"… Other words for wind, like 'gale' or, uh, I dunno, 'breath' if we're going poetic?"

Both work!

"… And how about you write the word 'orages' – that's spelled oh-arr-ay-gee-ee-ess – for 'breeze'? It's another French translation."

She gives Theo a bit of a look.

Nope. That one doesn't work.

"… What about 'storm'?"

Works.

"And stormy and storms and so on and at this rate I don't know if we're wasting paper or gathering important experimental data, because these results are just confusing."

Theo shrugs.

"Why, confusing? Other than breeze and zephyr, earlier."

"And then I tried to see if any word would work as a replacement – orage is not in fact the French translation for 'wind', but for 'storm' – and it didn't, and then I suggested the English to check and that did, so that suggests the language thing is wrong?"

"Oh." She tries orage again and this time it works. "...I think it's about what I mean when I write the word."

"Can you mean 'pleut' when you write 'pleut', without knowing what it means? Pee-ell-ee-you-tee."

Nnnope.

"… And if you mean wind?"

Newp.

"… And if you mean rain?"

That one goes.

"And if you mean water? Storm? Rainfall? Rice? Ocean? Lake?"

No, yes, yes, no, no, no.

"Okay, so you have to be meaning what you're writing? But I thought you were doing that before."

"...hmm, I think that time we were talking about flight in particular?"

"Were you focusing on meaning flight instead, then? Because that might be it…"

She seems a bit dubious, but it's not like she actually knows this system.

"Not exactly... but I was kinda thinking of breeze and zephyr as direct substitutes for wind in the spell for flight, more or less?"

"I mean, breeze and zephyr should be substitutes for wind, shouldn't they? Especially since 'storm' and 'rainfall' both worked for 'pleut', but okay, weird arbitrary lines on this magic system."

"No, I mean, as wind-the-concept, wind-the-card, one of the four elements, not as the actual... effect of moving air."