Ivy considered this, and after closing her eyes, nodded reasonably. "I suppose that must be true, because this is neither Xanth nor Mundania, and has things from both."
But she beamed extra brightly at his laugh, and laughed with him, out of sheer joy and delight again! "You know it?! Yes! Daddy told me about his time in Mundania and I used to read whatever stories I could find about it or talk to the ghosts and others!" At age three, mind you. She did magically enhance herself, after all, but only when her parents weren't watching, because she believed she'd get in trouble if they knew how intelligent she actually was. Purely because everything fun in life is somehow forbidden by adults.
"Stanley the dragon is a steam dragon! And he cleans the gap chasm! So it was perfect!"
As for the guilt tripping... she tilts her head thinking it over. She's never met a book she didn't want to read, and usually if she wanted to play, she just would, and good luck to everyone who wanted otherwise! "Herman the Hermit? He's another centaur with magic. He saved Xanth from a wiggle swarm, like me and Hugo and Stanley, but it turns out Volney says wiggles aren't always bad, they're usually just so deep under rocks and ground that they don't hurt people. He met a queen who like air-flavored rock though, and it takes a special containment spell to keep the other wiggles from hurting anyone." Okay, but contextually how is this a guilt trip? Luckily, even without magically making herself brilliant, Ivy is naturally quite smart, [though she doesn't know it's not magic] and it works even in Mundania where magic does not, and therefore; now, even without directly wishing it to be so, [though lord knows she could... Beware the magic powers given to a ten year old], so she mulls this over.
It's clearly similar to the invisible pedestal she put Stanley on, and the invisible armor Hugo wore. But an external one from other people that they would be putting on Ivy instead. She snapped her fingers. "Like when Stanley went missing because of a banish monster spell, and my parents wouldn't let me go find him, and they kept me home by pointing out it was my spell that went wrong, even if I was trying to do the right thing and restore Jordan the Ghost to being Jordan the Barbarian so he and Threnody the Ghost could be happily alive and in love again." Nod. "And Grundy got Snortimer by saying he couldn't rescue Stanley without him, even though he's my monster under the bed. Or was. Stanley was protecting nymphs, so Grundy gave away Snortimer to protect them instead."
Ivy pouted cutely. [She thought it was cutely, and therefore indeed it was.] "I don't like guilt trips. I think I prefer can-trips instead. They're cans, that trip you," she added in case it wasn't obvious enough, since she knew they didn't exist in Mundania, and she didn't know if they existed in worlds other than Xanth since dragons and magic apparently did! "They think they can, so they do."
I had to look up 5 things for this stupid response so you must suffer with me.
But she beamed extra brightly at his laugh, and laughed with him, out of sheer joy and delight again! "You know it?! Yes! Daddy told me about his time in Mundania and I used to read whatever stories I could find about it or talk to the ghosts and others!" At age three, mind you. She did magically enhance herself, after all, but only when her parents weren't watching, because she believed she'd get in trouble if they knew how intelligent she actually was. Purely because everything fun in life is somehow forbidden by adults.
"Stanley the dragon is a steam dragon! And he cleans the gap chasm! So it was perfect!"
As for the guilt tripping... she tilts her head thinking it over. She's never met a book she didn't want to read, and usually if she wanted to play, she just would, and good luck to everyone who wanted otherwise! "Herman the Hermit? He's another centaur with magic. He saved Xanth from a wiggle swarm, like me and Hugo and Stanley, but it turns out Volney says wiggles aren't always bad, they're usually just so deep under rocks and ground that they don't hurt people. He met a queen who like air-flavored rock though, and it takes a special containment spell to keep the other wiggles from hurting anyone." Okay, but contextually how is this a guilt trip? Luckily, even without magically making herself brilliant, Ivy is naturally quite smart, [though she doesn't know it's not magic] and it works even in Mundania where magic does not, and therefore; now, even without directly wishing it to be so, [though lord knows she could... Beware the magic powers given to a ten year old], so she mulls this over.
It's clearly similar to the invisible pedestal she put Stanley on, and the invisible armor Hugo wore. But an external one from other people that they would be putting on Ivy instead. She snapped her fingers. "Like when Stanley went missing because of a banish monster spell, and my parents wouldn't let me go find him, and they kept me home by pointing out it was my spell that went wrong, even if I was trying to do the right thing and restore Jordan the Ghost to being Jordan the Barbarian so he and Threnody the Ghost could be happily alive and in love again." Nod. "And Grundy got Snortimer by saying he couldn't rescue Stanley without him, even though he's my monster under the bed. Or was. Stanley was protecting nymphs, so Grundy gave away Snortimer to protect them instead."
Ivy pouted cutely. [She thought it was cutely, and therefore indeed it was.] "I don't like guilt trips. I think I prefer can-trips instead. They're cans, that trip you," she added in case it wasn't obvious enough, since she knew they didn't exist in Mundania, and she didn't know if they existed in worlds other than Xanth since dragons and magic apparently did! "They think they can, so they do."