"Okay."

She lays a hand on his side. She frowns. She presses her hand a little further in, until it's touching skin as well as hair. "You don't feel like an alive thing."

"...I don't?" he says, puzzled. "What do alive things feel like that's different from not being alive? I know I have a lifeforce, and that's what we go by..."

"I don't know, I just can't feel you with the magic that works on alive things."

"I guess it's not the same as lifeforce magic, then. That's weird, that you have a magic that works on alive things but not if they're unicorns. I wonder if fae would be the same?"

"Depends on what's different about fey, and what's different about unicorns, I guess."

"I think I remember something about fae and unicorns both being like spirits in a way that elf-kin and plants and animals aren't."

"Like spirits?"

"I'm not really a magic expert."

"But what are spirits?"

"They're lifeforces without bodies. But fae and unicorns have bodies, but our bodies are different?"

"Different how?"

"I don't know, because I'm not a magic expert," he says sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it. No one can know everything about everything."

"It would be weird if someone did!"

"Some people think that--um, 'gods' exist and they do."

"What are those?"

"Iiiii don't know how to describe it. They're really powerful? They probably don't exist?"

"...okay," he says dubiously.

"People talk about how great they are and ask them for things and thank them for random things that go right."

"That's weird," says Sunpatch.

"You don't have anything like that at all?"

"I can't think of anything like that."

"Well, it's less weird than the languages thing."

"Yes," says Sunpatch. "Thanking nonexistent people for nice things is very weird."