tushanshu | Video

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[ The image of a rather ordinary, unremarkable looking man fills the screen. He’s clean-shaven, wearing a pair of black-framed glasses, and he’s got brown hair, cut short and though it’s a little messy, there’s something about it that suggests that it had been styled at one point earlier in the day. He’s just slightly disheveled, which those familiar with the comings and goings of individuals to Keeliai might recognize as a sign of a new arrival. ]

So this is… [ There’s a moment of silence, as he trails off and glances away from the camera. ] …different.

[ It only lasts for a second, before he looks back and rolls his eyes. ]

The whole—I mean, well… Whatever.

[ He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and pulls himself together. ]

Right, okay. I was given a place to live but no job, and I’m guessing that it isn’t free rent forever. So if there’s, I don’t know, a job center? Help wanted ads? Some turtle world version of Craigslist? Something? Could someone point me in the right direction?

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[ A number of responss run through Justin's mind. Things like uh, well, it usually depends on the kind of movie and what do you mean, relations with the kedan as they stand? But everything he might say gets ignored in favor of one very important point he feels that he needs to clarify. ]

A, a dragon? Did I—Like an actual dragon?

Oh, yes, but you need not worry: I do not eat anyone, or destroy anything for no reason, or kidnap princesses, as I am told dragons were wont to do in a great many other people's myths and legends.

Oh, no. I figured. I mean, well, if you were that kind of dragon, you wouldn't talk to people, right? You'd just be flying along, pulverizing villages and eating young ladies or whatever. I just— [ Sound like an idiot. ] It's my first time. Meeting a dragon.

You could, but that would be terribly rude of you; and then it would be perfectly within anyone's rights to come and try and stop you, should it come to that. Certainly no dragons I have ever known would try it [oh wait Iskierka] which is to say, the eating young ladies part, at least.

That is perfectly all right; there are a great many people who do not seem to have dragons in their world. It is very curious.

My world has stories about dragons. And legends. But no proof that they ever actually existed and there aren't any there now. At least, not any anyone knows about. You can't turn into something else, can you? Disguise yourself as something other than a dragon?

Well, there are legends, in China, about people who have turned into dragons because they swallowed something from a dragon's hoard, and it stands to reason that the reverse might also somehow be possible, but I have not heard of anything like that actually occurring in my time. But it sounds as if it it would be very famous to be human, for a while, as long as I could change back, after.

Trust me. Speaking as a human? Stay a dragon. It's probably like a million times better.

You can fly, for one thing. Most of us can't fly.

Well, yes, but it would be much easier to type with these consoles, and write out formulas with a pen, and I would not have to worry about breaking a book's spine every time I try to open it, either: I cannot even do that when I am at my usual size, at home.

[nerrrrrrrrd]

Maybe you should hire a, not a translator, per se, but someone who can help you out with those things. Kind of like a scribe. Only with more duties.

[ A beat. ]

What size are you normally?

I suppose, but capital is hard enough to come by, these days; I have been investing in lessons, so I might try to learn the written language of the kedan, but it is quite expensive, and then there is the food to think about, besides.

Oh, nearabouts a hundred and twenty feet from tip to tail, before I arrived here, and likely to grow larger still, before I stop. [Proudly: size is an indicator of rank among dragons, and he is one of the larger ones.]

I could help out if you needed it. Not for money or anything. Just, you know, if you needed a hand.

Before you arrived here? What do you mean? How big are you now?

Oh, that is very generous of you, but I manage tolerably well at present. [Fond as he is of free things, he still has his pride to think of, after all.]

Only thirty feet: they have shrunk me, here, and it is not at all pleasant to be so small again, even though I suppose it is easier to get about in the city than it would otherwise have been.

How did they shrink a dragon? Was it magic? Or some kind of... Well, to be honest, I don't really know of any technology that could do that. I mean, theoretically, I guess it could be done, but I haven't seen anything like that yet.

If I knew how they had done it, I should certainly be spending my time trying to reverse the process--although I suppose it would be harder to fit in my apartment, after. The technology does not exist when I am from, at least, and the magic certainly does not, either.

Fitting into your apartment's great and all, but you should still be able to return to your regular size when you want. Maybe we can, I don't know. If we were in my world, this would be easier for me to do. But maybe I could up with a technological solution. Like a, some kind of device that affects the energy field around you, maybe. Disrupts the magic that keeps you small. I mean, I don't know much about magic. I'd have to learn, but once I did I could try.

Oh, I should be much indebted to you if you could! [Beat.] Although I am not certain much of the food on the turtle would last long, after, if my appetite were to return with my size: unless you could find some magical means of reducing that, as well.

What does a dragon eat? If you don't mind my asking.

[ He's going to go out on a limb here and assume that it isn't people, since it wouldn't make much sense to talk to the people he was just going to eat. ]

Well, I am quite fond of cow, and sheep, and pig, none of which might be found here; and I quite like elephant, as well, although that of course is very difficult to acquire even when one is not on a turtle in another world.

What are you eating here? Do any animals even live on a, a turtle?

Oh, I have been eating fish, mostly, from the shell's edge. They have a kind of qilin here, but I am given to understand they are strictly to be used as beasts of burden, since they are so difficult to raise on a turtle.

What’s a qilin? Like a cow? Or a… I don’t know what else it could be. An ox? Farming isn’t really my specialty.

It is a creature with a head not unlike a dragon's, and antlers and hooves like a deer, and scales all over its body. Did they not bring you to your apartment in a sort of cart? There were a few qilin pulling mine. Of course, they were only legends in China; it is very interesting to see that they exist here.

Oh, the... the deer-lizards. Yeah. They were there. I just didn't know what they were called.

Wait, they're Chinese? Really? Is this a Chinese turtle?

Well, they are similar enough to the portraits I saw in Peking for me to think so, anyway: but as for whether this is a Chinese turtle, I doubt it. The architecture is very similar to the pavilions I saw in China, and so is the clothing, but the language is nothing like.

So we're dealing with a turtle that looks Chinese but isn't. Okay. That's kind of par for the course, I guess.

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