She has magic she has magic! She knew checking every week was a good idea, she knew it! Because now she has magic and she knows about it and she has to tell her mama and papa right now! She goes running for home immediately.

One of the neighbors' kids asks why she's in such a hurry when she passes.

"Because I got magic! Lookit!" She skids to a halt and makes the light again.

"A witch! Magic powers! You gotta tell everyone!"

Nod nod nod. "I'm going home to tell Mama and Papa right now." She starts off running again, though the other kid can probably keep up with ease if they try--she isn't particularly good at running.

Carlos runs off in another direction, shouting "Margaretta did magic!"

Excellent. She runs the rest of the way home and calls for her parents, who come running out of kitchen and workshop respectively and sweep her up in a delighted hug.

Margaretta spends the next couple hours showing her mana light to congratulatory neighbors, running around the house in circles, and speculating to anyone who will listen about what flying is going to be like and what her special power is going to be. Her father goes back to his carpentry for part of it, and her mother finishes sweeping the house and starts in on "something special for dinner tonight", but one or the other of them is usually available to accept congratulations and smile fondly. 

One of the friars from the monastery in the hill shows up after a few hours, holding a book and smiling wide. "Blessings be upon us all this day!"

"Hello Brother! I'm very glad I have magic! What's that book?"

"We are lucky to have a short tome on the history of magic in our abbey. Father Sandros thought you might appreciate the chance to read it. Books are precious, of course, so I am to watch over it as you do so."

"I promise I'll be careful with it!"

"Of course. I don't doubt that. Still, it is better to be careful. Diligence is one of the prime virtues. Would you like to read it here - If I am welcome in your home, Mr. Perez - or at the abbey?"

"Come in, by all means," says Juan Perez.

Margaretta darts over to open the door. "I'd like to read it here please." (She means, I'd like to read it now, please.)

The friar laughs. "Of course, here we are..."

He sets it on the family's table. The title is An History of Witchcraft.

She carefully turns over the cover, then the pages one at a time, reading the book without actually picking it up.

It talks about the role of Witches in Castille, Aragon, and Navarra. They frequently act as messengers and neutral mediators between various lords, kings, merchants, and the like. Long ago, witches would fight with lords' armies, supporting them with flying scouting and powerful magic. Any witch who emerged would be recruited by some lord who already had the loyalty of a few other witches, and not have much choice about it. Witches cannot hold nobles' positions, so they couldn't marry the lords or knights as some wished to. They frequently were forced to fight other witches in petty wars. Then one day a great many of the witches serving evil lords against their will revolted, all at once. Most of the evil lords were killed, and the rest kicked out of power. Things were unstable for a while after that, but then two great kings formed the holdings of Castille and Aragon, and made a pact never to use magic in their wars.

Things are better for witches here now, which is good, because magic is a blessing from God. Here are some of the things Witches can do: Make pretty lights, make those lights stronger and explode-y, fly on brooms, make magical shields, and one "special talent" for each witch, such as healing wounds or bending wood like dough under their hands.

(In Navarra, witches mostly keep to themselves, though they band together into mighty magical armies if the region is threatened.)

Margaretta is silent until she has finished the book. "I'm glad witches don't have to fight each other anymore. Being a messenger sounds fun; you get to fly around and see lots of places and be useful."

"Many witches do that, yes. Especially young ones, who are still growing up but know how to fly."

"I don't know how to fly yet but I can't wait to learn! And I want to find out what my special is."

"I believe the Father sent a horse to the estate of our lord Marcus. As I understand it, the Witch who carries missives from the king to him shall inform others, and one of them will come here to instruct you soon."

"That's so great! Is there anything I can do before she gets here to make my magic stronger?"

"I am sorry, but I do not know. I haven't heard of witches making themselves stronger."

"Okay . . . Are there more books about magic, at the abbey?"

"There are a few, but we don't have a great collection of books about magic, alas. You would be welcome to come visit and read with us."

"I'd like that. Maybe I could visit tomorrow?" She looks at her father and the friar; the former looks at the latter.

"We would be happy to have you visit. Simply remember that the mission rules must be followed, even by young witches."

"Of course! Would you please tell me the rules again so I know for sure I remember them all?"

"Of course..."

He gives long theological reasons for each of the rules, but they boil down to:

Be polite.

No shoes in any of the buildings.

Don't raise your voice.

Be careful with the books.

Don't talk to anyone who's praying.

Margaretta diligently memorizes both the rules and the theological reasons and promises to come by tomorrow.

"We will look forward to having you. Good afternoon, everyone. May God watch over you."

And the friar goes.

The next day she hurries through all her chores in the morning and walks to the Abbey right after lunch.

The abbey is built into the side of a hill a few miles outside the village. It's a small cluster of buildings surrounded by neat gardens, robed monks working in them. She's been up there a few times before, mostly when they were first teaching her to read. Some of the trappers and occasional farmers she passes greet her on her way there!

Everyone who greets her gets joyfully (re)informed that she is a witch now and it's so great.

Margaretta has fond feelings about the abbey. Learning to read was lovely, and the gardens are beautiful and useful and the herbs in them smell nice. The books smell even better. 

That's exciting news! The head friar is fetched when she approaches. After she takes her shoes off in the entryway, he breaks out an incense burner and wafts the smoke over her, prays a blessing for her, then says, "Welcome, welcome! You are here to seek wisdom, and we are glad to welcome you."

The incense smoke smells nice too, though not as good as books. "Thank you," she says. "Where should I go to read the books Brother Simone said I should read? The ones on the history of magic?"

"We keep all our books in the sanctuary. I will show you there and have someone help you with your reading." He smiles down at her.

"Great! It's nice to have someone to help with the hard words."

"Of course. We all need help when we first learn something."

The abbey's little library is the same as ever - the smell of vellum and ink, rows of shelves and lecturns, a couple of friars copying books or maybe writing new ones.

Margaretta is very quiet in the library.

Copying books is such a useful job. She hopes she can do something really useful with her magic.

Brother Simone is happy to help her read. There's more books about history, which sometimes mention witches. There's a few theological treatises on the role of witches in God's plan. There's also a few books on practical things, like accounting, brewing beer, smithing iron, or medicine.

She wants to read everything about historical witches and at least one or two things on how they fit into God's plan, and also about iron-smithing and accounting if that's okay.

"You have quite an appetite for knowledge. I think it would be best if you picked just two books for today, however. There will always be tomorrow."

Oh no, this is hard. She'll think for a while and then take a theological treatise and a smithing book, as the most witch-focused and most interesting non-witch-focused options respectively.

