"I don't actually know. Designing the targeting criteria was a big project. Not quite as big as the language magic but a lot more than I could do myself and I don't understand how it all works. I know that the members of the weave being spread out is important for it to function though. If we gather too closely the random selection part of our travel magic stops working."

"... what does 'closely' mean, if you don't have a way to represent distance between spaces?" Anþasta asks.

"That was poor phrasing on my part, I meant if too many of us gather together in the same place or places."

"I have so many questions."

She resumes her previous leaning.

"I guess those are probably best addressed to the people who worked on the project, though. Are other parts of your magic ... contingent like that? They depend on the existing network of people?"

"Anything that operates between spaces, except maybe artificial spaces if you think those count, requires some kind of pre-existing connection as a basis. Within a space connections can make things easier and faster, they're also the only way do do magic that directly touches things a long way away. What exactly a long way away is depends on what you're trying to do."

"What's the shortest distance that is a long way for some purpose?" Anþasta asks after a moment of thought. "Are we talking about the difference between across-the-lake and across-the-planet, or about the difference between across-the-room and across-the-planet?"

"Also, do remember that you can stop answering Anþasta if you'd rather not talk about magic details while everyone's finishing their dinner," Ðani says, her voice fond.

Maenik has in fact finished eating what she took so it's good to have the clarity that it's about the time period rather than if the specific people talking are still eating. "I'm happy to talk about magic.

"As for your question, it's a little fuzzy. I'm sure there's people who have measured it precisely but I haven't ever needed to. Things get harder to do as you stretch your magic further away from you and the more complicated what you're doing is the faster that tends to happen.

"When I'm flying seriously I'm stretching my magic a bit farther than the distance between those houses in all directions." She gestures at a couple of houses. But that's not using all my magic. If I focused magic in a single direction, I could do things at about four or five times that distance comfortably. And there's some types of magic where you can throw a bit of magic disconnected from the rest of your magic that might be able to reach distances closer to getting across the lake but it only works for things that happen quickly."

"Hmm. That's an interesting size to work with," Anþasta remarks. "Can you do magic through walls?"

"You can, magic can interact with matter but it doesn't have to. Relatedly you can learn to see through walls with magic. It's a bit tricky though so most people don't. It's also rude to look through things people are using for privacy and you don't always know which things are being used that way. "

"Do people build their houses quite far apart, then?" she asks. "If everyone can fly, it wouldn't be any harder to get between them, and then you'd have more privacy, if you were beyond the range of everyone's magic."

"Some people do, but land is one of the things you can't easily make more of. It's possible to build new worlds but even with magic it's a massive undertaking and the easiest ways to find new spaces tend to find worlds where there are already people. So most people live at least as close together as you do in this village."

"... and you can't aim away from worlds with people in them, only toward them? How does that—" she begins, before catching herself. "I'm sorry. You've already said that you can't explain the full workings of the template. I guess I'll just have a lot to see, in the future. I can hardly picture what it must be like."

By this point, most people have finished their dinner. People start collecting dishes in ones and twos, taking them inside the building with the table against it. But there's no rush to disperse — people linger on the benches, talking about their days.

Penþa comes over just as Anþasta finishes.

"Maenik, I just wanted to let you know that I've prepared my guest bed, so you're welcome to retire for the evening whenever you'd like," they say. "My house is that one just there, with the carvings over the door. If you are up for a bit more discussion, though, there are a few people who'd like to meet you."

"Worlds and spaces are different. It's easy enough to find dead worlds, places where life has never touched. That's where people get the raw material for building worlds from scratch. Finding places that have life but not people is like threading a needle. Magic cares about people and that's part of how my travel magic does its filtering. Maybe, in time, someone will find a way to filter for life without people but nobody's managed it yet, at least as far as I know."

She turns to Penþa. "Thank you, I'm willing to keep talking for a while yet." She turns back to Anþasta. "Maybe we can continue this topic another day. We're getting close to the limits of my knowledge."

Anþasta makes the affirmative hand gesture.

"Yes, thank you very much for answering my questions," she agrees.

Ðani gathers their dishes.

"And that gives me a chance to try to share magic again."

"I think you'll probably get it without too many more tries. And you're welcome, thanks for sharing your own story and giving me some more insights into how your people live."

"It was our pleasure."

Ðani flashes her a smile, and they vanish with the dishes.

"Well, I don't know if it was the kind of insight you had in mind, but Lhemur, Gornet, and I were hoping to get your insight into how our legal system and plans for winter will need to change with magic in the mix," Penþa says, gesturing back toward a pair of people seated on a bench by their house. One is younger, and very broad, with developed shoulder muscles. The other is older, wearing an elaborate shawl and sipping from a mug of tea held with both hands. "Which will certainly provide you with some stories of how we do that normally."

"I would be happy to help as best as I can."

"Lovely!"

Penþa leads the way back over.

"Maenik, these are Gornet, our most medicine-knowledgeable person," they say, gesturing to the tea-sipper. "And Lhemur, our blacksmith — who also handles a lot of non-food supplies, like clay and salt."

"It's good to meet you," Lhemur says. At the same time, Gornet clicks.

"It's good to meet you too. I think the simplest starting point is to tell you that people with magic can't starve to death. They can be uncomfortable but even just having water available will let them get by even without learning how to do anything with magic."