Contact between Europeans and Native Americans, mainly. Though now that I think about it maybe gay acceptance is a better comparison, since the minority group was there all along but not public about it.

Doesn't run in families, though, which I think is working out to being convenient for the acceptance movement.

True. Then there's the thing where nobody knows how much of the population is critters. Some people would hear that and think "wow, they're just like everyone else" and other people would think "be afraid, they could be anyone". And some of both of those groups are critters.

I think reinventing medallions so anyone who wants to check can would be an important component of some versions of the reveal.

Definitely. Critters going public would massively increase demand if it went well at all; if medallions are plentiful instead of even more scarce than they are now, that's one less source of friction.

Speaking of which, the four diagrams I showed you from the Tikbalang medallion are all the spells that are on it, as far as my diagram-grabbing spell can determine anyway. I'm going to do some experiments with illusion sound, and then try to get the incantations that went with them.

Oooh, illusion sound, that's a really good idea. You might want to try something to detect natural magic too. It's just too weird that no one's capitalized on it if it's this easy, you know?
People say sphinxes made them originally.

I'm kind of amazed at not having hit a brick wall of impossibility yet, yeah.

I hadn't heard that, about sphinxes having made them originally. I really hope there isn't a step that needs sphinx natural magic to work or something. Did sphinxes have natural magic, do you know?

It's consistent with the rumors, but they're pretty wildly inconsistent rumors.

Yeah. I read a couple books on the extinction war, and for a relatively recent event it was really poorly documented. There wasn't much in the way of clear facts anywhere.

Same. They probably couldn't have wiped each other out with no powers, though I guess lost runecasting secrets could stand in for powers.

I've seen some sources claiming dragons had either lost runecasting secrets or powers that resembled same.

I've seen that about both.

If it was runecasting secrets rather than powers, that makes it even more annoying that they didn't get written down anywhere. Though I guess lost but in principle recoverable is better than gone altogether.

I just had a thought: a good first step toward detecting natural magic might be a spell that detects whether someone is a critter and if so what kind, without them having to get a matching medallion.

Good proof of concept.

Illusion sound first, I think, though even if I can get medallions working some people might want to know without having to get one.

She opens the spreadsheet and requests a diagram with the meanings "sound" and "control".

Especially if they only want to turn if they get to fly or something.

Yeah, exactly. Or if someone's parents aren't interested but they want to know which set of cousins are critters, or something.

Diagramming diagramming, the spreadsheet is her friend but she still needs to get everything arranged on the paper perfectly.

I think my mom was probably the critter parent, if it's only one, but I don't actually know and she's dead now.

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not sure which of my parents it is, but it's probably my mom too--I found my medallion in her grandmother's attic.

Yeah, that sounds suggestive. My mom has more scattered ancestry and winged lions are Mediterranean.

That makes sense.

By Saturday afternoon she has a draft of a basic illusion sound diagram; she sends it to Bella, then sets it aside and starts thinking about incantations.

Looks well-cancelled. Incantation will make or break, though.

Yup, as always. Thanks.

She has an incantation basically done by Sunday morning, but doesn't have time to recheck her diagram and test it before her date with Colin, so she leaves it for afterward. She's at the Mexican place about five minutes early.

Colin, who she met in midform with electric yellow feathers in strategic location, is present in human form another two minutes later. "Hi Margaret!"

"Hi Colin! How's your weekend going?"