"Then you're not in the right frame of mind--I'm trying to think how to explain it better..."

Peka waits.

"Okay so--imagine magic is this lever, and the operations are things you can do to it, but you have to be holding onto the lever first?"

"Okay..."

"So you sort of--metaphorically grab onto the magic lever while you're trying to make the hairclip go?"

"...I don't know how to do that."

"Okay. The only other way I can think of to explain is telepathy but that's not a great option."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not very good telepathy--it's not ongoing, it basically transmits everything in the sender's mind at the moment it's cast, including the pain."

"Yikes."

"Yep."

"I mean, doing magic hurts too, right, so if I can't take it I shouldn't be doing this?"

"Magic doesn't all hurt the same, normally you'd have time to build pain resistance before having this much magic pain heaped on you."

"Like how bad are we talking here?"

"...Little less than a cleanly broken bone?"

"For how long?"

"Just a moment."

"...eh. Hit me."

"Alright."

She closes her eyes and takes a moment to compose the telepathic message.

When it hits, it hurts, just like she said, but there's also--

the sensation of doing magic is very different from anything she's ever felt before.

"Ow -"

"Shit, are you okay?"

"Yeah." She takes a deep breath.

Hug?

Hug. "Anyway yeah I was never gonna figure that out on my own."

"Good to know. I'm sorry we had to do that."