Sure, I can make juice. She sets to mashing the fruit.

Thank you.

She still seems vaguely distressed. He tries to sing something - not aloud, broken ribs, but over osanwe. 

She freezes. Not tensely, she's not afraid, she's just stopped moving, almost stopped breathing, until the music swells and she lets out a quiet, awed whimper.

Should hear my brother.

It takes her a few seconds after the music stops to be anything but awed, and another few to work out that she's been spoken to and should respond.

...brother?

He was good at singing.

That's not what she was asking, but okay.

Kobolds sing, but nothing like that, that was amazing.

My people think we need beautiful things to stay alive. We're wrong. The Enemy can sustain us anyway. But beautiful things are nice.

...ah. Food water warmth safety companionship beauty, got it.

Kobolds like beautiful things, but we do fine without them; we sing for companionship.

I understand.

She goes back to her mashing. I should work on some new spells soon, and I'm still not sure that's safe around your telepathy.

What's unsafe?

The knowledge transmits. Usually by touch, and usually only when someone's casting, but you've gotten things I wasn't intending to share a few times now and I'm not sure you wouldn't get that. And I got to skip the dangerous bit of learning to use it, because it's my Gift, but I don't think you would.

I would like knowledge of how to do magic.

I think you need to at least figure out what you want to do in the long term, first. If you're staying, learning magic might be a problem - having those spells on you might, too, but less of one - spellbearers can be dangerous, but mages always are; it'll come up if you want to go live with other people unless you keep it a very close secret, and I'm not actually sure a proper mage wouldn't be able to tell you were one anyway.

I really shouldn't live with other people until I know if I'm a danger to them.

Uh?

People who escape Angband sometimes go mad and kill everyone nearby. I don't think I escaped Angband but if I really did you should be aware of that.

Okay.

That's definitely a reason to wait on learning the magic - the only real defense against a hostile mage is staying far enough away from them, and 'far enough' is pretty far - but unless you have some kind of magic I don't know about I should be able to stay safe enough aside from that.

It's not like he hijacks your mind and can deploy you against his enemies, more like they snap and lash out with whatever's close. 

You can't shoot a hostile mage?

You can if you can find them; it's very possible to cast through walls and things, or while pretending to be asleep or something.

I can read minds.

That doesn't help if you're the one who's gone hostile.

Like I said, it's not systematic or clever like that; it's lashing out, not becoming a servant of the Enemy. Means I can help with other hostile mages.

She nods. Still a bad idea, though. If you attacked me physically, I could teleport away, you might hurt me some but it's hard to beat 'wanting to go' for quickness. If you attacked me with a spell, I'd have to be lucky to notice you were casting at all, and that's the only warning I'd get.