The theological treatise discusses various theories on the origin of witches - which isn't really known but the book insists is surely part of God's design either way. Witchness doesn't run in families. Occasionally some witch's granddaughter is also one, but nowhere near consistently. So therefore witches are clearly chosen somehow. The basic powers of witches seem angled towards fighting, but there's no real reason they should be associated with the cadre of angels whose job is to punish evildoers - while blessed and magical, they are still of the flesh, not pure and divine like angels. There are long litanies of various sides of the argument.

You get iron out of certain kinds of rocks! You have to heat them up very hot in a special container, far hotter than a normal camp fire could achieve. This gets you a mush of iron with gaps in it, which you hammer down into a solid bar. It's weaker than proper-forged iron but proper forging takes a fire that's even hotter and most smiths can't do it themselves. It has pictures of the rocks, and of the iron-making tools, and describes what to do with the non-iron goop and gunk that you get from the rocks (seal it away carefully, it's pretty poisonous).

The theological treatise doesn't really leave her feeling any more educated than she had been, but the smithing book does! She isn't a strong man who can do the hammering part, but knowing what kind of rock is the right kind is good.

"Thank you very much!" she says. "I want to go try to fly now, if that's alright."

"Of course, of course. We can let you borrow one of the brooms if you wish to try it here. Please do be careful, though."

A broom is fetched. She's walked to where she can reclaim her shoes and go outside.

Okay, she has a broom, she has magic, she's going to figure out how to combine the two! She's going to . . . put the broom between her legs and hold it with both hands and jump, that seems logical.

Nothing magical seems to happen. 

...Doing the little lights does require deliberate effort.

She makes the same kind of effort as the little lights, but tries to sort of aim it at the broom.

That...

...Doesn't quite work but it felt closer somehow.

She tries again and hauls up on the broom and jumps in the air really hard!

That doesn't quite work, the same way. It felt the same as last time.

Maybe she needs to point the effort at herself instead of the broom? Or make it more of a "lifting" kind of effort?

The first thing doesn't feel like anything at all. The second thing feels about the same as what she was trying before.

Does getting a running start help at all?

Nope. The monks seem to be having fun watching her flail around with a broom, though.

Maybe it's a separate thing-she-can-do, the way moving her left arm is different from moving her right arm? Is there anything she can do that's like making a mana light but isn't quite the same not-a-limb?

After a few variations of trying different not-a-limbs she finds one that makes the broom shake violently for a moment.

"Oh wow it did something!" She tries that one again, concentrating on wanting it to make the broom go up.

It sort of feels like pushing magic into the broom. Magic in the broom makes it shake violently no matter what sort of wanting is attached to it.

Can she . . . pull the magic . . . back out of the broom?

Pulling the magic back out of the broom makes it fly off directly away from her! For a few feet, then it falls normally.

"Woah!" She tries that again, keeping a good solid grip on the broom this time. Does it go in the direction the handle is pointing?

It tries to go directly away from her again - this time it actually drags her with it, since she's holding on so tightly.

She's feeling unaccountably tired, like she's been running for a while instead of walking around, jumping, and holding a broom.

One of the monks heads for her. "Are you alright, señorita?"

Well, if magic is sort of like a limb, maybe it can get tired like a limb. 

"I'm alright, Brother, just getting used to this."

Hmm. She probably has enough energy left for one more try. If pulling the magic back from the broom towards her makes it go away from her, maybe pushing the magic downwards out of the broom will make it go up? Is that a thing she can do?

That's a thing she can do! The broom goes up! It lifts her up by the arms where she's gripping it for a moment, nearly taking her feet off the ground before the force disappears.

"I almost flew! Did you see??"

"Please be careful, señorita! It's dangerous to learn to ride horses alone! Surely this is the same!"

"I can only make it go a little way, it's not like a horse that can decide to run off. But you're right, I shouldn't do it unless someone is watching. I'm getting tired, I can go home and try again tomorrow with my parents watching."

"Okay. Just be careful, alright? I know it's exciting, but nobody wants you to get hurt."

"Of course, Brother. I'm sorry for worrying you. Where should I put the broom now that I'm done with it?"

"I'll take it. Thanks for not breaking it. And - it's nice to see you so happy about magic. Just worrying too! God be with you."

"And with you." she says, smiling and handing the broom over. Then she hurries home to eat dinner, and help clean up after dinner, and chatter at her parents all about how she's almost got flying figured out but magic is tiring and maybe tomorrow she'll be able to get good at it and also this is how you smith iron. And sleep.

Several people gave her family little gifts while she was gone at the abbey.

The next morning the rumors say that a witch is probably coming today to teach little Margaretta.

Margaretta is so so excited about having a witch teacher! She does all of her chores as fast as she can again, then takes the broom she was just sweeping with and stands in the yard where her mother can see her and tries flying again. Can she push the magic down through the broom slowly and continuously instead of in a burst, and does that make the broom go up in a less startling manner?

That works! But it's really, really hard to balance! She'll probably fall over if she tries actually leaving the ground.

If she can get it to hover she will diligently practice balancing as long as it's a really short fall every time.

It's really quite difficult. Sort of like standing one foot, except worse. The broom just doesn't seem to want to balance.

Real witches who know what they're doing have got to be doing something different from this. Is the problem that the broom moves on a way that dumps her off it, or that the broom holds still and her body goes sideways?

The first thing, feels like.

She tries pushing two smaller streams of magic through the broom at once, hoping this will stabilize it the way holding something with two hands would.

That is even harder to control. Like trying to pick something up with a foot.

One of the neighborhood boys sees her and asks, "You trying to fly?"

Well, forget that, then. 

"Yes, I am! It's tricky but it's fun!" (Her clothes are probably covered in dirt by this point, but she's smiling.)

"It is? You're falling a lot. And that broom's all broken."

Well, it's a bit old and ratty, but not broken. 

"It isn't any worse than it was this morning, I've been being careful. Did you hear that another witch is going to come to town to teach me things? I heard it, I hope it's true!"

"That would be really fun! I wonder if she's fought any demon monsters."

"Oooh, maybe! I don't know if I want to fight demon monsters. I want to do whatever is useful but I don't know if I can fight well at all. And I don't want to get hurt."

"Me neither. You can get hurt not fighting too. You could get kicked by a horse. Or get the pox." He pokes the ground with a stick idly.

"Yeah. And getting rid of the demons is important." She tries holding the broom vertically, gripping it between her knees, and pushing the magic down along its axis.

She can get off the ground this way! But the balance issues remain and she falls over backwards and flops onto her back.

"You almost flew! I always thought witches could fly really easy, but maybe not."

"I did! I got so close! Maybe I need to get stronger so I can hold on better. Or tie myself to the broom."

