Fifty-third Spell

[courageous_wit]

This hasn't happened in the castle for a while, but people are arriving who share faces with other people. It can be very unsettling. Especially if... if one of those faces is someone who was a very unpleasant person. You know these two people aren't the same but you can't help feeling uneasy.

[she's honestly still a little shaken up about it. She's told herself over and over that this is the Doctor, who is a dear friend of hers]

Anyway, I don't know if anybody's read it, but Dr. Saunders wrote a report some years ago detailing this phenomenon.

Comments

[freeslider]

Mmhmm. I've met doubles of myself, my friends, even just people I knew in passing. I guess it makes sense. If they exist somewhere in the universe, Paradisa could bring them here.

[courageous_wit]

Were they exactly like you or did they have different names and histories?

[freeslider]

Usually the same names, but most of them were different. Sometimes only in small ways.

[courageous_wit]

What caused you to meet them?

[freeslider]

My friends and I travel between parallel dimensions, but always within the same area. So I guess a lot of our other selves make the same decisions, live in the same places...that kind of thing. Though sometimes I wonder if there was more to it than chance.

[courageous_wit]

That sounds incredibly fascinating. It must make being in Paradisa a bit easier on you.

[freeslider]

I guess it has, yeah. Not for everything, like the magic thing. Not that I don't believe it - I've seen worlds with magic before, even if some of my friends couldn't accept it - but it's still wild.

[courageous_wit]

A lot of people have trouble with the "magic thing".

[freeslider]

A lot of people learn what they think are the solid rules of the universe, and don't like learning they might be wrong.

[courageous_wit]

Yes, that's true. Even wizards are that way, and we live with magic.

[freeslider]

I guess it's more a 'being human' thing.

[courageous_wit]

Not exactly. Centaurs can be pretty stubborn in their ways, too.

[freeslider]

[She chuckles] Maybe there's a better phrase for that, though I'm not sure what that might be.

[courageous_wit]

I'm not sure, either...

[freeslider]

We'll have to work on that.