Alicia, on the other hand, is focusing on the practicalities of the situation.  "...Is her precognition effective on danger to you?"

"It's not, ma'am, but if the danger can be aimed at her it doesn't necessarily matter that it isn't, especially if the danger manifests quickly enough that she can stop us before we cast."

"...That's a difficult question to put a definitive answer to because the danger is 'uncontrolled order magic is chaos magic which does whatever it wants to', but generally, yes --

"...We should, however, probably check that.  I'd hate to be wrong and end up with you hurt.  Especially given -- oh, dear.  I know you have a Spirit but the thing is, magic doesn't rely on that to actually cast - and we're already in uncharted territory - so that means two things to check before we can even get started -"

Well, at least she has an easy way to answer any passing Geth.  Since apparently this sort of thing is happening now.

"...Anyway.  Magic is ultimately performed on the strength of the soul, which is not the same thing as a spirit but tends to exist in any circumstance where there is a coherent Spirit - one with no external meddling involved, at least.  Which we do know you have.  And I think that that means you also have the rest of a functioning metaphysique, although that opens up some frankly disturbing questions as to how that interacts with your body not being made of anything that magic - recognizes -- but we aren't dealing with that, today or hopefully ever."

    "Master Deskyl would like to know how magic cast based on the strength of the soul usually handles children, please."

"...It depends on the child?  I'm sorry, that's completely useless, but - actually, define 'child' more clearly, please - I get where she's going with this line of questioning but it's - hm - how to put this into words..."

"...If a kid actually understands how to cast something, there's nothing stopping them.  Understanding is more complex than you'd expect, though.

"...It might be that they can't pull any particularly high-flux spells, as an arcanist, because there's not much of them to do it, but that sort of thing already varies anyway.  None of the stuff we're going to do is battle magic, though."

"...Oh.  Well, that works."

    "She says it might still matter; by one possible method of calculation I'm less than a year old."

"...So many of the things your home galaxy does to those like you, DZ, would be heinous crimes by our reckoning.

"...Inasmuch as I am capable of speculating on this matter, I think the depth of your experiences in that one year - and your general knowledge - likely account for as much - ineffable quality of being - as takes most human children decades to accumulate."  Fucking memory wipes, though.  "Still, there's - we can check this.  It's a simple ritual."

Sure, that's why they should be done to droids instead of people, who it'd matter for. "Yes ma'am."

...Well, that's concerning.

"...I'm sorry, I'm going to need to ask you to be more specific about what you intended to respond to, there."

"I meant primarily that the ritual seems like a good idea, ma'am, but also, yes, many of the things that are done to droids would be very bad for biologicals."

"...Not just for biologicals, I don't think.  But that's not...

"Getting mired up in that matter seems a bit foolish when there's learning to do."

"If you would please let Deskyl know that I'm going to do a bit of ritual work to figure out whether you have a soul?  It shouldn't take long and it's not dangerous so long as nobody interrupts it."

She's been signing translations this whole time but it's very reasonable to repeat that one, even without the clarifications. "Yes ma'am."

(It's not that she's not aware of this, as much as - this conversation has been being had with DZ, so it's - polite - to explicitly say that she's saying something for Deskyl when it is something she intends for Deskyl's attention specifically, given that she hadn't necessarily meant so, prior.)

"Right.  Let me just..."

She pulls out what looks like a datapad, clearly built off of the same general idea as the comms, and pages through its records.

"Always better to work from a reference for one of these, when you have one available."

Then she starts laying magic down.

"If you can step into the center circle, please, and then we can see how this goes."

DZ looks to Deskyl, who nods, and then she steps into the circle.

And the circle...

Lights up.

Or, more specifically, the three points of the trefoil woven across the inner circle, wrapped in circles of their own, flare with three distinct energies, even as DZ feels - a sensation of being weighed in three directions at once, reporting from parts she didn't know she had.

"...Oh, wow, this is...Kind of a mess...but it's there, that's for sure."

"Your soul is - deeply out of balance, DZ.  But, uh.  You do have one."

"It's highly structured - no surprise there - but when it comes to the other two axes...

"Too much Light in one's soul is just as bad as too much Void is for one's body, and you have a heavy load, which is...

"People call the two unit vectors of this axis of magic Life and Death, but in this case it's all about - hunger, wanting, volitionality, more than the stillness or constancy aspects, which -

"You already know what's going on there.  But the thing is, what holds a soul together isn't Order, because Order doesn't care what the order is as long as there is one.  It's not Light, because Light is oneness with the universe, and not one's self.  It's the primordial Death-y-ness that does it - that serves as the glue and the counterweight to keep things from coming apart.  And, sure, you're - in a bit of a weird situation, because you're not made of the same matter as the rest of us, so who knows if that's necessary to keep you together - but I for one wouldn't risk it?"

"All that said, you...shouldn't have problems doing Order magic.  At least, I don't think."

"Thank you, ma'am." She's not really thinking about what all this means, right now; maybe next time she has some downtime.

"Master Deskyl would like to know more about the Light imbalance and what that means for me."

"It's..."

"Hmm."

"How to explain..."

"You ever heard of 'Don't go into the light' as a sometimes-comedic euphemism for dying?

"Too much Light exposure can basically make that happen for real - the soul, and thereby the mind attached to it, just sort of...fades out.

"It's usually fended off by - cultivating a strong sense of self."

Deskyl seems to have some trouble figuring out how to word her next question.

"Do you know enough about computers to speculate on how that relates to how my soul is emergent from one?"

"...I imagine I could say a few things.  I certainly don't expect your soul to dissipate if your body is deprived of electrical power, so long as your long-term storage is functioning appropriately, and as long as I'm correct in my assumption that it does function that way.  ...It would be more akin to hibernation - there's still - continuity of self, even in a state of what's essentially suspended animation.  There's precedent."

"...Come to think of it - it's possible you are essentially possessing yourself?  Not...something that I or anyone should test...  But the possibility is...well, it's possible.  And in that case it might be that those chargers may as well be very fancy props, because you could just animate yourself."

"...I wouldn't risk it, but it's possible."

"I should be able to notice if I'm using less power than I ought to be without letting myself run low, if you'd expect me to see that."