"Okay, that's good as far as it goes."

"Yes, we could have gotten much unluckier. In a way, a world where we were slightly luckier might have ended up worse -- there are technologies that'd endanger the whole galaxy, and it seems like they've never been deployed primarily because they are harder to figure out than things that destroy one world and so every world with insufficient caution hits the latter first."

"- okay, if I were in that situation and helmed a trillion-person empire I'd worry about... defectors, or individual planets or ships being captured long enough to collect that tech... maybe you can see it coming from a long enough way off that you can just avoid getting so close to having it on hand that you couldn't follow up with overwhelming force if someone did that?"

"Yes, we've stayed very far away from the more-dangerous developments ourselves, and there are very few people who know more than you do now."

"Okay. Do you have any nearish term ideas for my magic you want to float?"

"I'd love to test what you can do but I feel no particular urgency about doing that now instead of in a month, if you'd like the extra time."

"It might be more by then anyway, if Xander comes up with new angles on the outfit. Uh, he might not be the best person in the universe for the job if you really want me at peak but he does have the advantage of having read books by experts and I'm not actually sure how that trades off in this domain against raw talent, of which he has some but not one-in-trillions."

"If anything turns on you having 10% more range we can think about it but for now it makes sense to stick with someone who knows the field and is quite good at it."

"I'll tell him you think I'm pretty," Isabella snorts. "He'll be flattered."

"Is he settling in okay? I know it's a lot to take in."

"Not as well as me, but probably if you asked him if it'd be better if I'd been eaten all by myself he'd say no? Eh, that's the wrong benchmark... he's not in a crisis, anyway. Occasionally he realizes he's never going to see the next episode of Arrested Development, things like that, and mopes for a bit."

"I'm sorry. I hope it gets easier."

"It will but I think it might take a few years."

"That makes sense. You're taking it rather astoundingly well."

"Thank you."

"If we figure anything out relevant to sending you home I'll of course share it."

"Thank you." She's initially not sure whether to believe that, but of course most things relevant to that would also be relevant to importing magical girls in bulk.

"Fifteen year olds orphaned in our world would typically go live with a guardian, not on their own. I've been assuming that really won't help anything."

"I think it would complicate things. It might have made sense if either of us had come alone, but we have each other for company and this way we can learn to navigate local etiquette and expectations without having consequences for high-stakes interpersonal relationships that govern our lives at the same time. The tablet is exquisitely helpful." She pats it.

"It's very good, isn't it. - I've modified every AI developed before the Radch, to make it safer. I don't make them like me."

"- okay. Good."

"If I did you'd be able to tell because they'd, you know, like me and have nice things to say."

"The tablet seems to - wish you well."

"A little less than the person who made it did, I think. I hope."

"I wouldn't know. I'm still not sure if I want to categorize the tablet as a person but I like it more than most people I've met."