"There's a seafood one. Separate from the sushi. We have a lot of fish-eater types in this Avalon."

They can go there, then. (She gets something cheap, maybe not the cheapest thing on the menu but close to it. It's not like May doesn't know her financial situation.)

How was May's day other than the traffic being bad? She hopes the green pearls weren't too much of a problem, she didn't realize they don't come in that color.

May gets crab dip; it's an appetizer and not too expensive. "The pawnshop guy didn't realize either, apparently. A lot of the shops weren't accessible - I can walk a little but I hate doing it outside in winter, I banged my hip a bit getting into one, eBay's a way better plan."

That sucks. Hopefully eBay will get some sales before this money runs out, she'll do her best to stretch it.

At least the council hasn't been looking for her. That seems a little weird, though.

"They're probably pretty wrongfooted, and so far leaving you alone hasn't caused any trouble. I'm expecting them to ask me about you at some point."

Huh. Smart of them. She hopes it's not a big deal if they do ask May about her.

- they might ask May if she's mentioned cryptids or turning into one; does she want an explanation of that? It should be fine if she just tells them she hasn't, and it's kind of a heavy subject.

"Why would they ask me about that?"

It came up with the Bakers and they might be a little freaked out about it, people are sometimes.

"Well, what is it exactly?"

The short version is - she mentioned it's dangerous for her to look too far from human, right? If she does that she turns into a cryptid; it's not messy and doesn't hurt or anything but she wouldn't be herself anymore, cryptids are only maybe people at all. It's not common, and it mostly happens to brand new magical girls who don't know they need to be careful or are too excited to be. But it does happen sometimes that a magical girl who's - stuck, and unhappy enough about it, will choose to; the option is right there, it doesn't even feel dangerous, it wouldn't be hard to do on impulse.

"Okay, if you started talking about how easy it would be for you to low-key commit suicide when you talked to the Bakers I can see why that would be offputting."

Yeah.

She doesn't want to go cryptid but there's things she definitely can't handle right now including, like, school, so. Like she said yesterday, it would have been a disaster either way.

"Unfortunately there's not an embarrassment of choices within an Avalon so I don't know if you'd have any luck trying for homeschoolers. What's the matter with school, are you homeschooled on your world?"

At home they found something she can cope with, Montessori schools are okay or at least her one is. But she grew up in an institution, and being stuck in an ugly little room with a bunch of other kids while a grownup tells her what to do and maybe gets mad at her for not doing it the same way the other kids do is... not great.

"I don't know anything about this specifically but it wouldn't surprise me if homeschooling wasn't even allowed for monster kids, who could put everyone at risk if they didn't know how to behave to maintain secrecy. And there aren't any alternative schools, not enough kids to support them."

Yeah.

She does fine learning on her own, that is one of her very favorite things about being free now, just - they have to let her do it.

"Even if they figured that would be okay for, like, math, it won't get you to 'not looking like a realistic telepathic cosplayer in downtown Toronto'..."

That one was just because she didn't know, though she did appear right by people so there's not much she could have done about it anyway. But if there's stuff like that - they can assign her books and check that she read them; she won't be happy about it but if it's not all the time she'll deal with it. But sticking her in a little room doesn't get them a Dusk who follows the rules, it gets them a cryptid who probably doesn't care about the rules at all.

"I didn't make this policy and don't even know if it's a real policy, I'm speculating. You don't get anywhere arguing about it to me."

She knows. It's just frustrating that they're talking to everyone but her about it.

"I can see how it would be, yes."

Anyway. Now if they ask she can tell them. Or not if she'd rather, but she has the option.

What's something less unpleasant they can talk about. She likes the library, it's a surprisingly good library for the size of the place.

"Yeah, it's decent. Didn't have as much on runecasting as I would have liked but I'm managing."

She hasn't looked into that yet, is it worth it if she's not going to do any?

"It's dangerous to actually do but if you just want to read about it go for it if it interests you."