"Hmm. So your ambient mages are vaguely comparable to our supers if still really different and your other mages are more like what you're likely to find in a fantasy novel in my world."

"You have fantasy novels about academic mages?"

"We have fantasy novels about lots of kinds of magic. Most of the fictional systems work differently, but within a system people all usually do formal spells the same way."

"Huh. I can't be an academic mage, they checked me. It's a pity, I'd like to be able to learn more kinds of magic."

"It sounds nice. If I could have my power and some kind of more general magic I'd take it and gladly but I wouldn't trade it in."

"...I really like being the sky and I wouldn't trade it for academic magic but I could imagine kinds of magic I'd trade for."

"I guess. It would have to be really really good, though."

"Yeah. Because being the sky is fun and it's useful and it would have to be better at both or a lot better at one. ...I'm not sure if there are things that are not useful that would be fun enough."

"It's not just fun for me, exactly. Losing my powers would be like losing a sense and a limb at the same time. Any exchangeable magic would have to be very useful to make up for that."

"Oh. I don't usually have it as a sense unless I'm actually doing it on purpose."

shrugs. "Well, we've established that ambient mages and supers are different."

"Yeah. Have you been staying in the bar for a long time? Since you were sleeping there? Did you meet anyone else with powers sort of like ours?"

"Only about a day. We met one other person and she was the one who proved Helen's barriers are really made of light."

"Heh. So you each met a person to play with magic with."

"Looks like!"

"You know what's weird about this sky? It doesn't want to have any lightning in it. I tried to grab some but there wasn't any to grab."

"...Huh. I only work with wind, not lightning, so I couldn't tell you anything about that."

"Usually I can play with lightning too. It's great. I try not to do it around one of my housemates though, because she got hit by lightning in a bad way once, and it messed with her magic - she has lightning magic too now but doesn't like it."

"That seems sad."

"Yeah. I might get to be a lightning rod when she does practice with it, though, and she'll have to eventually."

"Sounds like it might be fun, depending on how that works exactly."

"Oh, I'd just sit nearby and grab any stray lightning. It doesn't hurt me, it never has."

"I meant I didn't know whether it would be fun or boring, not whether it would be fun or painful."

"Oh. I'd bring a book."

"Logical. Bar sells books, actually, I ended up getting the works of an author from another universe for my next two major holiday presents from Helen combined."