She giggles. "I do actually have a balance disorder. I can walk, but I definitely can't run and uneven surfaces are dicey."

"Huh. And you couldn't solve it with any of your various flair?" He gestures vaguely toward her many bangles.

"Nope. I've looked into magical healing! I fall somewhat short of a fantasy white mage, let alone a fantasy neurologist. I have the magical equivalent of ibuprofen and surgical glue, that's all."

"That's still fairly impressive! Harry's ex had this 'reiki' thing she did, healed sprains and whatnot. Frankly I think it was mostly just massage therapy."

"Massage therapy's still something!"

"That's fair. Magically enhanced massage therapy, at that. You could probably make a mint; pity I can't touch people and Harry's, well, Harry."

"Why is it you can't touch people?"

"...Depends who wants to know. General public, I was abused as a child and have a crippling phobia of physical contact - not that that's not true. The actual reason is that there's something wrong with my magic, or my soul, whatever the difference is, and touching another human being causes me agonizing pain." He shivers slightly, then smooths away his expression and puts up a pair of jazz-hands with his gloved fingers. "Thus. And thus why I typically man the PI side of things rather than the punching side."

"Oh. I'm sorry. No idea what's wrong with it -?"

"Conjecture, little more. Councilman Listens-To-Wind has said that I'm 'too much spirit and too little substance', whatever that means. Perhaps one day we'll slay the bad fairy at my christening; we certainly slay enough of them. At any rate, I make do."

"If you say so. I don't know how this applies to wizards but I think regular folks can get seriously unhealthy through touch starvation? I think not acutely enough for it to make sense to endure agonizing whatnot but if you do get a crack at the bad fairy, zap it."

"I have pets. Well, Harry has pets and I mooch off of him. Hugging an unreasonably large, possibly sentient dog is a fine substitute for human contact."

"Oh, there you go then. How does the dog come by possible sentience, anyway?"

"Celestial ancestry, supposedly. He's a Temple Dog, the some-fraction scion of a Chinese guardian beast, which lends him supercanine strength, speed, and intellect. Also several miscellaneous powers useful against the forces of darkness, like biting ghosts and barking unreasonably loudly. Don't worry about offending him if you've already met him and treated him approximately as a dog, he doesn't mind at all. Also, the cat is just a cat."

"If he weren't I'd be worried about the time Bob possessed him."

"Oh, Bob can possess just about anything. I've let him ride along in my skull a few times, even. He always gets sensory information and some surface thoughts, but he only gets control of the body if the subject is an animal or unconscious. Or a corpse, but he prefers to avoid that. Except the one time with the zombie dinosaur, but who wouldn't possess a zombie dinosaur?"

"Boring people?"

"Damn, I always forget about them. But then, they make it so easy."

"They prefer it, it's better this way."