"I don't think witches tie themselves to their brooms."

"Probably not. Just to practice until I get better at holding on, maybe." Hmm, how tired is she? She wants to work on flying more, but she doesn't want to be all worn out when the teacher gets here and not be able to do any exercises she sets, that would be awful.

Not too tired, but more than a little bit, as she also rushed through her chores before trying to fly. A little sore from taking tumbles.

That's not ideal, but not surprising either. She'll go help her mother in the house for a while.

She's feeling just fine by the time shouts of excitement come from the street.

Just outside is a witch! Presumably, anyway, since she's floating down on a large broom that looks like it wouldn't actually be very good for sweeping. She has dark skin, like the Moors from the south, and is dressed in a hijab and loose pants of some kind.

Margaretta runs outside and stares at the witch like everyone else.

"Hello everyone! Can someone tell me where the new witch in this place lives?"

"I'm the new witch! Hello!" calls Margaretta, stepping forward. She makes a light to prove it.

"Hello!" She lands gracefully, holding the long broom sideways. "I am Amat. I am here on behalf of the Flying Messengers Guild. We wish to welcome every new witch. So, welcome. What is your name, little one?"

"Margaretta Perez. Being a messenger sounds amazing."

She smiles. "Well, we usually wait until you're a bit older and then show you what it's like." She looks around at the crowd of gawkers. One of them asks if she's seen the King. "Yes, I have." 

She pointedly turns to Margaretta. "Well, I am here to talk to you. Would your parents mind if we talked somewhere less crowded?"

Margaretta turns back toward her house and yells, "Mama, Papa, I'm going to go talk to the witch!" Her mother answers, "Be back by dinnertime!"

"It shouldn't take that long. Very good. I take it you'd rather fly somewhere than walk?"

"Yes! I want to learn to fly, please! I've tried but I don't know how to stay on the broom."

She laughs. "I'll help you practice. For now, leave that old thing here and sit in front of me on my broom."

She hops aboard and holds on.

They lift gently into the air.

She can - sort of feel Amat's magic. She's doing something similar, pushing magic through the broom. It seems a lot more controlled.

Amat leans forward slightly and the shape of the magic changes. They start soaring down the street, far smoother than a horse ride.

"Actual brooms aren't really great for flying, you know. This one would be terrible for sweeping, but it is much easier to fly with. We still call them brooms, for some reason, of course."

"What makes a broom better for flying?"

"It must be neat and tidy. The bristles must be stiff and wide. The body should not be a simple thin stick but longer and wider. There are many factors, and I do not understand them all, but there are craftsmen who make better brooms for witches for a living. It's not impossible to fly with a regular kitchen broom, of course, but it is harder, especially if you're just starting out."

"May I--may I try flying your broom later, please?"

"Certainly. Flying is one of the basic skills for any witch and something I hope to teach you before I depart."

She picks up a bit of speed as they approach the edge of the little village.

"That's wonderful, thank you!" She bounces a little on the broom, but not enough to unbalance herself.

Zoooom. She's clearly faster than a horse. She goes above the rooftops but not super high up.

"We are going to a clearing I saw. Witches should also learn navigation, especially messengers and couriers. And do feel free to ask me questions."

"What sort of things do you need to know for navigation? Do you have a compass? What's the difference between a courier and a messenger? What makes someone good at being one?"

(Giving Margaretta blanket permission to ask questions is a rather risky decision.)

"Many things better explained while we are not flying. Yes! Messengers go as fast as possible carrying little. Couriers go slower carrying more. You can do both jobs. You must be fast and good at not getting lost."

"I haven't been enough places to know if I'm good at not getting lost, but I'll study hard."

"Navigation is something you can study and practice like anything else. I have a book, I can read it to you. Ah, there's the clearing."

"I can read it myself, if it doesn't have any really long words in it." She looks around the clearing.

"Oh, really?" Probably not, but of course the kid wants to impress her new tutor.

The clearing is just a clearing in the woods with nothing particularly special about it. Amat slows down and gently lands.

"Well, to start with, please tell me what happened when you tried to fly, before."

"I learned to read from the monks. When I tried to fly I pushed the magic down through the broom and that made it go up, but I couldn't do it steadily enough so the broom kept moving around and I kept falling off it."

"Hmm... So you're pushing your magic? That's good for trying to figure it out on your own, but pushing like that is difficult to control. You should be able to gently guide the magic down, and let it balance itself with the way the broom and you sitting on it changes the way it wants to flow. I want you to pay attention as I take off and land. You should be able to feel something and see what I mean."

She does that. Nudge off the ground gently, float up, land. Nudge off, up, land. There's definitely something there.

"And here's what it sounds like you were doing..."

Amat wraps one arm around Margaretta and then with a push and a sudden, gut-wrenching jerk the wind is blowing past their ears. They shoot high into the air very quickly. That felt more like what Margaretta was trying. Amat makes to land again.

She nods. "Yes, that was what I was doing. I see how it was wrong, I think. I'll try to do the thing you showed me." She matches action to words, or tries to, moving her magic through the broom as softly and fluidly as she can.

This is much more stable! Amat, still sitting with her, catches them when she starts to go off balance, but she was definitely flying the pair for a moment there.

Improving her skills: awesome! Not falling in the dirt when she messes up: also awesome! She'll keep trying until she gets the hang of it or her teacher tells her to do something else.

Amat is happy to indulge her for a while. It gets easier pretty quick now that she knows the general shape of the thing she's supposed to do. She can even go forward a little bit without making Amat balk.

After a few minutes she suggests a short rest, maybe to talk about navigation, and then Margaretta can try hovering on her own.

Margaretta would be happy to talk about navigation! She fidgets excitedly with the ends of her hair.

Well, this is how you do navigation! There are ways to do it using a compass and map, ways to do it with complicated metal tools and looking at the stars, and a tricks for using landmarks and dead reckoning on trips you don't need the first two things for. You can guess how fast you're going like so... And so on.

She's a quick study, though a bit hampered by never having learned the habit of taking notes. She thinks the complicated metal tools for keeping track of the stars with are so amazing.

"It's pretty difficult to look at the stars in the middle of the day, or when it's cloudy, of course, so learning the other methods is important too. Perhaps we can try using the astrolabe tonight if the weather is clear?"

"I'd like that. And I definitely want to learn all the methods!"

Amat teachers her navigation indulgently for several hours. As a test, Margaretta gets to use the compass and map to point them back towards her village!

She needs to think for a bit, but she gets them going the right way!

"Good job. I have to go soon but I can come back in a day or two."

