The bar was...unusually reticent, in the lower layers of her mind (and she hadn't pried further; she wasn't sure if she'd be noticed; she wasn't sure if offending would get her kicked out, and regardless of whether it was actually safe it was safer than anywhere else she'd been for the past...three years?) so she couldn't be sure this place wasn't really a trap of some kind, but the higher layers gave a plausible explanation that didn't involve being a trap, and whatever else it was warm and dry and had food. Her guard was probably a full 25% down. Positively trusting, these days.
"...Okay," she says after a few minutes. "If for some reason you're ever in my world, some magic users can tell various ways if you're a sorcerer or not, and some villains prefer to target them specifically--usually 'join me or die' kinds of things. Don't try healing someone with a spell you're not sure you have down unless it's enough of an emergency that fucking them up even worse won't make much of a difference. A sorcerer spell, I mean, so far as I can tell magical girl spells don't have failure modes like that. In fact, don't do any spells you're not sure you have down unless damaging the target is an acceptable outcome. You can practice spells in your head without actually casting them. If you have a spell down but you think you'll have it down even better later you might want to wait--fixing something perfectly that's been fixed imperfectly is much, much harder than fixing something from normal broken."
"For some reason being a magical girl is significantly harder to fuck up than either of the other kinds of magic; I'm pretty sure I didn't fail to warn you about anything on that front, at least."
"She wrote Sailor Moon. The magical girl genre predates the appearance of actual magical girls, which some people have suggested means that magical girl anime is somehow at fault for the kitschy designs."
"Ah. Well, at least it's not restricted to sailor suits per se. Although I guess mine could pass for one."
"Well, I only got it a few years ago, but I always suspected I would. You didn't know magical girls existed until not too long before you became one!"
"Not usually, I don't think, but I was always a very extracurricular sort of kid. My parents would probably have homeschooled my sister and I if I didn't insist on sticking around to, well, try and fix the system from inside. And Emily insisted on sticking with me."
"Did you get anywhere on fixing the system from the inside? I'd think that's the sort of thing you'd need a non-student vantage point to accomplish."
"Yeah, but five year old me didn't get that. I didn't get any institutional problems fixed, but I did put the fear of me into a lot of bullies, so I at least made the experience less unpleasant for some other kids."
"I would have taken my parents up on it if they'd suggested homeschooling, probably. At any point. I might have been able to push Renée into it but it never seemed urgent given she wasn't into the idea."
"I don't really regret it; I won't deny that in general homeschooling is probably better, but at least I had a little leverage to make the world a better place, and none of my classes stomped on my desire to learn anything I had been attached to."
"Yeah. I mourn the lost efficiency at school's ostensible purpose, sometimes, but yeah."