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"'Aurorans'..." He rubs his eyes for a minute. The atronach does a self-satisfied twirl. "I don't know. I've read that name before, but I never turned up much information about them. Just that they're, uh. More powerful than anything I'm used to summoning."

Head clearing somewhat, he gives Sunshine a shrug. "But if we can't find another option, it might be worth a shot."

Oh, gods. "Just that," Sunshine repeats, her voice just a little bit strained. Just that. Hell, far be it from her to tell Felix what he is and isn't capable of, magically speaking, but she's not so sure a casual shrug is in order, here.

"Okay," she says in a more measured tone, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Let's just… keep that one in reserve." It sounds like a worst case scenario, so they might as well officially treat it as such, right?

"I don't think anyone's even seen one in thousands of years." he says apologetically, possibly misreading her reaction. Conjuration is built on hidden secrets and obscure bits of lore, much more deliberately than the other schools of magic. He likes to think he's good at rooting them out, but in this case he got the impression there wasn't much to find.

He lets the atronach wander off a bit to inspect the hilltop. They seem to be done questioning it. The wind helps take the edge off the sense of heat in his skin.

"All right," he agrees, a little reluctantly. Part of him would love to see if there's any way he could summon an Auroran, precisely because nobody else can. On the other hand... Sunshine might have the smarter instinct. Save that for later. "Then I suppose our best bet is still asking around for a shrine. Carefully, of course."

Granted, Sunshine doesn't really know what she's talking about, though the fact that no one has even seen one of these Aurorans (she's picturing some beefy golden Thor-types with blazing broadswords and a few too many teeth) in centuries does seem to suggest that they're better left alone.

But her reaction mostly stems from the belief that anyone counting themselves a warrior for Meridia won't take too kindly to Sunshine trying to get out of whatever it is Meridia brought her here to do. And, okay, they're going to have to talk to someone who knows how to summon her in order to pull it off, themselves, but Sunshine would much rather have that 'someone' be a bookish researcher who squirrels away information for kicks than one of Meridia's number one fans.

"Okay," she agrees, watching the atronach drift around the hilltop. "That means going to… Whiterun, right?" So, days of travel versus summoning something. For a moment, she sees the appeal of going for an Auroran, but… no. Hell, they'd probably have to do similar research before Felix would be ready for that, and if he succeeded, she might find herself facing down an otherworldly warrior on a very different page re: her getting home as soon as possible.

Felix nods. "I'll grant you it's the more hospitable option. They've got decent inns-"

He's cut off by an alarming squeal from the atronach's direction. He spins to face it with a rattled "What-?" before he realises it sounds like a child. Fantastic.

Sunshine definitely wasn't braced for any shrieking (at least, not any coming from third parties; she's been a little tempted to do a little shrieking of her own). She jerks around in surprise, wondering if the fire thing made the sound - wondering what could even prompt a fire thing to make a noise like that - before realizing the timbre was less unholy demon and more petrified child.

Oh, gods. She can't say she blames the kid, but she's at a bit of a loss as to what to do. In the coffeehouse, she's great with kids. It's easy when you're the official dispenser of cookies, and when something as simple as allowing the kids behind the counter is seen as the coolest thing. But she's not in the coffeehouse, she's on a hilltop in a carthaginian alternate dimension with a conjurer and a fire demon (and she's guessing the fact that it's a relatively friendly fire demon isn't going to count for much in the eyes of a little kid).

Well, she can't do nothing. "Hey," she calls out, taking a few steps toward the atronach, trying to peer past it for the source of the noise. "It's, um, it's all right. No one's going to hurt you."

Felix isn't much surer of himself; you have to be very careful, where children are concerned. Conjurers get enough disapproval as it is, and people here just aren't as relaxed about magic as they are back home. He has the presence of mind to recall the atronach from the rock it was peeking behind, anyway. He'll dismiss it altogether if he gets the impression it might help.

There's a strained few seconds, tempting Felix to take a few steps closer. Just to check. But before he gets very far, the little girl peeps over her cover, wide-eyed and uncertain. He gives her a little wave and a reassuring smile.