"Okay. I look forward to seeing you again and learning more things! I'll practice flying while you're gone." She stares at the navigation book and almost asks if she can hold onto it while Amat is away, but doesn't quite dare.

"I'll try to find you a present for next time! Goodbye for now!"

And off Amat goes.

Margaretta will diligently practice flying while Amat is away. And also go over her mental notes on navigation and try to practice that too, but without the ability to get from point A to any interestingly distant point B this mostly involves staring raptly at the night sky and drawing maps of the village in the dirt with a stick.

When Amat comes back two afternoons later, she's grinning. "I wonder if you can guess what your present is..."

"Is it a book? Is it an astrolabe? Is it a compass? Is it a broom that's good for flying?" (Hey, it doesn't have to be something that fits in a pocket, she could have left it somewhere.)

"It's a map of Castille and some of the surrounding area!"

She takes out a folded paper from her pocket and hands it over.

"Wow, thank you!" She looks at the map, searching for anything she recognizes and trying to memorize all of it.

The map is black and white, no nicely colored seas and land and terrain, and there are some printing smudges, but it's a fairly good map none the less.

"Your village is here, and see, the abbey you mentioned is here... I live in this town over here. It looks far away but it's only about an hour of flying."

She peers at the map. How much farther away is that town than the abbey?

It's ten times as far at least. The abbey is practically right next to her village.

"Flying is fast."

"Yep! You don't have to follow the road, and it's fast even if you do follow roads. Faster with a good broom too. Usually, fast brooms are also harder to fly, though."

"Why is that? And how much do different kinds of flying brooms cost?"

"Why is it that a shovel is harder to use than a garden trowel? And - are you sure you wish to know?"

"I can't afford any kind of broom, I'm ten, I just want to know because I'm curious."

Amat tells her. It's a lot, to a ten year old who might not have a super great grasp of how much money things cost yet.

Yup, that's a lot. Maybe she can get some other job and save up for a broom and then get a courier job. And speaking of potential jobs . . .

"How do I find out what my special magic is? I don't know anything about it yet."

"It's very difficult to deliberately find out what your special magic is - there are so many things it could be. It usually happens by accident sooner or later. A few months at most. I suppose you could try to do some of the more common things. If you can, you've succeeded. If you can't, it'll rule some things out."

"Okay. What are the common things?"

"Some witches can cook with magic and make food that's magically tasty and filling! Some witches can fly really well. There's geases - some witches can make people keep promises, make it so that can't break the promise. Improved senses are common, special attacks are common, lightning is a thing..."

"Wow! I don't think I can fly especially well, and I've helped Mama and Papa with the cooking and haven't seen anything different, but I could try senses and attack a tree or something. I don't think there are any promises I want to make someone keep."

"Well, that's up to you of course. I'd recommend not worrying about finding your special magic until it's been a few months. I've never heard of someone going half a year without figuring it out."

"Okay. I'll keep an eye out for it." It'll be just like playing pretend witch except for how she'll definitely succeed sooner or later.

What does Amat want to do now? Margaretta hopes it's more navigation lessons.

More navigation lessons are acceptable. How would she like to be the navigator on a jaunt to the town up the coast a ways?

Absolutely! She has never been to the town up the coast and would love to see it! She gets the map pointed the right way, and counts off the distance with the little scale thing she forgets the name of, and determines roughly how long they'll have to fly in exactly which direction and what they should see when they're nearly there, and is there anything she's forgotten before they take off?

"You'd think about weather and schedules and what to do if you run into trouble along the way too, normally, but for a short and unofficial trip like this it should be fine!"

Off they go! Amat chats about famous past witches with Margaretta.

She also subtly deliberately goes off course fifteen minutes into the flight.

Ooh, famous past witches!

About ten minutes after Amat goes off course: "I think I read the map wrong, this doesn't look like what I thought we'd be over."

Amat smiles and dramatically checks her compass. "Oh dear, it seems my heading is fifteen instead of five. Do you think you can get us un-lost, Miss Navigator?"

"We could go at minus five for as long as we went at fifteen? But I don't know how long that was. Maybe just go at minus five until what we see matches the map again?"

"Three hundred and fifty five, dear, remember how the compass is numbered."

She banks left.

"Direct corrections are good enough over land usually, but if we were over the ocean we wouldn't have any landmarks to look for and we'd have to estimate where we actually are on the map, and correct from that."

"Okay. And we'd do that by trying to figure out how long we'd been off course?" Carefully watching the ground below for landmarks, trying to either figure out where they are now or notice when they get back on their original line.

"Yes. If you're on a tricky journey you want to take compass readings every few minutes. Keeping time is hard, though. Handheld clocks are at least as expensive as brooms, and they're not even very accurate!"

Well, there's that old road off to the left instead of the right, it makes a distinctive sharp bend ahead.

She points out the road on the map and in the territory. "It looks like we should be able to get back on our original heading soon."

"Yep! Good work."

They get back on track - Amat starts talking about famous witches again. For example, there's this one doctor-witch who discovered a lot of interesting things by travelling distant lands and wrote a book about it when she came back to Europa.

Wow! Healing people and discovering things: both awesome.

"Yes, she's very famous. Doctor Emilliane Marsal."

"Emilianne Marsal," she repeats so she'll remember. "We'll be able to see the town soon, I think."

"Ah, yes, you can see - there, where the trees are a bit lower? The world is curved ever so slightly. You see further the higher up you are, you can see their church tower from here."

"Oh, yes, there it is!"

They get to the town a couple of minutes later. Amat lands on the road going in and gets much less staring than she did in Margaretta's village. "If you want to look around now is a good time. You get to visit all sorts of places as a courier, you know."

"I definitely want to look around! Being a courier sounds wonderful." She sets off down the main street, head swiveling.

Amat follows.

There's a really pretty church. There are some decently fancy houses. There is more than one store in this town! This one seems to sell only clothes. That one has furniture. There's fancy cakes in the window over there. There are three smiths who seem to specialize in different things. How fancy!

Someone comments to Amat, "Oh, have we got another little witch today?"

Ooh, pretty buildings. Ooooh, pretty cakes. Oh wow, three smiths! She wants to watch all of them at work and see how they're different!

The first one seems angry at everything and doesn't want to let her watch. The second one shows off fancy custom stuff like artful curly signs and shiny brass door handles, and lets her watch a bit but doesn't explain anything. The third one has a bunch of twelve to fifteen year old boys as apprentices, makes a lot of cheap things very fast, and will let her try to pump the bellows if she wants!

She watches the second smith admiringly and learns what she can about how metal moves under the tools. She definitely wants to pump the bellows! She isn't as strong as a twelve to fifteen year old boy, especially the sort of boy who's been a smith's apprentice for a while, but she gives it her all and watches the metal things take shape.

