"Yeah."

"At least a universal language is pretty convenient."

"It is!"

"The roses come with telepathy but it's verbal-only, more's the pity."

"I'm more and more tempted to try these things..."

"They're pretty great. Even if their telepathy is substandard."

"What standard are you measuring it against?"

"To meet my standards telepathy would have to be able to transmit concepts that words can't really encode very well."

"That would be really useful!"

"I know! But rose telepathy can't do that, sadly."

"Yes, it's very unfortunate."

"The black rose has an enchanting feature, apparently, I'm hoping I can get somewhere with that.

Sometimes I hate being alone in my own skull."

"I can't say I've ever experienced that, but... it would be nice to be able to communicate on a deeper level."

"I didn't used to think if it that way, but I read a book about a thing that people could do that would, among other things, render them telepathic, and at one point someone referred to someone who wasn't as--locked up in a little bone box--and I was just, like, 'yes, this is me.' There's this--impenetrable barrier between me and even the people I'm closest to and it's not, like, a persistent distraction or anything. But I don't like it."

He nods thoughtfully. "Yeah, I think I see what you mean."

"I have high hopes about the enchanting thing, although none of us have gotten it yet so I don't know how well-calibrated that is."

"—you know, leaving aside how much it apparently hurts, those flowers just look really uncomfortable," says Ashras.

"For magic, you get used to it."

"Really? I mean, don't get me wrong, I still want to try it, but... really?"

"I think it's kind of fun," volunteers Anna, "but I'm very weird."

"Magic is awesome and I am stubborn as hell. ...It is kind of uncomfortable though."

"Magic is awesome and I'm also very stubborn, I bet I'll be fine."

"That makes sense!"

He laughs.

"It is not permitted to be prohibitively uncomfortable!"