"How did these items get made if there's no way to learn magic? Are the magicians homeschooling their children and not writing any books? How did you learn?"
"Half this stuff is antiques," says the shopkeep. "Look, asking me a dozen times isn't gonna make the answer more to your liking. I don't have Hogwarts in the basement, deal with it."
"But where do you get the stuff that isn't antique - who made the Avalon itself? - isn't anybody panicking about the medallion supply? -"
"Kid, nobody knows how to make medallions."
"But some people apparently know how to make luck charms and protection amulets!"
"I'm not going to give out my suppliers' personal information. I wouldn't do it even if you weren't annoying."
"There have to be books -"
"Does this look like a library to you?"
"I don't think she's sure. Or Daphne. They...I did talk to Jaromira about it. The short version is that they had a moderately confusing conversation about their feelings the only productive conclusion of which was that they 'weren't using labels,' for whatever that's worth."
"Part of the circumstances are that Daphne was spending most of her emotional energy dealing with the aftermath of her first transformation. She..." he trails off. "It isn't my place to tell the whole story, but when she acquired her medallion, it led to some other things becoming known that were harder to deal with."
"Oh... I can see how that would be awkward. I'm not sure which of my parents it is. And it's a little expensive to try to find out."
"It does sound fun. Wyverns seem like the best thing to be, to be honest. Various kinds of avians as well, but I prefer scales to feathers. I'd say dragons if they weren't extinct, probably." He pauses, going over what he just said and winces. "...In terms of, you know, fun--please don't tell anyone I just said that, it must sound terribly speciesist or something."
"I don't think I'd mind having fur or feathers," says May. "And I don't have enough immersion in critter culture to even say if that's speciesist or not."
"Under the circumstances, I think it would be unwise to assume it wasn't. Knowing less about the culture means I ought to be more careful, not less." After a moment he adds, "I don't think I'd mind fur or feathers either. I find scales more aesthetic, but I wouldn't be displeased with feathered wings."
"Literally found my medallion outside on the ground. I'm just lucky nobody saw me except an old bugbear lady. She calmed me down and got me back into shape."
"I wasn't totally sure I was awake and in reality until I was able to show Ren after going to sleep and waking up again."
"I think under similar circumstance I probably would have taken the fact that turning into a large mythical creature did not make sense as evidence that I was awake. I might have been startled in a dream, but not likely confused."
"Oh, I'm sometimes confused by things in my dreams," May says. "...Not always by things that don't actually make sense, but confusion is part of the available emotional palette to be mixed and matched."
"For some reason things in dreams always make perfect sense to me. At the time, that is."