Amat smiles imdulgently and reads something in the front of the smith's place.

She can pump the bellows for a little while but it's important to be really steady, see, so the other apprentices take over before long. They'll all happily chat about how to work metal - They have a good forge to make lots of strong iron from the ore here.

One of the apprentices is a bit distracted explaining quenching and stumbles off a raised platform for working on and drops an iron rod toward another's head, shouting in surprise! 

Margaretta sees the rod falling toward the boy's head--she's way too far away to catch it but she thrusts out her hand on instinct anyway--

An invisible force shoves the rod away and it clatters harmlessly on the floor.

Three different people shout in alarm as the rod falls. The boy who it would have hit sees it and his eyes widen in alarm. And then it turns and moves the other way.

Everything is silent for a moment.

Amat lunges into the room, eyes glowing, as the head smith asks, "What in God's name-"

And then everyone is talking at once.

Margaretta is part of everybody and is also talking. "Did I do that? I think I did that! I think I did my special magic!" Whether anybody can hear her over everyone else is an open question though.

They don't seem to hear her. There's a fair bit of shouting going on as Amat stands defensively near Margaretta. Things quiet down after a moment and Amat pats her on the shoulder, saying "Good job."

The smith starts berating the apprentice that dropped the thing for being careless and needing a young witch to save little Tim.

Margaretta smiles up at Amat and says, "Thanks."

When the smith starts berating the one apprentice she mumbles, "He only dropped it because I was talking to him" at her shoes.

"He should've been focusing on what he was doing! A smithy is not a safe place, young lady. I think you two should come back later."

Amat nods seriously. "As you say, sir. Come on, Margaretta. It's not your fault."

She follows Amat out, slightly subdued but mostly still excited by the ability to move things with her mind.

Back out to the street. "So it seems you've discovered your special magic after all. I think we should learn a bit more about it. Let's see if you can do it to anything else?"

"Yes, let's!" She looks around for small objects to try to move.

Well, there's Amat's broom and compass and coin pouch and so on, and anything she has in her pockets. There's the various things on display in the shops. There's a random bit of rope lying on the ground like trash. There's a cat staring at them.

She's not going to mess with Amat's broom or the cat. She tries pushing the bit of rope with her mind; when that fails to do anything she repeats her earlier gesture and still fails to do anything.

"So it's not generalized telekinesis, hm? Or perhaps, well, it's easier if you need to use magic sometimes."

(There's something about the blacksmith's shop just behind her...)

"I think my magic is . . . pointing back at the smithy? Like it's important to whatever it is."

"Huh... I want to see if that's real or just you tricking yourself, that happens sometimes. Do you mind if I have you close your eyes and spin you around, and then you can see if you can still tell where the smithy is?"

"Sure!" She shuts her eyes tight and prepares to be spun.

And around and around she goes! Where she stops, Amat knows.

Once her spinning stops, she can still tell that there is something to her left. 

She sways on her feet and sticks her left hand out. "Over there. Can I open my eyes?"

"Yes. And you're right! Interesting... The only thing that's different about the smithy is all the metal."

"Maybe I can only move metal things. Can I have a coin to try it on?"

"As long as I get it back, of course."

"Of course." 

She digs out a copper coin, a silver one, and one made of pewter.

Margaretta stares at the coins. The pewter one might as well be a rock for all she can feel from it, but there's a subtle something about the silver one and a little more of it about the copper. She tries giving the copper one a mental shove.

The copper coin vibrates a little bit and flips over in Amat's palm.

"It worked!!" She tries again, this time attempting to lift it.

"So you can move metal! That could be useful."

The coin behaves oddly at this attempt. It stays still for a little while, then goes flying into the air with a good bit of speed.

"Woah! That went farther than I meant it to. I guess this needs practice like the other kinds of magic."

Amat takes two steps to the side and casually catches it when it comes back down.

"Specials are idiosyncratic... Er, they tend to be different for every witch. Yours could just be better at sharp, sudden movements. Practice sounds like a good idea at any rate, as long as you make sure not to hurt anyone."

Nod nod. "I'll practice outside, and with small things that aren't sharp."

"A wise choice. You can practice finding metal safely, I'd think, as long as you don't get distracted and fall or something."

"Mm-hmm. What should we do next? I can practice at home and this town is new."

"I can show you the dispatch office if you like. Ships land here sometimes, so the harbormaster holds mail for us couriers to carry onward and we come check once every day or two."

"I'd love to see the dispatch office! Is there any chance we can see a ship?"

"I think I saw one while we were coming in. Let's go have a look, shall we?"

There is indeed a ship tied down to this town's pier. It's big! But not all that much bigger than the little fishing boats. Maybe as big as a small house, and no more. It has two triangular sails. "Ooh, that's a caravel. They're quick, for ships."

Size is less important than the fact that it's a kind she hasn't seen before. Time for staring. "Are they faster than flying? Have you ever taken a ship somewhere?"

"No, but they're much faster than walking and they're good at moving lots of very heavy things. It would take dozens of witches to carry as much as even this small caravel! And yes, I've taken ship journeys before - flying very long distances can be exhausting and dangerous, especially over the ocean or in bad weather, so sometimes it's better."

"I guess you can't really fly over the ocean for more than a day, because there's nowhere to sleep."

"Yes, exactly. So if you wanted to go to Brittania, you could fly east through Basque, then north through Gallia, and them fly over the Brottaniam channel. It would be a hard flight. Or you could take a ship and go there directly."

She approaches one of the buildings.

Follow follow wonder what's in the building.

In the building is lots of stacked crates and barrels and bags of things and so on, and a sort of half-wall blocking off part, behind which are a lot of cabinets and a middle-aged man looking down at a book.

"Amat! Good afternoon. You're here early today."

Oooh. She can't read the man's book upside down from here even if that wasn't probably rude, so she just looks at the crates and bags and whatnot. Do they have labels? She wonders just how much cargo a witch can carry anyway, and whether there are special pieces of broom hardware for attaching more cargo than can be held under an arm.

Some of them have labels! Like 'wine' or 'flour' or 'salt'. 

"Any deliveries this week, Carlos?"

"No, no, nothing for you fine ladies. As usual. Most of that goes straight for A Coruña. You've got a little apprentice with you, have you?"

"Yes, of sorts. Margaretta is a newly awakened witch. Margaretta, this is Carlos Lopez, harbormaster for the town. His job is to make sure that any ships that come in get what they need, make their deliveries alright, and pay their taxes."

"Please to meet you, Señor Lopez! What sort of things do ships need? Supplies and repairs and such?"

