"I'm sure Alicia and I both have thoughts about magic - I've a passing acquaintance with all of it in practice, and she knows her way around the theory - but what I'd recommend you explore depends on what you wish to get out of exploring it."

    "Utility is always her primary interest, she says, and she's happy with her sensory specialization and will want to expand that here if possible. If her Force background translates the way it seems to she'll also have an advantage at anything to do with emotions, and possibly at developing new effects."

"...If it's utility you're looking for, you want Order.  Or arcane magic, as many call it.  Sensory specialization..."

"Hm.  Spirit and Decay, Life, Order again, an offshoot of Void that I would not recommend but mention for completeness' sake...  I hazard someone could do sensory enhancement with Light but I've never met the type.  Alicia?"

"...Yeah, that seems about right.  Including the theoretical use of Light that way, but that's...contraindicated.  Spirit - and its negative-axis counterpart, presumably - seem to react to Force techniques in a way that suggests you might be able to translate, yes - and more importantly, that you will have a good base for learning things that the Force doesn't have an edge on.  Elementalists can do some utter bullshit.  But yes, Order magic is absolutely high on the utility scale, albeit that there is significant study involved in getting to that point."

She's absolutely going to at least look into Light, but that's not a conversation she wants to have right now; she's not going to do it anytime soon, at any rate.

    "If the library has books on those I can translate them for her, if you think that's a good way to start."

Yeah, it's just now that Light magic is a bad idea.  If anyone's going to have the right mindset out of the gate, it would be Sith.

"Hm.  Do we have any -?  I know there's spellbooks..."

"...There are a few texts, though I do not imagine many of the household would be able to speak to their quality.  They aren't often called for."

"...Yeah.  It's hard to tie down a primordial force in words.  But then, I imagine you'd know that well enough."

"...Though in the case of Arcane practitioners trying anyway, the trend is more towards coining very specific usages of existing language, than inventing new ones." 

"There's not enough convergent - ideography - too many casting paradigms, some mutually incomprehensible - to support much beyond mnemonic techniques, linguistically."

"...You'd likely be suited to picking it up, DZ.  If you wished to."

"I'm not sure what you mean, ma'am."

    "Master Deskyl says you might mean that I could learn your local magic?"

"That is what I meant, with the additional implication that you are most likely particularly suited to learning Order magic."

"There are a variety of...flavors, to go around."

It sounds like I'm going to need a tutor anyway, you could get started and teach me what you've picked up when I'm awake.

    Ma'am, I'm not...

Not what?

I don't care what your programmers thought you shouldn't do. If you don't want to, that's fine, nobody is going to make you. But I don't see any reason for you not to if you do want to. Do you?

    ...it would be useful?

That's not what I asked, but yes. If you want to do it because it's useful that's a good enough reason for me.

    "Could you arrange for a tutor, please, ma'am?"

Alicia favors this exchange - or rather, the resulting decision to learn - with a small, and sincere, smile.

"...Do you...", she then asks of the Duchess.

"...I daresay I could find someone, but of the various choices, I believe your cultural knowledge may make you best suited.  You are a competent arcanist, dear."

"But not particularly orthodox.  ...I'd appreciate the help, if you wouldn't be put out by it."

"So long as you understand that you, too, have something worth teaching."

"I.  Well.  I suppose I must, then.  If you're saying so."

"Besides.  Do you truly think our guests best suited to the orthodox paradigms?"

"...DZ is a translator.  Though I'll admit, I do think that my own work is something she might already have enough familiarity with to follow."

Like you, Deskyl signs to DZ, delighted, when the duchess asserts that her great-niece has things to teach.

    "Master Deskyl says she'll be happy to have you working with me - she'll recover more quickly if she doesn't need to be awake on a set schedule, so her plan is to let me start now and teach her what I've learned on whatever schedule she's available until she's ready to change that."

"I would be glad to.  Though I do have your charger to finish - but that shouldn't stop me from talking as I work, if you're interested in artificing.  It could be useful."

"And I will see who can be spared for a more traditional perspective.  ...There's not anyone else in training right now, so that should be readily done."

    "Yes ma'am. Master Deskyl says thank you."

She yawns, then, and signs again.

    "And that she should be getting back now."