There's rather a paucity of those, in favor of stools - but there are enough of those for everybody to have one.

Well, if she's supposed to be comfortable, that demands something more than just a stool, doesn't it?  Given that, unlike a dragon, she has an upright back?

(It was her big sister who first taught her this lesson.  Not that she remembers it well enough in general, but she does once reminded.)

But after a questioning glance around the chair-free room, she settles for pulling up a stool and sitting on it, and looking over expectantly..

Alicia busies herself laying out parts of a magic circle, calling forth four of the six primordial forces around Aeslin's position - those that will not be represented, and controlled, by Ciara and herself.

Ciara, meanwhile, explains what they're doing, and what it might feel like.

"What Alicia is setting up right now is - support structure, because to get a good look at what's going on, we might need to check everything - but the soul divination is just going to involve a bit of Light, in addition to our contributions.  You might feel a sense of oneness; that's an indication of Light sensitivity."

Aeslin watches Alicia's preparations with avid curiosity, if hardly any experience!  She wants to ask questions about every bit of it, but she's not going to bother her in the middle of laying out her circle!

"Is the light magic - to tell how well my soul measures up to other people's?  Or something like that?"

"...You're thinking too small.  It's not inaccurate to say that the presence of the Light here is for that purpose, but that's not what the Light does.  It's there as - access to the ability to make that comparison; it is not - the comparison in and of itself.

"Magic requires a strong will - a strong mind - and a strong vision^[1], no matter which force one taps into, because it will do what it wants, and not what you want, unless you can make it want what you want."

([1]: 'Vision', here, being the closest gloss of a somewhat untranslateable concept of strength of self that could also be translated as 'hubris'.)

"... Ah, yes.  That does fit more with how you've described this universe's magic.  I need to get out of my old habits of thought.

"I think I might like this magic system once I wrap my head around it... and once I feel at home here.  Somehow.  People have told me I have a lot of vision."

"...yeah."

There is a surprising weight to the agreement.

"Once, or if.  If you want to bend your efforts to the task of sending yourself home - it may be wiser not to forge bonds that may have to break all over again.

"Not that I don't intend to be making a better solution for this than a one-way trip would be.  But...

"I do feel for your out-of-placeness here, as absurd as that might sound."

"That... is a valid point. But I don't want to not wrap my mind around things here just in case I'll get home with bad habits."

"Who knows, maybe you can take the magic with you.  I don't see why it wouldn't respond if we're in the same sheaf of multiverse..."

She hasn't forgotten Alicia's vague words about having been in another universe.

"You've worked with the same magic across different universes?"

"No, but - you did get here because of a point of contact between your world and mine, so that proves interaction."

"Well yes, but couldn't the magic just as well be defined by something specific to your universe?  Though of course the magic from my own universe does seem to work here, which is at least one point of evidence against that theory...

"... but anyway, you were going to look at my soul?"

"It's a fundamental particle but it is a particle, you can take it with you if it's possible to transmit mass at all.  But yes.  Yes, we were."

"Tell me what you're doing!  Do I need to do anything?"

"....Right.  Well.  As far as the ritual goes - oh, but I can't use that analogy because you wouldn't really - I mean maybe you might -

"The general idea is to determine your - resonance, I guess, by exciting the fundamental...."  She waves a hand.  "Magic-ness of existing as something that even can interact with our physics.   -- I'm providing the interpretation, the organization and measurement; Ciara is providing the actual gathering force."

"... and that resonance will show you my soul?  I could imagine something like that conceivably working in my home - I could've explored in that direction if I'd wanted, but I decided to take other opportunities.  Or is that resonance my soul?"

"The former, more than the latter, but - the latter's not entirely wrong, either."

"Huh!  That feels sort of... fragile, for a soul."

"It is, and it isn't?  Which is entirely unhelpful to say, I know, but -"

"It's true?  Is all I can say."

"Souls..."

"There are things that can hurt them, yes.  But they're built out of some of the most - resilient - primal forces."