"Lots of supplies. Lots of canvas, lots of rope, tar, water, biscuits and dried meat and ale and all kinds of other food that keep, spare timbers. We can't do repairs as such here, except for minor things. You need a proper yard and people with special supplies and skills to fix serious damage to a ship."

"Wow! That all sounds fascinating, especially repairing damage."

"It's a lot to learn, I'll say. Most of what we can fix for ships boils down to carpentry. New railings, fixing little gaps and holes. But waterproof carpentry is a special skill. You're still interested in something other than magic? That surprises me, being honest."

"I'm interested in finding the best thing to do with my magic, so I want to learn about all the things there are to do! I like what I've learned about being a courier."

"What a curious young soul! Well, I'll be happy to tell you about my work. Can you read? Maybe I'll show you the ledger."

"I can! I would love to see the ledger."

"Well, come around the counter here..."

The ledger has neat rows of organization to show the names of ships, what they were carrying, what they needed when they stopped, how much tax they paid, and so on. The harbormaster has very neat handwriting.

This is very neat and orderly and she likes it very much! "Thank you." 

"Well, it's nice to meet you, but I wonder if there are other things you might want to see around here?"

"I don't know what things there are to see! I'm just following Señora Amat."

"She's got a good head on her shoulders. I'm not sure what things would be interesting to you either, sorry to say."

"Well, how does one become a courier?" She asks them both but mostly Amat.

Amat says, "Once you can fly places reliably you offer to deliver things for people if they pay you. You could do that on your own. Or once you're a bit older you can try to join the Castillian royal couriers, like me. There's a few tests and they take some of your pay, but the help you too. Everyone important knows the royal couriers are reliable, so we have lots of high paying work."

"And I'd have to ask my parents for my own broom."

"We do give you a broom if you need it, dear. As a loan - you have to work for us long enough to pay it back and a bit more, but if it lets you work in the meantime, you make more money than you would have, and the royal couriers makes more money than they would have, too. Loans can be convenient like that."

"Oh, that is good, I don't know how much various things cost but I'm not sure my parents could afford a broom." She's too young to have learned to be self-conscious about that sort of thing yet. "I expect they'd let me join the couriers once I'm older." And in the meantime she can learn how to do magic with metal!

Amat gives her a bit more of a tour of the town and then lets her navigate the way home again.

"I may have to not come as often in the future. Perhaps once a week to once a month or so. Just to let you know. It's been very good to meet you and teach you the basics, though!"

"I understand. I can practice on my own. It's been very good to meet you and learn from you!"

Once Amat is gone, she wanders the town with her eyes on her feet, trying to feel any metal around her.

When she's paying attention she can tell when she passes a tool shed or the local smith, or when someone carrying anything metal walks past her.

She grins every time she looks up at what feels like metal and sees a piece of it. Once she's done a bunch of that she heads home, catches up on chores, and then hunts around her house for a small metal object. Eventually she finds another of the same kind of copper coin, and sits there examining it in detail with both sight and her new sense.

It's a piece of metal! She could move it.

It has a sort of 'flavor' if she pays close enough attention. A little different than the wrought iron plowhead in that shed over there.

Ooooh. Can she tell in what way it's different? Which one does the kitchen knife feel more similar to?

Copper has less of this one thing, and more of this other thing, and more of this third thing, as obvious standout differences. The things don't come with any labels or associations, though. It's like seeing a new set of colors, sort of. The kitchen knife is more like the plowhead! Makes sense, since they're both iron.

So it's composition she's picking up on, not shape. She makes up nonsense words for the things so she can keep them straight, then sets the coin on the floor, holds it down with one finger, and gently tries to lift it.

It tries to leap upward, pushing away her finger! It wobbles out and lands about a foot to her left.

...That wasn't just poor control, that was something about touching the coin, going by the feeling the magic gave her.

Hmmm! She tries again a few more times, sometimes holding the coin down with a finger and sometimes starting with her hand cupped over it so it's not already touching her but can't go flying.

It's definitely way easier to put way more magic into the metal if she's touching it. How much it moves still depends on the amount of magic, not touch.

The metal seems to do nothing for a little while as magic builds, and then go flying when some critical point is reached.

She wonders if this means she could fly better on a metal broom than a wooden one. Can she put magic into the coin, almost but not quite enough to make to go flying, and then leave it there for a little while, and then put the last bit in?

Ceasing to supply magic makes it move with however much it currently has, even if it's below the point where it'd start moving by itself.

Ooh, that'll be helpful for fine control. Can she get it to lift into the air slowly by adding a bunch of tiny pulses of magic with pauses between?

It falls fast enough that it doesn't seem possible to 'stop' enough to trigger it, and then start and stop again before it hits the ground.

If she magics it until it goes flying, can she track it well enough to put more magic in it before it lands, or is it too fast?

She can do that if she's fast enough! It's actually weirdly easy to track its motion through the air, with the metal-sense.

That is So. Much. Fun. She plays around with it for a while, seeing how long she can keep it in the air, trying to control the trajectory, doing it all again with her eyes shut and going off metal-sense alone.

It's slightly trickier, like that. It's like the metal-sense was guiding her eyes more than anything else. She can't as easily get a sufficient sense of where the coin is moment to moment to put magic into it, without vision.

If it works best in concert with her eyes she'll keep them open. Can she get anywhere on telling what the properties she made up words for mean, or would she need more examples?

More examples would definitely help, at any rate. The coin does not confirm nor deny her guesses.

Then she'll go stand near her father's work area, examining the metal parts of his tools, and the shoes he puts on horses, and any metal bits in the horses' tack, looking for patterns.

Most of the iron is pretty similar. There are a lot of smaller differences between iron and copper... Some of the iron items feel subtly different from each other. A couple of the big tools, specifically.

And when she feels a glimpse of silver in a well-off customer's pocket, the silver is pretty similar to the copper, with a few differences, but even higher on one of the two things copper has a lot of.

The next time her father is between tasks, she points out the points out the subtly different big tools and asks what makes them different from the rest. She's already chattered excitedly about her special magic to him earlier, so it's pretty clear why she's asking. 

Maybe the blacksmith who made them does large tools in a different way, and that affects the metal?

Maybe! Unfortunately the smith who made them doesn't live in this town, so she can't ask. Maybe the local smith will know, but she wants to save up a bunch of questions and then ask him all of them at once. She sits down with the coin again and starts trying to tell if she can do anything other than sense it and push magic into it in the way that makes it move.

She can push magic in slightly different spots and  directions. If it's unbalanced it sets the coin spinning wildly as well as flying into the air.

Getting any sort of fine control here is tricky! She goes back to working with really small amounts of magic, trying to get the coin to scoot along the floor instead of flying up in the air.