"You can come out," he assures her, waving the atronach back further. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

She could point out that from a newcomer's perspective, there is plenty to be afraid of, with that flaming elemental as her Exhibit A. Maybe children in this universe are more blasé about such things - Sunshine remembers, with sudden clarity, those little kids giggling at that godawful crustacean - but the girl screamed a moment ago, and she's looking pretty freaked out right now. Whatever her previous experience with atronachs, it seems she is not a fan.

Sunshine slowly drops into a crouch, putting herself more on the kid's level. "I'm Sunshine. And this is Felix," she offers with a gesture in his direction. Then, after an uncertain pause, "And, um… I don't know what the fire thing's name is, but I'm sure it's… nice?" Very good, Sunshine. She just hopes she hasn't offended the creature; maybe Felix could stop it from doing any actual harm, but they don't need it acting up in front of the kid.

The girl bites her lip, but she comes out from around the rocks, still frowning at them. For a kid who can't be more than ten, she can give quite a stern look.

"That's a daedra, isn't it?" she asks suspiciously. "I can tell it's not supposed to be here." That's a very subjective point of view, Felix thinks, but not one he's arguing with a little girl.

"Well, yes. But it only does what I ask it. And I can send it away again, see?" He nods at the atronach as he dismisses it again, and its form fades with a crackle of sparks. Next time, friend.

"...Well, all right." The girl still doesn't seem entirely certain about them, but she pulls herself up and offers, "My name's Sissel."

Sunshine straightens, wondering if she should be grateful that the kid is singling out the daedra as the one obviously out of place. Granted, in terms of noticeable weirdness, she can't really compete with something made of fire. Her clothes are bright by local standards, but they're not literally ablaze.

Now that Felix has dismissed the daedra, though, she's waiting for the kid's dubious glare to be transferred over to her, the runner-up in the obviously-out-of-place competition. She doesn't relish the thought of being under some random tyke's scrutiny, but what can she do? Hide behind Felix?

"Nice to meet you," she says, hooking her thumbs into her pockets. Then, "Sorry if we scared you." 'We' is taking things a bit liberally, but she doesn't want to throw Felix under the proverbial bus.

The thought's appreciated; Felix gives her a faintly surprised glance as he makes a little bow to the girl. "Yes, we were hoping to avoid disturbing anyone by coming up here."

"I wasn't that scared," Sissel insists, folding her arms and doing her best impression of a proud Nord warrior. Or at least, Felix guesses that's what she's doing. To his amusement, she manages to hold the stubborn look for all of a minute. Claiming she wasn't scared at all would be too obviously a lie, but the shock of coming face-to-face with a flaming elemental is clearly wearing off.

Instead, Sunshine is very definitely the focus of her attention. Although to give the kid credit, she's trying not to stare. It's just hard for her not to goggle a bit at the brightest clothes she's ever seen. "...You're from somewhere a long way away, right? Are you a conjurer too?"

Aaaaand there's the scrutiny, with a side of very pointed questions. At least they aren't difficult to answer. "Yes," she says, "and no. I'm a…" well, 'baker' would sound kind of ludicrous. Part of her wants to stubbornly insist that that's all she is, just a baker in the company of a conjurer because why not, but she can imagine the look the girl would give her, and she doesn't particularly want to see it in reality. "I'm a transmuter," she says instead, clarifying, "I can change little things into other little things." It doesn't sound particularly impressive when she phrases it like that, but she's not really out to impress.

Sissel's eyes go quite wide. "Really? So-" she hesitates, "so did you come because of the dragons?"

"Because of-?" Felix's widening smirk vanishes; his eyes dart toward Sunshine before he interjects. "Ah, no. We just traveled here to visit Skyrim. We definitely want to steer clear of any... er, possible dragons."

