"We've got teekay, biokinesis - what's that anyway? Healing, elementalism - matter shaping? I remember hearing something about semiconductor mages."

"Flight, teleportation ought to be possible, magnetism, electricity, biokinesis actually covers a lot of non-healing stuff like cosmetics and transitions..."

"Flight would mostly be useful for me. I wonder if a mage can ferry things into space? I'd count transitions and cosmetics as sorta under healing. I mean - huh... Now that I think about it, it's kind of an exciting idea to be able to change myself, if I can always change back. So maybe self-biokinesis is my next target."

"Flight is useful for transport of objects, and yeah you can probably get to oxygen yourself and not be turned into ash by the sun's radiation."

"There's always spacesuits. If someone's going to hire me to carry satellites up or something, they'd better be able to afford a spacesuit. What is humanity if not for our tools, after all?"

She giggles. "Exactly."

"And space exploration has all sorts of long-term benefits, I think. So I can't even tell for sure what's the best way to help people. So why stress so much about it, as long as I'm trying. Maybe that'll work."

"That's the spirit."

"I'm probably going to come back to this sort of thinking sooner or later, but thanks for talking to me about it. Maybe you can tell me how you started on biokinesis? Everyone does it differently, but maybe it'll help."

"Well, I actually started with the gender thing—I had that since I was little. And that hinted at stuff in one or the other direction, and I knew since I was small that if I turned out to be a mage I'd want to do deaging and healing and stuff, so since the self-shifting was already there it seemed to easily branch out. The way my magic feels to me is also fairly biological, in a way, it's like—I usually compare it to stretching a muscle, or doing the splits."

"Huh. Mine's more like... Willpower and focus? Intent sharpened to a point? I wonder if the way it feels actually helps you learn certain things."

"I suspect it does. Terry's feels like formal logic, he said, and he's doing memory."

"Of course Terry's feels like formal logic or programming or something like that. It's so him. Budding engineer."

"It really is, isn't it."

"I bet he would be at a university somewhere programming robots right now if he didn't eclipse."

"Or something with mechanical engineering, yeah. Maybe he'd even want to work on the tech side of VR, make it suck less."

"Isn't he going to work on doing that anyway? He's a good soul, and cute. My folks would like him if I brought him home to meet 'em. If only he weren't so shy. Ah well."

"If only he weren't so shy," she agrees. "But who knows, he might yet surprise us."

Wendy just smiles at her, looking down, and then goes back to juggling her marbles with teekay.

"I'm gonna go to the library now, time to earn some money. Catch ya later."

"Catch you later. Next board game night, maybe?"

"Yeah, sounds fun!"

When the next semiquarter rolls around after another week or so, it turns out that Sadde has at least one class with Terry. He waves and gestures at the seat next to him.

"Hi!" he greets, plopping onto the seat.

"You're actually supposed to be here this time, eh? Let me tell you, I think sitting next to friends in class is overrated since we'll be working or listening most of the time, but it can't hurt."