This is doable with some practice!

She spends a lot of time practicing over the next several days, basically whenever she isn't eating or sleeping or busy helping her parents around the house. Eventually she gets the coin to scoot around in circles or triangles or whatever way she wants. After a week she takes all the small metal things she can find and goes to the local smith, intending to wait for a quiet moment and ask him some questions.

The local smith has plenty of quiet moments - most of his work is simple and low-demand, here.

"I've seen you poking around with magicked metal, niña. No wonder you're curious about metalworking. Come on in."

She smiles as she enters the workshop. "I'd like to know what makes one piece of iron, or copper, or anything different from another piece. I can sense that there's more to metal than what kind it is and how it's shaped, but I don't know what I'm sensing."

"Well there's different ways of smithing. I know the most about iron, iron's useful. Wrought iron's just taken out of the ground and beaten into shape. Forged iron's been melted. I can't forge with what I have here."

"Is forged iron better somehow, to make people go to the trouble? Or is it that you can make it take more shapes that way?"

"Forged iron is stronger. Keeps its shape better. And it's easier to make complicated shapes with it, yes - You can make a garden spade or horseshoes or nails out of wrought iron but a plow or other such things really ought to be forged if they're going to last."

"Oooh, maybe that's the thing that was different between the plough I saw and the other iron things! Do you have any pieces of forged iron I could look at, even if you don't make it here?"

"My anvil's forged." He points. "Have a look, maybe you can tell if it's any good with magic? I don't know how magic works, of course."

Regular and magical staring at the anvil! Does it have the property the plow had?

Nope! But there's something else - with such a big chunk of metal she can even feel that the center's a tiny bit different than the edges.

"It's different from the plow I looked at . . . the center is just a little bit different from the outside, do you know what that might mean?"

"One bit of iron's not quite the same as another, there's impurities, and how it was heated and hit and cooled matters. Maybe the center stayed hot longer than the outsides?"

"Maybe! Can I touch more things to see what they're like?"

"Of course, little witch. Just ask for my help with anything heavy."

"Thank you Señor!" And she scurries around looking at everything metal and touching most of it and trying to find some patterns in the things her new sense tells her.

Most of the iron items are broadly the same, with tiny differences in the exact feeling of the iron. Hot iron feels subtly distinct from cold iron. The tiny scraps and filings on the floor aren't perceptible to her magic sense, despite being metal. The smith has some brass and pewter things too. Pewter is heavy and dense and vaguely unpleasant. Brass is interesting, it's like copper but also not.

if she sweeps enough of the little filings into a pile at least the size of a coin, can she detect them then? 

...As a very faint, wispy, cloudy sort of feeling, yes.

"Hmm. Want me to heat these and hammer them together into one lump, see what you make of that?"

"Ooh, yes please! Also, how is brass like copper?"

"Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. You can mix two metals together and get a more useful kind of metal sometimes, and that's what an alloy is. Copper and zinc are too soft by themselves, but brass is shiny and doesn't corrode much."

"Wow! I wonder if I could identify zinc from having looked at brass and copper."

"Too bad I don't have any. I wonder if you should go find a university or a forgeworks when you're a bit older. Identifying metals could be mighty useful some places, I would imagine."

"That would be great, if it turned out to be useful." Can she push just a tiny little bit of magic into the pile of scraps, while covering it with her hand so it doesn't go all over the place if it works?

It's like trying to stuff air into a dust bunny. Unclear if she's even doing anything.

"Being able to move metal around would be useful too I think. I wouldn't take girls as apprentices normally, but maybe to some smiths witches are special."

"Maybe! I want to find more different ways to move things. Right now all I can do is dump magic into them so they fly off. I want to learn to move things around slowly in whatever direction, if that's something my magic can do."

"I don't think I can give you any advice other than practice helps with most things. I wish you luck, though. If you get any good at it, maybe I'll pay you a bit to help out here! That'd be interesting."

"I'd like that. I'll come talk to you again if I get better control of moving things."

She skips off home to eat lunch and help clean up and then practice more.

A month goes by - not uneventfully - but seemingly very quickly. The monks invite her back to read their books whenever she likes. Amat visits a couple of times and lets her borrow one of the nice-but-not-super-nice brooms they give to new couriers for a day, which makes flying much easier especially in terms of stability, even if it makes it harder to turn than a plain kitchen broom. The smith indulgently answers her questions about metal as best he can.

She eventually gets good enough at moving metal things around without hurting anybody or anything. The trick is to move mana in and out of the metal at the same time, which takes some practice all by itself. Now people will come to her when they need anything big and mostly metal moved, like one family letting another borrow their plow.

And then a witch she doesn't recognize shows up, wearing very boyish clothes and riding a 'broom' that is made of metal. Or mostly made of metal, at any rate.

Moving metal things is always fun, especially once she learns to do more than fling them into the air, and she's happy to save her neighbors some time and effort if it comes with an excuse to practice.

She's excited to see the new witch arriving, of course. And oh wow metal broom is she going to get to try to fly on it?!? She's going to stand here and stare at it with saucer eyes for a bit before remembering to say, "Hello!".

She waves cheerfully and descends some more. She's very pale and has shockingly blonde hair.

"Hello! I am Freya, I'm with the United Defense Force, an international army of witches working to defend the world. I can sense other witches with my special, so I think I've found the young Margaretta Perez we've heard about?"

She'll be generic for the first little while, since she doesn't know anything about the potential recruit's personality or circumstances yet.

"Yes, I'm Margaretta. Pleased to meet you, Senora." More staring at her clothes and the broom and her hair and the broom. Can she tell what metal it's made of from here?

It's a new metal! It's mostly like the specially-forged kind of iron, but moreso. It has very complicated shapes and seems slightly hollow.

"Likewise." She lands, smiling. "We like to get to know as many witches as possible, since magic is so very useful."

"That makes sense. Also, your broom is amazing. It's like iron but also like nothing I've ever seen. Can you tell me what it's made of, please, or how it was made?"

"Certainly. It's called 'steel'. It's iron, but specially cooked to be harder and stronger than normal! I'm afraid I'm not a smith so I don't know the details - except that it's very expensive and difficult to make, even if the research divisions are trying to make it less so. You can tell that from there? Your special?"

"Yes, my special is stuff to do with metal. I can tell where metal things are without looking, and sense other things about it, and move it around without touching it."

"That sounds like a fun one! I can tell things about other witches, but I can't move them around." She grins. 

"I guess it's a good thing we can move ourselves around, then!" she gestures at Freya's broom and grins back.

