A sensation of something a bit like warmth spreads through Meto's body starting in his hand. Little bits of discomfort that he hadn’t even noticed flee before the gentle ebb of magic filling something that isn't quite his body but is certainly connected to it. Other greater aches and pains he's been carrying ease a bit.

The sensation builds a little as it spreads carrying his attention with it to every finger, every toe and everywhere else. Once it encompasses his whole self it deepens somehow, or perhaps ignites? There's no perfect word for it but he knows instinctively that something important has happened; he knows the magic inside him isn't Maenik's anymore it's Meto's. The sensation is more than a little overwhelming.

Maenik discreetly supports his body a bit in case he loses his balance to prevent any misunderstanding.

He wobbles. The oldest kid steps forward, looking suspicious, but Meto says something and she stops approaching. Doesn't step back, though.

Magic! Magic! Did he just BECOME a witch?? Can he pick things up with his MIND???

If he can it's not immediately obvious.

Maenik waits a little bit and then pulls out the metal block from the illusion and hold it out.

What if he WISHES really hard to pick up that discarded license plate over there with his MIND.

(He is too distracted daydreaming and babbling to his friends to notice this.)

The magic doesn't seem to respond to abstract wishes like that. Or at least not to that specific wish.

Maybe this will be harder than he thought...

The local adult says something and points to the metal box. The kid extends his hand hesitantly.

The metal box feels strange when he touches it. It feels like an absence of magic or maybe a magnet for magic? Something in between those. He can feel a bit of Maenik's magic already in the box.

...Is this where things go bad? Probably not, right, she seems nice, but.

...Poke?

The box seems to pull on the magic he gives it, not enough that he couldn't pull it back but enough to be noticeable. There's some sort of network of passages inside the box, with the tiny poke's worth of magic it moves down the paths slowly. Even the small amount of magic he poked with is enough to start doing something though. The passages in the box seem to reshape the magic that passes through them into an incredibly intricate structure. That reshaped magic moves back up his arm and through his shoulder and his neck towards his head. With just a tiny amount of magic it moves rather slowly.

This is kinda scary! He - yanks back reflexively, pouting. Then thinks better of it and will touch the thing again and... Poke harder?

With more magic it flows a bit faster. If he lets it get all the way to his head he can feel that it's not changing anything. It's looking at something about the pattern of cells there and then recording it in a bubble of magic. After it finishes that process it'll move back towards the box pulling the bubble with it.

He reports this aloud to his friends.

This one gasps and starts talking excitedly about- Brain things, maybe, given the gesture and pointing at her noggin.

Maenik smiles a different smile at that. It's good that they're talking to each other and understanding what's happening.

Once his bubble gets back to the box there's another bubble waiting made from Maenik's magic. Each of their respective magics copy the other person's bubble and then magic with a new intricate pattern drags this new copy into their respective bodies and while he can't track the motion of the magic inside Maenik he can sense his own magic pulling it back towards his head. This time the pattern will settle in around the same place it was looking before and make some tiny changes while still looking.

Still nervous!! But will let it happen!!

She waits another couple seconds but once she's pretty sure the language module is active she repeats her hello. "Hello, you should be able to understand my language now. I can also understand and speak in yours so if you'd prefer you can get rid of the translation magic on your end and we'll just talk in that."

Then she'll turn to address the adult and demonstrate that fluency in their language. "Thank you for trusting me not to hurt your companion."

"I don't know how to do that."

"He was very insistent. I'm effectively their guardian so I would rather appreciate a thorough explanation of what you think is going on with him."

She takes a step back and pockets the small box. "I did two things. First I awakened magic in him. Passively the main thing magic does is heal the people who have it. With templates like the language sharing one we just used magic can do a lot more, it's also possible to learn how to do magic without templates but it's something that requires a lot of practice. The second thing was that we used a template that lets us people trade languages. I gave him a common trade language used by my people and got the languages he knew in exchange. That's how I'm talking to you now."

She turns back to the younger boy. "If you just grab hold of it with your other magic and squeeze really hard it should go away without any issues."

"They say never to trust a witch, they don't know how their own magic works, or else they do and how it works is 'it screws you over'." Suspicious Girl declares, suspiciously.

"It's probably fine, I feel great!"

"I bet cocaine feels great."