"Yes. And the consequences strike me as less worrying. I have been told I'm too conciliatory." He smiles as if this is a private joke.

She nods. "That makes sense. The three factors that generally influence how you specialize are your talents, your resistances and what you'd rather risk."

"Is becoming more stubborn becoming more set in your current opinions? Like, if you think they're correct, is the risk that you'll be unable to notice when the circumstances have changed, or just that you'll keep caring about the same things?"

She spreads her hands. "There are as many answers to that question as there are people, I'm afraid. In general there's considered to be a much greater risk for refusing to acknowledge that you were wrong than for refusing to observe that things are changing, but," she shrugs. "I'm afraid there are no guarantees."

"It must be tempting to diagnose the foibles of your friends as resulting from unbalanced magical practice."

"Oh, yes. What's really funny is when you try doing that to a new acquaintance and it turns out you've guessed their specialization wrong."

He smiles. "I'm tempted to identify the specializations of people I know who've never heard of your magic."

"You can try, but it's not always what you would think--my sister's a Sympathy specialist, but almost everyone guesses Conquest, she's so resistant she can do mind magic to herself--that almost always does dramatic things to you, but she came out of acquiring masochism just a bit politer."

"Hmm! 

...there's mind magic? What can it do?"

"Almost no one does anything with it, so it's hard to say for sure."

He nods. Scoots the rock across the table. "Most Men require more sleep than I, am I keeping you up?"

"...Sleep would probably be a good idea."

He gestures towards the room behind him. There's a very small but richly appointed bed. "Good night, Illia."

"Good night--um, I'm not sure you ever introduced yourself."

"Fingon. I was at least a hundred before I got the titles straight myself and they've only grown since then, so you can stick to that."

"Good night, Fingon."

"Good night." And he focuses on the rock.

And she sleeps. She really needs it, too, after the day she's had.

In the morning there's lembas and nuts and water and wine on the table and he's spinning the stone across the tabletop. "Morning," he says. "Don't worry, I've been alternating them."

"Wha...?" She asks blearily. "Alternating the stones or the magic, I'm not awake enough to tell the difference right now."

"The types of magic, so I didn't experience an overnight personality change."

She laughs. "It's not as sudden as all that," she assures him. "You're not doing anything yet that could even begin to show a noticeable change overnight, let alone a complete personality transplant."

The rock spins across the table. "Reassuring. Did you sleep well?"

"Very well. What about you?"

"We require less sleep than Men, and this was very diverting."