For a moment, Sunshine thinks Sissel's referring to the dead one supposedly buried here, and she casts a confused glance at the mound. Then the pluralization registers, and she looks over at Felix, eyebrows raised, just in time to catch the look he sends her way. It's the apprehensive sort of look that pretty much screams 'oh, damn, no one was supposed to mention the live kali dragons,' and she stiffens indignantly. When the hell was he going to bring up the dragons? Tomorrow? Whenever a telltale dragon-shaped shadow passed overhead? Shiva wept.

She really wants to ask for a little clarification, here, like, how many dragons? What size are we talking about? Are they intelligent? Hypothetically speaking, would some kind of meddling solar pseudo-deity expect an otherworlder to have a single goddamn thing to do with them? If it didn't involve grilling a little kid for information that her unofficial guide has been withholding from her (or grilling her unofficial guide in front of a little kid), she probably would. As it is, she just gives Felix a sharp look and says, with a great deal of feeling, "Yes, we do want to steer clear of dragons."

Uh-oh. His guilty expression says he haas a pretty good idea of what's going through her mind. On the bright side, he tells himself, at least she knows what dragons are. (On the downside, she clearly knows enough to be annoyed about it.)

"It won't be hard," he says meekly, hoping that mollifies his companion for the moment.

"Oh." Luckily for Sissel, this all goes over her head. She goes on quite innocently, "Erik said warriors would come from all over Tamriel to fight them. So they can be heroes, just like in the songs. Ummm..." She hesitates, the stubborn front cracking properly now. She's been taught to be wary of strangers - especially foreigners - but there's clearly something she wants enough to overcome that.

"Could- could you show me?" she asks Sunshine hopefully. "Some of your transm- trans... muting?"

Edited 2014-07-02 16:48 (UTC)

She's not feeling particularly mollified. If she was in a better frame of mind, she might be amused by how cowed he is, but she isn't, so she settles for a lingering, we-are-not-done-talking-about-this glare.

Her expression softens when Sissel asks for a demonstration. Belatedly, it occurs to her that she could have offered to show off as an ice breaker - little magics were flash stark entertainment during recess back in elementary school, and transmutation is so innocuous that it's more party trick than threatening display. Just the thing to follow up the conjuration of a flaming daedra.

"Sure," she says, thinking back to her grandmother's lessons. "Okay. First, we have to find something small - small enough to fit between my hands." There's not much on offer around the windswept mound, and she'd prefer not to work with a rock if she doesn't have to, so she wanders past the standing stones to poke around in the grass. She's hoping for a flower or some sufficiently broad leaves, with bonus points given to anything she recognizes from home as not rash-inducing (because frantically transmuting this universe's version of poison ivy into cortisone cream would be something of an anticlimax). Or maybe Sissel will find something. Sunshine figures she might as well give the kid the opportunity to feel involved; it's more interesting that way.

Sissel's expression brightens up immediately. "Oh! I know!" She runs over to the other side of the hilltop, scrambling over a low pile of rocks. "This is where all the lavender grows up here. It's all right to use flowers, isn't it?"

"Well, at least you have a new friend," Felix mutters to Sunshine. He might be pouting just a little at getting passed over by the kid, but he has to admit he's less interesting-looking. That, and Sissel's probably seen all she wants of his magic.

"Perfect," Sunshine says to Sissel.

She arches an eyebrow at Felix's mutterings. "Yeah, you'd think the fire demon would have won her over," she murmurs back. "Maybe you should try another ghost dog; encourage it to give puppy shape a try." She's mostly joking, but not entirely. Kids love puppies, right?

When Sissel returns with a sprig of lavender, Sunshine takes the flowers and rolls the stem between her fingertips. "Okay," she says, dropping into a crouch again. She lays the lavender on one palm, clearly visible, then covers it with her other hand. Her lessons are coming back to her - Sissel only looks a little bit older than Sunshine was when her grandmother started to teach her - and it isn't hard to lapse into the old lesson plan (even as it gives her a sudden pang of missing her grandmother). She takes a breath, then asks, "So, what's something else small and light and a little bit ticklish?"

