One Curious Kobold

[lurkingkobold]

It's winter, and all is well with the tribe. Their new magic, an ability to make portals from one place to another, which was found by one of their members during the early-summer trip to meet with the other tribes in the area, let them both build up a decadent food stockpile and move to a much deeper part of the cave system without the worry of being unable to find their way back out. No-one has had to go hungry, and even the fiercest ice storm doesn't reach them; they are as content as kobolds can be.

Well, aside from their new mage, that is. She's bored, and curious. Making portals to known places is straightforward enough, with the magic she found, but that's far from the limit of what it can do... so one day, she slips away, portals off to a different cave system - one can't be too careful, after all - and experiments.

Temperature roughly the same... gravity roughly the same... air the same, not into stone or underwater or in a volcano or on top of a mountain... but, instead of patterning it after a place she knows, what happens if she only specifies those things, and lets the innate patterns of the spot she's casting on do the rest? Particularly this one part, which seems to specify the world...

She finishes the spell, and hesitates for just a moment before activating it.

Comments

[lurkingkobold]

She grins and nods. "Spring: new fur, new plants, new small kobolds," she indicates the size of a hatchling kobold - much smaller than a cat, closer to a guinea pig - "very awww."

[calescent]

"Awwwwwwwww!"

[lurkingkobold]

She grins a little wider, and then has an idea.

One twine-portal later, she has a little stone statue of a hatching kobold, about half life-size, to pass around.

[calescent]

Ardelay siblings admire the sculpture - Kiri clarifies the scale - and then pass it back.

[lurkingkobold]

And back it goes through the portal. A startled 'eep' comes through from the other side, and the kobold looks briefly guilty and closes it.

[calescent]

"Somebody was there?"

[lurkingkobold]

Nod.

She recognized that voice, though, and they'll be fine.

[calescent]

"She knows who it was, they'll be fine," Kiri relays to her brothers.

[spinnaker]

"Yeah, who was it?"

[lurkingkobold]

Kobolds' awareness of each other doesn't really condense down to a single easily-defined thing, and certainly not a name. That particular one, the kobold knows as one of the more easygoing and jovial in the tribe; often hunts, often looks after others' children, sometimes acts as a wet nurse, is one of the better hunting teachers. Likes music and sweet food; tends to sleep late; always makes a point of looking for something pretty to bring back to the tribe when they go on a hunting expedition. Prefers high-up hiding places for the hiding-and-finding game. Has an egg, this year, which is probably why they were near the egg supplies. Not a friend, exactly, but certainly an ally, someone the kobold trusts.

[calescent]

"They don't exactly have names to identify each other with and they're not a close friend or relative, just a tribemate, but they have an egg this year and were near the egg-related objects," Kiri reports. "...No, Aleko, they do not polish their eggs, they carry them around and use slings and insulation to keep them warm and safe."

[lurkingkobold]

Nod.

(She doesn't have quite enough context to get 'polish', but the rest is right.)

[calescent]

"Polishing is rubbing things to make them shiny." Kiri demonstrates with her spoon and napkin.

[lurkingkobold]

That is definitely not a thing one does to eggs. Not eggs one wants to hatch, anyway.

[calescent]

"Like I said."

[lurkingkobold]

Indeed.

So.

"Jayce tell about self?"

[spinnaker]

"I'm Kiri and Aleko's little brother, I do a lot of the business management stuff for her, I like dancing and shiny objects, and I don't actually know how much Welchin you've picked up since you've been here so I can go explain any of that if you want."

[calescent]

"I got it, Jayce. We all three have the same parents, and Aleko and I are the same age, and Jayce is younger," Kiri translates. "Sister and brother are words for having the same parents depending on, uh - sort of like -" She dips into the, not so much gendered, sexed, pronouns in animalperson.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold gets about as far as 'why would you have a word for that, ew' before shutting down that train of thought. Okay, siblings, right.

[calescent]

"...It's, uh, I could try to explain but you might want to just file it as 'weird human thing'. Although if you use the wrong word for someone they might not like it."

[liakoura]

"Wait, what? Explain what?"

[calescent]

"Genders. Kobolds don't seem to - use the concept?"

[lurkingkobold]

She is very willing to file that under 'weird human thing'. (Ew.)

[calescent]

"...The form of 'brother' or 'sister' that doesn't use gender is 'sibling'," says Kiri.

[spinnaker]

"I... don't understand. Why is - uh, should we not say 'she' for the kobold, you've been saying 'she' -? Why are you making that face, kobold?"