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Mitzi's bio

Mitzi is a magical miniature flamingo. She inherited her abilities from her father, who was enchanted by a wizard to protect his flock of flamingos. She is a hybrid between a greater and lesser flamingo, which means that she eats both algae and brine shrimps. Her unusual combination of parents is no accident; it was influenced by the wizard for an important biological reason, which she will discover in due course.
When she was young she was bullied by the other flamingos because she was much smaller, and was known as 'Ckatc', or 'The runt'. Her real name is Xydghnytnakzya (closest pronounciation to human speech Zyg-neet-naz-ya), which means 'little one' in Old Flamingo. She was named Mitzi by Asar-Suti before she was able to tell anyone, but seeing as her real name is firstly unpronouncable and secondly a bit of a mouthful, she will assure anyone not fluent in Flamingo that Mitzi is fine.

Mitzi's first purpose in life is to protect her flock, in this case Guppy, from harm. However, she inherited a fiery temper from her mother, so often shows rebelliousness that her father did not. After dealing with her bullies on her home world, the wizard realised that she had powers she shouldn't have. He was afraid, and banished Mitzi and five of her siblings to opposite corners of the universe. Mitzi ended up in Milliways. Where her siblings are is unknown.

Mitzi's powers can be summarised as follows:

Passive magic
This covers anything that requires one imput of magical energy, i.e. does not need to be fed.
1. Pond magic. Making a pond, changing liquid to pond water and back again, changing solids to bullrushes, water weed etc. Basically a switching spell. According to the laws of physics nothing can be created or destroyed. Flamingo magic obeys this; any magic that she does like this must have an equal and opposite change somewhere else in the universe. If it's liquid, it's spread out (just a few molecules from many water sources). If it's solid, the whole object moves (so a spoon turned into a bullrush will make a bullrush turn into a spoon somewhere else). She can, with difficulty change a solid thing to a liquid thing, but that makes the solid spread out into molecules and she cannot guarentee that exactly the same object will return if she reverses it.
2. Telepathy. Uses so little magic that she counts it as passive. She can connect to Guppy and anybody else receptive to it. ('Represented by italics in quotation marks')
3. Changing a living creature into a pond snail. This is a threat that she uses regularly. In fact she can't do it; it's an illusion done by switching a rock with a snail, then switching the snail with the victim (unless she is feeling particularly vindictive, in which case she misses out the rock stage and just dumps her victim in a pond). If the victim is somebody who could give the game away she puts them somewhere very dark and tells them that pond snails are blind.

Active magic
Requires a constant imput of magic, so cannot be carried out indefinitely.
1. Body switching. A very extreme measure. Mitzi needs to save her magic for days before she can do this. The bigger the change, the more energy it consumes. Cannot be maintained for longer than a few minutes if she does it to Guppy.
2. Shrinking. Not as energy consuming. Almost passive but limited in the number of times she can do it. Requires a relatively small imput after the initial minute but cannot be maintained for more than a few hours. Reversal also requires energy, so potentially dangerous for her to do. Can do it to herself or to other people or things
3. Egg-bomb. A defence mechanism or loss of temper. Dangerous if used indoors. Focuses magical energy into one point and converts it into matter. She then converts the inside to energy again, causing an explosion of dark pink dust.

 

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As Guppy returns home to his new accommodation he hears a noise upstairs. He knows that Abs and Nina aren’t home yet, because he just saw them at work before he left. Going up to his room, he finds Mitzi head-banging to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Alarmed at the noise as he is, he still can’t suppress a giggle. The flamingo looks up, jumps and turns the music off.

"You need to keep the noise down remember. And make sure Abs and Nina are out before you start doing that."

Mitzi sighs.

’It’s boring in here.’

"Well there’s no reason why you have to stay in the flat, as long as you’re careful and aren’t seen. You can go outside as long as you don’t use any magic, except for shrinking yourself if you need it."

Mitzi likes this idea. She follows Guppy downstairs as he goes to the fridge. Getting out a couple of eggs for dinner, he goes over to the frying pan. Mitzi watches him curiously.

’You won’t get them to hatch by putting them in the big chamber of coldness. You need to sit on them.’

"I’m not trying to hatch them. These are for dinner."

Mitzi stares in horror.

’You can’t eat those! That’s murder!’

"They aren’t flamingo eggs, Mitz, they’re chicken eggs. I wouldn’t eat flamingo eggs."

‘I don’t see how that makes any difference. Please give all the eggs to me.’

Guppy sighs. He knows that if he persists in his argument he’s going to end up as a pond snail.

"They won’t hatch, Mitzi. They’re already dead."

‘Honestly and you’re supposed to be the one who saves lives. Please put them in our room.’

Too tired to argue, Guppy obeys. Once he’s put them down on the bedroom floor, Mitzi sits on as many as she can. Supposing that she’ll find out soon enough, he goes downstairs to find something else to eat. Opening the kitchen door he finds the bar and hesitates.

He’s not surprised. He’d been expecting it for the last two days. Before he was Bound, he used to find it about three or four times per day once he knew where the portals were. Now they’ve all moved, but he still hadn’t found any. He has a great dilemma. He wants to go back in; for a start it’s Gil’s birthday party, which he doesn’t want to miss. But he’s only been free for two days and he doesn’t want to be Bound again.

‘Come on. The other five eggs are dead but this one isn’t. I’m taking it in, and you’re coming. I know your scared and I understand why, because now that you’re here I can see this place is where you belong. But there’s no point in hiding from the Bar. If she wants you, she will pluck you out of this place any time she wants, so you might as well go in. If you are going to get Bound again, there’s nothing you can do about it. Get your coffee and that money to pay off your tab and let’s go.’

This settles it. Mitzi is right. If the Bar does want to bind him, she will, whether he goes in voluntarily or not. And he can’t miss Gil’s birthday, he has to pay off his tab and he’s got to give Asar-Suti his coffee. He could also do with rescuing his tie.

He takes a deep breath and steps inside. Mitzi follows with her egg.