May blushes bright under her scales and giggles.

"That's--you--" he breaks off. "I am retroactively halfway worried about you. If a thing that everyone thinks is true were true then you wouldn't exist. I know it's irrational but my brain is screaming that you had such a close call--and oh my god this is going to be amazing, you can--" he breaks off again. "My brain is halfway screaming with retroactive terror and half with amazed delight. It is very confusing."

"If any historical event far back enough had happened differently most people wouldn't exist, you know. But - don't tell anyone? The way critters and medallions work there could easily be sphinxes the same way there's - me."

"...I won't. Although we might want to do less initial spellcasting in public. Especially if we're not as careful about checking the spells before we incant them."

"Yeah. ...And this means that if I test a thing the results are not necessarily reliable for you."

"Well, I think if it backfires it just doesn't work...?"

"Not necessarily. It might just - work and lack some side effect it would normally have. This also calls into question the 'can we just not intend to cast and therefore not cast' result, I was the one who tested that."

"I didn't bring the wax tablet again, but I can try not-intending-to-cast when I get home. And...don't scribble runes at random, I guess, but as long as we don't completely neglect double-checking things I expect we can probably prevent serious unpleasant side effects."

"Or just have me be the one to cast anything questionable."

"Or that, yes. If it turns out I can refrain from incanting while technically saying the incantation, it might be worth checking to see if you get any feedback when you negate a magical effect."

"Yeah. And I think I'll just practice with, like, suppressing a cheap luck charm while rolling dice, in case my powers have been exaggerated or it varies individual to individual."

"Yes, it's probably a good idea to make sure the dragon from the diary wasn't some kind of miraculous prodigy before doing anything really dangerous."

"Or a different kind of dragon or something. I think there used to be all shapes and sizes and colors. There's kinds and kinds of griffins, you can barely tell nemean and bohemian lions apart..."

"...I wonder what started the war. It's sad. Even if there's you, and whichever parent--so much must have been lost, and not just magic, either."

"The book doesn't say?"

"It's about the war, not what came before. I mean--there must have been culture, mustn't there?"

"There must have. Entire societies of critters, organized enough to wipe each other out..."

"And now it's gone. There are the Avalons, of course, but..."

"There are barely Avalons, and they're crowded and can barely afford to support the monsters who have trouble finding work."

"Quite." Pause. "We're going to have to fix that."

"We've got a lot of stuff to do."

"We have so much stuff to do! Personally I'd prefer if more of our to-do list were academically interesting challenges and less were problems no one else has been addressing, but a full to-do list is always a good thing."

"I don't know, I kind of like that no one else is addressing them - I mean, from a certain perspective. It is terrible that they have been going unaddressed but at least we don't have to finagle existing and probably terrible in some way behemoth egregores about it."

"Yes, I did mean that I would prefer that they were being addressed. So the situation at hand is worse than if someone else competent were handling it but better than if someone incompetent were handling it."