Edited 2014-07-03 16:41 (UTC)

"Hah! If I had that much control I'd summon a horse and we could ride all the way to Whiterun." He sounds wistful: Sunshine might guess that he's tried.

He steps closer to watch her demonstration, at least half as interested as Sissel is. Although it would be hard to match the little girl's thirst for magic. She leans close, watching raptly as Sunshine covers the flower.

"Um... a ribbon?" she suggests, thinking hard. "Oh, or a feather!"

Sunshine grins. It's a close match to her own childhood choices - a feather, a scrap of cloth, three matchsticks - and yeah, some of that is undoubtedly due to the fact that there just aren't that many palm-sized lightweight things to choose from in any given universe, but it's strangely comforting all the same.

Since she was already half-thinking of a feather, herself, she starts with that. She takes a moment to solidify the mental image of what she's after (at first she imagines an ordinary brown and white speckled affair, but then she decides something a little more interesting might be better, like the iridescent blue of an indigo bunting), then gives the flowers a good nudge with her magic.

Sunshine opens her hands, revealing a slim pinion feather a couple inches long. It looks black in the shadow of her hand, but when she pinches it between her fingers and lifts it into the sun, it flashes an intense, vivid blue. She feels like a 'ta-daaa' might be in order, but she settles for a less obnoxious, "And there's your feather."

Sissel tries to stifle her delighted squeak, but her eyes are shining as she admires the feather. Felix applauds very softly behind her, not to interrupt the moment.

"It's so pretty! Can I hold it? Is it hard to do?"

Sunshine glances up at Felix, her expression suggesting that this is not applause-worthy work (not to anyone over the age of ten who can summon otherworldly beings out of the carthaginian air, anyway), but it's hard not to smile at Sissel's enthusiasm.

"Sure." She passes the feather over. "Just don't lose it. First rule of transmutation: always change things back, if you can." Never mind that she flouted that rule within fifteen minutes of her arrival, and she gives Felix a sheepish look and a tiny shrug before returning her attention to the girl. "Maybe we can turn it into a ribbon first, though."

The last question gives her pause, if only because she isn't sure Sissel really wants to hear about relative densities and the differences between natural objects and man made ones. Felix might be, but she's not currently entertaining him. "Light things aren't very difficult," she says. "It gets trickier when it gets heavier."

Edited 2014-07-03 21:02 (UTC)

The applause might be in large part for how she's handling Sissel; after all, it's not like she's been having the easiest day up to now.

But he wasn't exaggerating his appreciation earlier: there really aren't many people who do full-blown transmutation about, as opposed to changing some of a thing's properties. The rule she cites is one he's never heard before, and he raises his eyebrows accordingly.

"I'll be careful," Sissel promises. She curls her hands around the feather to keep it safe from the wind, tilting it toward the light. As exciting as the prospect of another transformation is, she sounds disappointed when she adds, "Why do we have to turn it back, though? There's lots of flowers around. Nobody would mind, would they?"

Well, regardless of how terrible a day she's having, it would be hard to justify taking it out on a little kid. Especially a little kid who's already had a scare thanks to their magic handling.

... And even a kid who's asking pointed, awkward questions. Sunshine hasn't exactly taken transmutation theory courses; she only graduated high school by the skin of her teeth. All she knows is what her grandmother taught her, and the pervasive uneasiness she feels when she doesn't return things to their original state (and tidy up after herself). If there are stuffy, scientific reasons to do it, or cosmic balance related reasons to do it, she doesn't know what they are or if they even apply here.

"It's what my grandmother taught me," she finally says. "It's good manners to leave things as you found them." Such a simplified explanation sounds weak to Sunshine's ears, but if it was good enough for her at age nine, maybe it'll be good enough for Sissel.

Fortunately, the 'because I said so' school of parenting is one of those constants whichever realm you're in. The appeal to good manners is quite effective on Sissel. Felix looks speculative, as if he's trying to match it up to any of the principles he knows.

"Oh. I understand, I guess." She has a long last look at the feather, trying to remember exactly how it looks. Then she offers it back. "Do you want to change it now?"