Chapter Text
Turtle would find himself remembering a story he had read when he was three years old, and in that story there were "devices"—as the story called them,— and they could do all sorts of things! They could make it so dragons could communicate from across a continent!
Turtle mentioned them as he read the story scroll, forgetting Qibli was there, Turtle muttered under his breath,
"I wish I could make some like these.." he grumbled.
"Why don't you?" Qibli said with —in Turtle's opinion— too much enthusiasm.
Turtle looked at Qibli, with a look of go on, elaborate. "Why don't you- I don't say this lightly, but why don't you use your magic?" Qibli said, cutting himself off mid sentence.
Turtle stared at him, and Qibli continued, "With the soul spells, I don't think anything could go wrong, and it wouldn't cast the spell if it thought it was being used selfishly."
Turtle looked down at his armband, the thing that's keeping his soul safe. They sat in silence for what felt like forever, before Turtle said something.
"Alright. Let's try it."
One Week Later
Turtle and Qibli continued with the spell for days, rewriting and revising it until it was perfect.
For the past week they've been shoo-ing off whoever would walk into them making the spell, say it was they 'secret project'. They got lots of weird looks, (especially from Moon and Winter, Winter grumbling about how Qibli could shove an icicle up his snout.)
"I- think it's done!" Qibli shouted way too loudly —and Turtle knew it was too much this time, as a few dragons stuck their snouts in to see what was going on— Qibli quickly lowered his voice, and waved the dragons away, and they shrugged and ran off.
"Anyways- I think I perfected the spell! Come check it out." He waved Turtle to read it.
Turtle read the spell, and reread, and re-reread so many times till he thought he burnt a hole into the scroll with how much he stared at it.
Qibli waited for Turtle to speak, unconsciously tapping his tail gently on the cold cave floor, it making a quiet thuck, thuck, thuck, sound every time it hit the floor.
"This is perfect." Turtle said with a smile,
"Really? That's great! Now, we need to see if the spell will uh- actually work." Qibli said the last part quickly and quietly.
"Ah, that part." Turtle said, his head slightly drooping. "Let's get it over with then."
Turtle would pick up the scroll and he would recite the spell Qibli had made, not with much enthusiasm.
. . .
"So- is it- Oh!" Qibli started, before the scroll started transforming into a sleek, rectangle-like object that was just bigger than Turtle's hand, though could be held in one hand comfortably. Then, the shiny part of the device flickered to life, turning on brightly, like a little ball of fire was coming out of it.. —Though it was more like his bioluminescent scales when they were glowing— he realized.
"Three moons." Qibli whispered, as if the device was going to jump out of Turtle's talons and run off like prey would.
"Wow. It worked." Turtle said disbelievingly. "It worked!" Qibli jumped up, dragging Turtle along.
"Now what?" Turtle asked nervously. He really, really, didn't think that the spell would work.. He really thought the spell was selfish, so he has no idea why his soul spell didn't reject it.. Wait.
Turtle quickly glanced at his arm, making sure the armband was still there, which, of course it was, he hasn't taken it off since he casted the soul spell on it.
Turtle nervously fiddled with his claws as Qibli answered,
"Well, where did you put that duplication bowl of yours?" He grinned.
Months later
Turtle and Qibli had to postpone developing their 'secret project' due to the Pantala incident.
So, once they got back, and everything was going good over at Pantala, —the continent Turtle would've only thought to be a fairy tale, until he saw Luna— they continued working on the device.
They haven't yet duplicated it, because after he had created it, there was still lots to fix, and he and Qibli had to learn how to even use the kelping thing, —which took forever.—
But now, they were done, so Qibli put the device in the bowl, and asked nicely to create more, which, it did.
Qibli stopped until there were six devices, including the original one Turtle made. He would start to dismantle the bowl, but Turtle interrupted,
"Wait, make one more."
"Why?" Qibli asked, putting the bowl together again, putting the original device back in it.
"Well, I rather have the original one I used my magic on to make more.." he said, fiddling with a loose scale.
Qibli made another device, putting it with the others before responding, "makes sense, nice thinking Turtle." He smiled.
"Now, let's give these to the others."