...Aww. Babies. She's not in so much pain that she can't be distracted from it at least a little by small children.

They're very cute! They have figured out that she is the one doing the thing! It is a good thing and she is a good human and she can pet them if she wants!

She wants! She will happily fuss over small not-in-pain children until it starts getting close to sunset or Jensal comes back or something.

Jensal comes back. "The Kep Island house wizard is going to bring over the eldest two from there and then go to the Corenta house for theirs; the other house will have to wait until we have a tank."

"Okay. I really hope I can teach my magic, this is very much a stopgap solution."

"If you can, how hard will it be to learn?"

"If all you need is flight, and you're already in this much pain, probably not that hard. Flight isn't tricky, or anything, it just hurts more than, say, running really fast. Might need to practice some doing other kinds of magic first to build up the power--oh. And, um, meditation--my kind of magic has mental side effects--" she describes the relative mental side effects of Sympathy, Effort and Conquest and how some people are more resistant to them than others and how meditation and related forms of self-discipline ameliorate that. "But if it's just flying every now and then to keep the esu away it probably shouldn't have a huge effect."

And Odette--cringes, drops a handful of the younger ones, and assumes the pain from the new baby.

She drops a handful more. Dammit, why can't she be better than this. She grabs the new baby.

The new baby is the worst one. Some of the dropped babies de-swarm in protest.

Nng she hates having to leave any of them uncovered--and she can't do this overnight--she had better be able to teach this stuff.

"It'll take a while for Ehail to get to the Corenta house," Jensal says when the silver has left again. "Where do we start with seeing if we can learn the magic?"

"Try--ugh, I don't know any words for it--I wish--no, this is worse. I know a telepathy-thing but it's very brief and it hurts a lot, but it's not as bad as esu, at least not for the older ones, I could try showing you what it's like..."

"You sit through a few years of that," Jensal points at the oldest baby, who is now rolling over and over on the floor, "you don't care much about anything less."

"I'll try showing you or a different adult what it's like and we can see if you can get anywhere with that before trying it on a kid regardless, of course."

"Try me."

Jensal doesn't even flinch. Though she does tilt her head curiously and try turning into a bird.

The faint echoes of pain that lingered after the first sharp shock don't fade any slower as a bird.

She turns back. "Estimated amount of practice necessary to get to the point of anesthetizing babies? I imagine they'll learn better if someone else can hold the pain for them while they're working on it."

"Um, I could fly three years in...I was doing kind of gratuitous amounts of magic, though. On the other hand the babies are lighter than I was, at the time, and that's most of the work..."

"They're very light. They could even flap, if that helps, just not hard enough."

"It might. Or--wait, is that the issue? Because putting more strength in your muscles is easy."