He glances at her.

"I mentioned a darish bird and then there was a braindead one draped across the floor of my office!"

He laughs.

"Anyway, our eventual plan is to have portals connecting your world to other ones, but we didn't want to abandon you until then, the next few centuries include lots of developments that make human lives a lot nicer, so we're here to establish diplomatic or at least scientific contact."

"Ah, I see. Very philanthropic of you."

"Goes both ways, no one else has dreamshaping."

"...Huh. I wonder what the difference is."

"We would be delighted if you figured that out."

"Some sort of biological difference between our species would be my first guess."

"We have met other humans! They can't dreamshape."

"That's stranger."

"Yep."

"Some biological difference still isn't completely out of the question, though."

"It is definitely possible, yeah."

He sighs. "It would be nice if magic were more--cooperative. Reducible. Scrabbling at straws, trying to find out how things work, and often as not the cause isn't part of the magic itself but some nonmagical influence--magic is the best thing in the world but sometimes it is frustrating beyond belief."

"Cam is the director of my nation's department of trying to figure it all out somehow."

"That's a good job to have."

"And I really got the best for it."

"Thank you. I have not gotten particularly far yet, it is not a tractable subject."

"There are some specific magic systems I think you'd like, though. Maybe after we have been vouched for to everyone who will require a voucher you can compare notes."

"Oh? That sounds lovely."

"We have a catalogue. For later, though. What does the vetting process look like here?"

"For what, specifically?"

"Your sister thought that you could confirm authoritatively enough for skeptical onlookers that we are not human and have the powers we claim and so on."

"Oh. Certainly. I have a laboratory, that would be most convenient on a variety of levels."