"Yes, so, ripping horribly with wind and then healing with water or should we think of a kinder solution?"

"I... think maybe Change might be a better idea," she says, apparently not loving the idea of ripping all of the feathers out.

"Changing the feathers into nothing…? Or– wait, that might need to be Erase instead. Uh, presumably we're removing the attachment bit, not temporarily changing it, unless we can change it to be liquid or something and pull it off like that?"

"One of those," she shrugs. "I think Erase might be overkill because if anyone erases me that will not be fun."

"I mean, they could change you into something by accident, but I guess that's presumably, again, reversible. Sure. Any idea for a phrasing or should I try making one up?"

"I dunno, I'd go very powerful specific, like, invoking the Moon and Change and the Dark, just to be sure."

"Okay, so, um, I don't know how much the phrasing matters here but okay, let's see if being theatrical is necessary since I'm pretty sure I can't do theatrical properly – I call upon Change at this dark hour, this hour some distance past dusk, in the Dark of the Moon – ugh – and ask that you change the– things sticking the feathers to Sadde to liquid, preferably in a way that won't damage her, such that we can remove them – the feathers – more easily."

(Ugh.)

Now Sadde's wet.

But the feathers at least become much easier to get rid of.

"… I'm sure you can take a shower here or we can try getting rid of the– liquid stuff with some wind or something," says Maya. "Would you like some help picking them off?"

"Shower?" Willow says as she returns, takes in the scene, and sporfles. "What happened?"

"Magic," Sadde sighs. "I think I prefer a shower."

"That's why the Cards are much better," a Kero carrying a cupcake declares as he floats in after Willow.

"So far: doesn't seem like they're much better, but if this is a mana thing and they don't actually run it down, then they might be better."

"I'm not too happy about having pink skin," says Theo, "but I think I might agree there."

"Yeah, about that, are you gonna try to do some magic now that the Sword isn't around anymore? Maybe fix yourself?"

"Um, not sure I want to call upon Change to affect me… Do you think I can get anywhere with Light?" Frown. "I should probably try that."

"Why not Change?"

"The card is permanent after twenty-four hours, I don't know if that's a drawback of the concept or just the card, I don't know if I can prevent this drawback from appearing with careful word-choice or selective failure conditions."

"...why would it be a drawback of the Concept? That hadn't even occurred to me."

"I have no idea why it would be a drawback of just the card, but then again, I have no idea why it would be a drawback of the concept either. For the other cards – the ones I can think of that we've tested and done equivalents for – it seems to be a matter of scale instead of removing drawbacks, but I guess they don't have comparable… things…"

"It... sounds like a weird exception for a thing to have, is all. Anyway, you don't need to call upon Change if you don't want to, just call upon the Moon, should work, right?"

"Change was under moon, right? Because if so, yeah, should work."

"Yep."

"Okay, so, 'moon, undo the horrors of the past, fix the fluorescence of this shade, turn my skin back to a colour more normal for me.'"

Theatrics be damned. Who needs a phrase that sounds fancy when you can have one that's slightly fancy and then horribly contrastingly not fancy but makes sense.

Well, it... actually works!

"Okay, so that's two experimental results there."