She's picking up English reasonably fast! Cartoons are so weird! She clings to Bella in any parts with dramatic tension.

...that's. A thing. Okay.

Am I bothering you?

No, I just have to keep reminding myself that you are not flirting with me.

Oh, is this a cultural differences thing? If you tell me the things that come across wrong I will stop doing them.

You're actually not out of bounds for the hypothetical in which you thought I was straight, female friends can get pretty cuddly, it's just a mixed signal given that you know I'm not.

If it were allowed in my world I might marry a girl. I don't think I'd just - meet them and kiss them. Bit too new. Sorry.

You don't have to apologize.

Apparently it's kind of complicating things.

That's not your fault. Seriously, I'm not going to tell you that it's an apology-worthy offense to have any particular kissing-related inclinations or lack thereof.

And you have a plan.

Okay.

It's even possible I'm being uncharitable to Raine in assuming she'll only help under such narrow circumstances.

She seems like an unhappy person.

She is.

I'm really glad we don't have to let her turn into a witch but there must be so many....

Yeah. Although fewer magical girls turn into witches than there are witches, since witches do the budding off thing and are sometimes deliberately planted by the fluffs from filled-up grief seeds.

Still. I wonder if singing helps them.

If you want to go witch-hunting, we can go witch-hunting.

Lets.

Okay. Your song takes a minute to start working even in baseline conditions?

Yeah.

Okay, few ways to do this. Witches are sort of space-folded landscapes. You go into one, you find the middle, that's where you have to kill it. The edges of the maze are safer, much safer, but I'm not sure if a witch could hear you from there. If we find a witch I'm familiar with, and I think I know most of the Seattle breeds by now, I should be able to protect you for that minute without having to kill the witch, but I rely heavily on time-stopping, which while I'm doing it I won't be able to hear you sing. I may or may not be able to recharge during a stop from the recording and should probably test that outside a live fire situation. I could also just chuck a playback of the recording into a witch, leave, and see what happens.

What would you be protecting me from?

Depends on the witch. They're... really hard to describe.

Can you just send it?