Tyler grabs one, draws a line through it with pen, then tries the shortest phrase on it.

Does not work.

What about one where he joins up the line and the tittle (the dot) of the 'i'?

No banana.

And if he circles 'wind' on one of the pieces of paper?

Just circling it doesn't seem to present a problem.

Okay, well, he'll cancel the spell and then– actually, he'll cancel it and then see if he can start it back up just by willing it to continue or if it actually totally stops it.

If this fails, next time he'll try 'pausing'.

Totally stops it, and apparently there's no such thing as pausing either.

Huh. He mentions this to Maya and then tries various other methods of defacement. Since 'line through with pen' broke it, as did 'join the dots', he'll try doing a mark between two of the lines of the 'w', which shouldn't actually affect the word itself.

Theo is willing to just be quiet and watch Tyler be kinda excited by stuff.

He's been all moody all this time and now he's actually getting involved.

The mark makes the paper stop working.

And Sadde wants to see how long it takes her to run out of mana so she'll start doing small spells while Tyler tests that.

What about a mark slightly above the 'w', instead of between two of the lines of it?

That one's alright.

… What about very slightly below that previous thing, on another piece of paper, so that it's just about on the same level as the top of the 'w'?

Does it touch the 'w'?

No, it's between the first two upper points on the 'w'. If the first 'v' shape were a triangle, it would just about be on the upper line.

Doesn't work.

… And what about in the bottom-left corner, such that if the 'w' were boxed, it would be on the very edge? It doesn't actually touch the 'w', but nor did the previous dot.

That one makes it not work, too.

And Sadde attempts to perform a spell another time and ends up covered in blue feathers. "What."

Willow starts giggling.

"… And if you try doing another now does it fail?"

Yes. Yes it does. She furrows her eyebrows.

And is still covered in blue feathers. "Can someone make up a spell to clean this up? I'd like to not be covered in feathers."

"Is it just on you, like, removeable with careful wind? Or do we need to be careful about it actually being stuck to you?"

She plucks a feather and winces. "It's actually stuck to me."

"Okay, so, what element would we call on for that? Maybe… um, wind to pull them off you and water to soothe the wounds, if it can do that sort of relation?"