"Whatever you want to do, sha."

He spends a few minutes unpacking, baiting, and setting up some kind of fish trap, attaching it to the undersize of the Lizals' fort. Then he wanders the perimeter of the boat and little fort with a barbed wooden spear, occasionally stabbing at the water, and even more occasionally pulling it back out with a fish on it.

Mahan sits and watches. This is fascinating.

"Does anyone ever use magic for fishing here?"

"I don't think the magic we know is all that useful for fishing? Ooh, Jeebil once got a shock arrow from up north somewhere and shot it into the sea near a big school, it killed like thirty fish. That was pretty cool."

"That sounds fun, what's a shock arrow and where do I get one?"

"I think the Rito make them. It's an arrow with an enchanted tip. When it breaks, it lets out tons of electricity. There's also fire, ice, and bomb arrows."

So they - wait, what.

"Different kinds of magic are common to different species here?"

"...Sometimes? I'm not sure how it all works, sha."

"Where I'm from all species have equal proportions of each kind of magic, but I guess this place is different. Does one species rule the others here?"

"...Hylians like me are most common? The Rito, Zora, tree-people, and Gorons all have their own cities? Huh, your ears are weird or I'd say you look like us. You look like a Gerudo actually, with the ears, except you're not a girl so that can't be right."

"What's a Gerudo and why can't I be one if I'm not a girl?"

"Gerudo are the kind of people who live in the Gerudo Desert. They're all women and they don't have pointed ears. They wander Hyrule looking for husbands and have a couple kids and then go back to the desert."

"Why do they have round ears and no one else does?"

"I dunno, man, it's just the way it is."

Spear-stab. He gets another fish.

"Ooh! Look at the scales, this one's got good magic in 'im."

...Okay, so they mutilate their ears and murder their sons. Cool.

"Who's enchanting the fish?"

"They just happen to be magic. Bunch of things are. Doesn't do much for the critters, but if you cook 'em right, you can use the magic."

"That made so little sense I'm not sure we're even talking about the same thing when we talk about magic."

"Magic is stuff that breaks the rules of what happens most of the time. You can make magic metal that does stuff metal doesn't usually do. Tree people can make magic leaves that make more wind than they ought to when you swing them around. You can sing magic songs that do stuff singing doesn't usually do. You can cook magic food or elixirs that make you tougher or faster or whatever. Magic."

Stab. Miss.

"Where I'm from magic is something that takes a person's will - picking something up with your hands isn't magic because any animal could do it, picking it up with your mind is magic because only a person can do that. I guess you could say it breaks the rules for how nonmagical things happen but I'm not sure that isn't a tautology. ...Can you run out of your kind of magic? And just not have any?"

"I dunno, man, I'm just a fisher. A lot of that magic theory stuff goes over my head." He sighs. He checks his trap - it's empty. "Eh. Time to go back."

"Yeah, let's. How do I use the leaf?"

He'll just try not to keep dwelling on this really horrifying train of thought.

"Hold it at about chest height, broad side forward, swing and want it to blow. Gotta want it to or it won't."

Now that's more like magic should be. When everything's on the boat he tries the leaf.

And it makes a proper strong gust of wind!

It takes a minute or two to find a good rhythm. It's not extremely strenuous, but it's not a casual stroll either. They're going pretty fast, at least.

This is pretty great. Maybe it's a little weird around the edges but this world clearly has the better magic over all.

They get back to the village in about an hour and a half! His escort runs his boat up onto an open dock at the far end. "Good trip. Monsters gone, got fish. Have a nice day, Mahan."