universal star visitor brilliant start!

[incanted]

Eventually Bella and Lexi go to bed - they have to coordinate this; Bella's a reasonably sound sleeper but Lexi's not, so if Bella goes to sleep first Lexi won't be able to drop off with all the random nouns and if Bella goes to sleep second Lexi will wake up when she's trying to sneak around. They get up, and they get ready for school.

+Morning, Brilliance,+ says Bella while she's brushing her teeth.

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[cardistry]

"Thanks," he says, smiling wryly.

[incanted]

"You're welcome."

[cardistry]

He shifts back to deck-of-cards form and sets himself down on the table.

[incanted]

Bella pats him and heads up the stairs to talk to Lexi.

She's back down a few minutes later. "She doesn't wanna talk about it right now. But she says I can copy her math homework if I want, so at least she's not too mad at me. Wanna go to the World of Colorful Sand?"

[cardistry]

"Sure!"

[incanted]

"I wanna invent a spell to be a line of defense against any environmental hazards you weren't in a position to notice - but before I start trying stuff - is my mana at capacity?"

[cardistry]

He checks.

"I think so!"

[incanted]

"Okay, cool." Bella has produced a list of things on an uninhabited planet that could harm her. She gets the notebook containing this list, finds it, memorizes it, thinks hard about wanting all those things to leave her alone, and attempts to incant:

"Safety."

[cardistry]

"Oh, cool," says Brilliance, as a faint mana-coloured shimmer settles onto Bella's skin.

[incanted]

"Something unusual about how that worked?" Bella asks, looking at the pretty shimmer. "Ooh, I'm shiny."

[cardistry]

"I've never seen anything like it!"

He shifts to staff form and glides closer.

[incanted]

"Did you not expect it to work?"

[cardistry]

"I was thinking of it differently than how it hapened."

[incanted]

"In some complicated technical sense or what? Also, how much of my mana is this drawing?"

[cardistry]

"...Some," he says. "More than flying. Want me to work it up into something I can maintain for you?"

[incanted]

"Yeah, that'd be swell - and weren't you going to figure out percentages?"

[cardistry]

"It's harder than I thought," he says. "I don't see it as numbers, I just feel it. ...Could you pick me up? I feel weird just hanging here. And I can get a closer look at the spell if we're in contact."

[incanted]

She plucks staff-Brilliance out of the air and props him on her shoulder.

[cardistry]

Brilliance is quiet for a moment, his spiral grooves glowing faintly in all the colours of his mana.

Then Bella's shimmer brightens, wavers, and settles back down.

"Okay," he says, "there. With me hooked in, it's draining slower than you replenish."

[incanted]

"Will that still be true if I start flying?"

[cardistry]

"It will if I'm hooked into the flying too," he says.

[incanted]

"Cool. Let's go see some colorful sand."

[cardistry]

His signature counter-rotating circle-pentagram-star appears on the floor, brightens steadily for about a second, and then emits one soft radiant burst of light.

And they are standing on a vast flat expanse of glittering sand that reflects the very Earthlike setting sun in millions of colours.

[incanted]

"Oh, this place is pretty," marvels Bella.

[cardistry]

"I know, I love it!" says Brilliance.