"I've had a team previously, so I have experience with keeping people together. We also work at it. But - I firmly believe magical girls should work together, even if we're not always temperamentally suited. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks."

"I'm not saying it's not a good idea if you can get it to work, just, their Kyubey might not be doing it maliciously.  Mine warned me against trying to make a team of magical girls work too, and I don't think he was doing it for sketchy reasons.  ...I guess you could pick at any of the individual things, though, and when you line them all up it's kinda..."

"What did you mean by, didn't want you to learn magic?  Like, he didn't want you to practice your magical girl abilities?"

"The safety problems were the biggest red flags for me... And I asked if I could learn magic beyond just summoning swords and ribbons and stuff, and he pretty much said no in an awful lot of words. But when I was just starting out, I wasn't confident in my fighting ability, and I asked him if I should practice, and he said I should just jump straight into fighting witches. Practice has ended up helping me a lot though, it's hard to innovate in the middle of a witch fight."

She nods.  "I mean, mine told me that the best place to learn to fight was - you know, on the job - too, and I might have said the same thing to you if I hadn't seen," she gestures around the room, "how well you guys work.  But - yeah, not keeping you in the loop on safety issues sounds suspish.  And like I said, you can always pick at the details, but."

"He was kind of - he was really - it's hard to explain, exactly... looking back, he was really... pushy, about getting us to wish.  I might have waited longer if he hadn't been so..." she trails off.

Nod. "He didn't explain anything at all to me, and waited until I was in the middle of an active crisis."

"Whoof.  I'd introduce you to mine - he was more up front about a lot of stuff - but he's usually keeping an eye on Tag.  Do you all work with this one, have you been keeping track...?"

"I work with a different one. He's more - straightforward, and better at actually answering questions."

Taylor pipes up with, "I definitely work with a different one, mine's really nice! And he's not as down on the team as y'all's, he thinks it'll be good for me!"

Sophie nods, says she has the same Kyubey as Taylor.

Alex looks thoughtful. "I don't really talk to my Kyubey much. He tells me about opportunities like this, but other than that we go our own ways. I think he's an older Kyubey though."

She looks at Mallory.  "Have you ever tried to get them to come to the meetings?"

She looks thoughtful. "No, though that's certainly a good idea. They might have something to contribute."

"Worth a shot, anyway."

There's a lull, and Kaylee takes the opportunity to ask: "Tobi, you said you wished at fourteen, right?  Do you think you were - too young?"

She looks thoughtful.  "Dunno.  It's not the youngest I've ever heard of, definitely, and I don't think I regret it."

"I don't feel too young at all."

"Well, there you go.  Some Kyubeys I've heard will go as young as ten or eleven, which I'd say definitely is too young, but - I think people underestimate kids sometimes."

"...It's young. I wished at that age, and so did my best friend, and we - weren't even slightly prepared. Kids should get to be kids, and - kids don't have the best control over their magic."

" - shit.  Are you - do you still work with the Kyubey who - wished you - that young?"

"He's the same one I work with now. He wasn't like Lianne and Kaylee's, he told us about most of the dangers upfront, we just didn't listen."

She nods.  "Shit.  I'm - sorry."  She doesn't ask about the best friend.  She can fill in the blanks.

"I don't think they mean anything bad by it, but - they're zealous about fighting witches, and according to my Kyubey, pre-adolescents in their species are actually able to be trusted with magic, so I don't think they're properly modeling how youth impacts humans."

"That - that's horrible. ...What happened?"

(She's not so good at filling in the blanks.)

"My friend, Tess, didn't have good control of their magic, and - events happened, and they fell into a despair spiral and lost control."

"...Shit."