"Sounds lovely."

Beam! Sip. Shy blushing.

Blushing is a two-person activity today, apparently. "...I'm trying to think of things to say and all I've got is shop talk."

"Magic is fun? Magic is cool? I mean, it could be worse, I at least also know magic stuff, it's not like you'd that one guy who keeps nattering about his job to a bored but polite captive audience."

"Yeah. Magic is fun and cool. For example, fun fact, I do a backflip as part of my new transformation sequence, I can totally do that, but back when I actually inhabited my body instead of just using it as a mannequin for my shiny purple self I could barely walk without falling over. I can dance now, if I want, it's great."

"Dancing is fun! I'm not as...enthusiastic about it as Emily is, I know how to waltz and a couple of other things, she knows everything I do and also imitates music videos like Caramelldansen and Moskau, but it's definitely fun. The transformation sequence would let you do a backflip unimpeded even if you were otherwise half-paralyzed, though, it's funny like that. And being transformed gives you nice boosts to most physical things like strength and so on but also including reflexes."

"Huh, if I were paralyzed, would I just - backflip then go back to being paralyzed after I was all shinied up?"

"Like, by half-paralyzed I mean you can move, it's just sluggish and difficult. I haven't actually met but have read about this one girl who's paraplegic and her costume and therefore transformation sequence involve ribbons she's telekinetic with wrapped around her legs and lower torso."

"Sounds... convenient, sort of. Can't be healed or doesn't want to?"

"Magic that can affect injuries as old, delicate and scarred-over as a several years old shattered vertebra is pretty rare. I think her reaction to being offered it was something like 'shut up and heal someone who doesn't have teekay ribbons to let them walk'."

"Yeah, I guess that's fair."

"I was reading about her because she's pretty involved with social activism dealing with ableism. There are a lot of magical girl social activists, but not we're not really organized...I'm planning on working on that, when I'm a little older and more likely to be taken seriously."

"Oh, yeah, you work in public! I sometimes go public just because I don't have to deal with long-term consequences and it's more convenient than being inconspicuous, but in my world most people can't see the aliens and don't know that puella magi or witches exist. Witches hide themselves in little pocket dimensions and the effects get written off as psychotic breaks or depression, occasionally mass hallucinations."

"That sounds annoying. And like it would make it that much harder to do your jobs."

"We can dowse for witches and civilian help wouldn't really do anything - someone in witch thrall isn't going to stop and consider that maybe the problem is magical in nature and not that they need to set fire to the convenience store just because they had a previous understanding of the existence of magic. So I'm not sure it actually does make it harder."

"I guess if you can dowse for them it's not such a difference. I was imagining something like safety pamphlets warning people about early warning signs of witch presence and the number for the local Puella Magi hotline and what have you."

"It's not really an 'early warning sign' thing. It's got you or it hasn't; if it's got somebody near you it's probably got you too. I guess it'd be handy on the occasions the witches park in buildings that are in use? It's usually creepy abandoned warehouses and alleys and construction sites and stuff but sometimes there's one in a nursing home or a hospital, and if those are on sprawly campuses the witch might be nibbling on patients and leaving the front desk receptionist for dessert."

"Ick. Okay, yeah, I was imagining 'if your neighbor is exhibiting these signs a witch might have got him' kind of thing, but I guess I don't know that much about how witches work."

"Sometimes familiars are kind of subtle? Those are budded-off witches that won't yield grief seeds if you kill them, they don't grow until they've eaten a few people and they can sometimes take a while to do that and could be subtle. Most puella magi don't even bother killing them because fighting costs magic and risks getting killed and you don't get your spiky little prize at the end. If I learn to teleport and clean other people's soul gems and we start trying to earnestly eradicate the species, maybe it'd be useful to have a way to find familiars when they're just chewing on one dude and the main symptom is that he quit showing up to work and keeps calling his sister and hanging up on her."

"And at that point, you need to weigh the number of familiars against the number of people who could get hurt in the metaphorical witch hunts that a literal witch hunt would cause."

"Yeah. I mean, optimistically people would believe us about the parameters involved - witched people have no magic powers, tie them up and you'll be fine, when the little tattoo-y thing on them is gone they're out of the woods - but realistically? Not so much."

"And you just know that every hate group that doesn't decide you're the enemy instead would use 'I thought I saw one of those tattoo things' as a new excuse for violence against their preferred targets."

"Yep. Witch had him and he was holding bleach and ammonia, no helping it, of course the witch's kiss is gone now he's dead."

"I think the reason I have so much mind magic is because I got my powers because I was pissed off at--well. Everyone and everything with a bare few exceptions, at the time, but mostly people like that. And you can make people stop doing terrible things, but the only way to make it stick is--to make them not want to." She's very quiet for a minute. "Some of the things I saw in my visions--I never would. Never. But I wanted to." Shame creeps into her voice. "I saw it and I wanted it and when I realized it made me feel sick."