, and more relevantly with all sorts of animals! The farther into town they go, the more people they see, with all sorts of animals everywhere. Notably, however, almost none large enough that they'd be effectively inconvenient to have around.

Both Sadde and Luca find this terribly fascinating, and look around at everyone. They're a bit closer to the town centre when—

—a little girl, a toddler, appears, looks up at Luca, and says, "You look grumpy." She looks at Sadde. "He looks grumpy."

Sadde looks down at the girl and chuckles. "Yes, he does, doesn't he? He's very grumpy."

Luca rolls his eyes.

"It's because he needs a hug! You're not hugging him right!"

"Is that so? Do you wanna hug him?"

"Ooh, yes! Can I?"

A little mouse climbs on the girl's head and twitches its nose.

Luca regards the girl and the mouse coolly.

The mouse—

—shifts—

—and becomes a ferret, slithering down the girl's clothes. She giggles.

Both Sadde and Luca blink at that. She looks at him.

He closes his eyes, but fails to shapeshift, so he shrugs. Then he looks down at the girl and says, "You may."

Sadde obligingly lowers Luca to the ground.

"Yaaaaay!" the girl says, and, being only a little bit taller than the daemon, wraps her arms around him—

pain

don't

Luca doesn't emit a noise, he just starts squirming unhappily in the girl's grip.

"Hee, your feathers tickle!"

Sadde doubles over and starts shivering, and—

hurts

horrible

"- please stop -"

despair

violation

And the girl probably didn't hear or notice Sadde's suffering, her eyes closed and her face buried in Luca's feathers—

"Oh my God, Annabelle let go of them this instant!" a woman's voice calls, and the girl eeps and lets go of the falcon.

Luca's released and immediately jumps/flies towards Sadde in a very ungraceful manner—

—and she hugs him and holds him close and says soothing gibberish into his feathers, burying her face in them, kissing her spirit animal.

"I am so sorry, I don't know what could've come over her," the mother starts apologising. She throws the girl a look. "You don't touch other people's daemons! You hurt them when you do!"

The girl's eyes start filling with tears and she starts sobbing. "I—I just—just wanted to—to give him a hug! He was so grumpy!"

"You do not touch someone's daemon!" the mother repeats. "Apologise!" Then she turns back to Sadde and says, "I'm really, really sorry, she didn't know what she was doing..."

The little spectacle did the opposite of drawing a small crowd, and people seem to be mostly steering clear of them.

"'S fine," she mumbles into Luca's feathers. "Couldn't've known..." She sniffles a bit, looks at the woman, and asks, "Do you know where a library is?"

Luca shivers.

The woman blinks. "Y-yes, it's actually not far from here—" And she gives Sadde directions, looking bewildered, while her daughter (held firmly by the hand) and her spirit animal continue bawling their eyes out.

She nods, thanks the woman, and starts following her directions.

"So, no touching other people's spirit animals, then."

He nods. "And now we have a name for what I am. Should make it easy to figure it all out." He shivers again.

"Yeah."

She goes to the library, and asks for books on daemons and 'magic in general.' The librarian gives her a funny look but tells her where to find those books, which seem to be in completely different parts of the library.

"So apparently they don't really see daemons as magic?"

"So it would seem."

"That's peculiar." She grabs books on daemons first, because that seems more immediately relevant, and starts reading.

Luca does the same, over Sadde's shoulder.

Eventually: "So, you're my soul."

"That would seem to be the case."

She gets up and finds a book on animal meanings and looks peregrine falcon up. "This seems... broadly correct, but I wonder if this isn't just a case of horoscope-type meanings."

"You could look at other animals."

"Yeah." So she looks at a couple of others, and nods. "I think you're me."

"That's consistent with our observations, yes. What a peculiar little world."

"Isn't it just?"

"It's a shame I never went through the shapeshifting phase. I'm sure that would have been interesting."

"Why are you so... stoic? Shouldn't my soul be more like me?"

"Why are you so whimsical? Shouldn't you be more like your soul?" he retorts.

"I came first!"

"Says who? I was inside you all the time."

She giggles a bit, in a low voice because library. "Okay, you're definitely my soul."

"Glad we got that settled," he says dryly.

"Well, I definitely want to read this book through at some point, but I think we got enough information out of it to move on to more general magic, yes?"

"That sounds reasonable."

Books about magic! Reading reading.

...reading.

"Well, this is a bit like that other world, isn't it."

"Seems to be."

"Sort of annoying that the only kind of magic here is witch, but I guess it's still better than nothing."

"You don't know that it's the only kind of magic here. I'm magic, even if the people from here don't think so. There could be other kinds of magic."

"That's true, I suppose."

"...so you should go ask the librarian about non-witch magic."

"...that's a pretty good idea, actually. We should go do that."

"Yes, we should."

She walks up to the librarian, then.

"Hi again! So, er, are there any books on magic that's not... witch magic?"

"...like what?"

"I mean, I don't know, isn't there any other kind of magic than witch magic?"

The librarian rubs his chin slowly. "I suppose some people would consider alethiometers magic..."

Would they. That's nice.

"What's an alethiometer?"

"Truth-telling device."

"Erm?"

He sighs and points at the right section.

She thanks him and goes after the book!

Read read read.

Read read...

...

...read.

"...we seem to have found exactly what we needed."