"Yes. Couriers are very useful. And if they deliver things for the Defense Force they get the best brooms we can provide. Unusual specials can be even more useful, of course."

"I'd like to find a way to be really useful with my special, somehow. I already help people move heavy things sometimes, if the things are metal."

"There are great foundry yards being built in places like Barcelona, Paris, Tours, Manchester, London, Berlin, Venice. I really think we're making more metal than has ever been made before to help with the Neuroi. I have no doubt such a special would be useful in a place like that."

"That sounds amazing. I would love to see the foundry yards somewhere, and maybe work in them too."

"I'm sure we'd be glad to show you around. It'd be a bit irresponsible of me to whisk you away right now, of course." She laughs. "We do actually have witch schools for girls as young as you, but if you're as interested as all that I would surely need to talk to your parents first."

"I wouldn't just leave without my parents' permission!" she says, wide-eyed. "I'll take you to meet them now if you like; my house is just over there. What is witch school like?"

"We call it 'flight school', because it's meant to teach you everything a young witch should know, particularly flying. We teach reading and writing, arithmetic, a little bit of the English language, a little bit of history and sciences, and then navigation, flying, and a few lessons in using the other common witch powers, shields and manalight and how to store mana in gems and metal for later. I'd be happy to meet your parents if now is a good time for that!"

"I want to learn all of those things! Papa's probably still in his workshop, but we can see how busy he is."

He's just finishing up with a customer when they arrive.

Freya leaves the steel 'broom' where she landed, just out of the way of the main street, apparently confident that nobody would or could steal it.

She gives a restrained professional smile to all the curious onlookers and stands back, hands clasped, when they go into the workshop.

Once he's free, "Good morning, Señor Perez. I'm Freya Sofingsur, with the Defence Force."

"Good evening, Señora Sofingsur. What can I do for you?"

"Well, I overheard from one of the lovely ladies in the courier association down here that your daughter had been blessed with magic and shows a lot of potential, so I came down to see for myself. I can tell with my own magic that she's learned to do a lot with hers in just a short time, it's very impressive."

Yeah, the courier association will be annoyed if she poaches their recruit, but owing them a favor is well worth it to recruit someone bright with a niche but high-potential special.

"We're very proud of her, yes, and so glad she was blessed with magic."

(Margaretta beams at this. Parents being proud of you is the best.)

"I actually wanted to invite her to one of our schools - Flight School. It teaches everything we think a young witch ought to know. We do our best to support young witches and let them grow. She'll get a stipend if she attends, and we like to get flight school graduates to work for the Defense Force for a while." And time to head off the usual alarm, "There are plenty of jobs that need doing but aren't very dangerous. I think she would do very well helping in a forge, as just one example. But if she wanted to accept, that's an important decision, so she wanted to talk to you. And it doesn't need to happen today."

"Well--hmm. It would be good to get her educated, and goodness knows Flight School will be better able to do that than anyone here, and anything that helps get rid of the Neuroi can't be all bad. But isn't she a bit young to be leaving home? How often would she be able to come visit us? And what if someone somewhere decided that she should be on the front lines instead of working in a forge, would she have a choice about it?"

"We don't want to send people who aren't ready for it to fight the Neuroi any more than you do. She'd have to go through Combat School before that happened, except in a dire emergency where the city she's in is being overrun or something. And we don't make people enroll in Combat School."

"Okay . . . But again, what about visiting home? I don't want to just send her off and not see her again for years."

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry, I am not as fluent as I could be in this language. There aren't really very many flight schools because there are so few witches. There's one in Venice, and one in London, those are the two that I would think are good options for her. London more than Venice - there's a metallurgists' guild in the city, which may be a good opportunity. Flight school gives three breaks a year, winter break a month long and the others two weeks. Venice is four or five days' flight from here for a young witch, and London is closer but takes about as long - you have to go east and then north. However, London is more accessible to boat trips. The fastest boats can make a trip in two days if a witch flies the first and last parts herself, and we'd certainly help get her a spot on those to visit home if she - and you - wanted that."

"Then I suppose London is satisfactory, if her mother agrees. And of course she'll want to visit."

"Of course! And I'll write you so many letters!"

Margaretta's mother is then called out, and similarly persuaded by the promise of education and safety and visits and So Many Letters, I Promise.

"Good, good! I'm glad. She won't have to go this very day, of course. The next session of flight school starts in September, and I doubt you'll need a whole month to get situated there, hm?" She says this last bit at Margaretta.

"Probably not, and I'll want some time to say goodbye to everyone here. When do you think I should leave?"

"A couple of weeks would be plenty of time for me to make travel arrangements. I have a few other things to do but perhaps I can come back in a week or so to tell you more about the school and begin teaching you English, as they speak it in Brittania and London, and we would go some time after that."

This sounds good to all three of them. Margaretta spends the next week saying goodbye to her parents and siblings and the other children and the smith and the monks and the old lady down the street and generally preparing to leave the vast majority of people she's ever spoken to. She also asks the monks if any of them know English and will teach her a few words, since if she's going to be learning a whole new language she had better get started as soon as possible.

None of them know English. One of them knows obscure facts about how languages including English derive some of their words from Latin and can teach her a few words, like 'novice' or 'village' or 'miracle'.

Obscure facts are not as good as practical knowledge but they're still pretty good. She also spends a bit of time practicing shields and manalights, which she had been neglecting in favor of her special, because she doesn't want to be embarrassingly behind in anything at Flight School. Anything except English, anyway; that's unavoidable but she'll do her best to catch up. 

It feels like the week has barely started when it finishes.

Amat shows up during that time and is visibly annoyed when she hears about Freya taking her off to Flight School. Her visit is brief, though she stresses that she's not mad at Margaretta.

Freya is back seven days later in the evening, carrying a dark-skinned boy who is maybe fifteen on her steel broom and followed by a dark-skinned witch a little younger than Margaretta herself is, on a wooden one. The two strangers hang back when Freya lands.

"Margaretta! I'm back! Are you ready to go in a day or two, you think?"

She swallows and fidgets with the hem of her shirt, but says, "I think so. Yes." Then to the other kids, "Hello! What are your names?"

The young witch looks at her brother and says something quietly. Her brother says in halting Spanish, "Hello, honored witch. I am Eredan. My sister is called Mala. She was very scared and I know small Spanish and English so I come with her to school."

"We could have one or both of your parents along to help you settle in if that would help," Freya comments. "I didn't suggest it before because it didn't seem like they would want to uproot their lives here."

"Pleased to meet you, Eredan, Mala. It's very kind of you to help your sister like that. You're right, Señora, neither of my parents would leave their work and my little siblings."

"I go learn too. And she needs me. A good brother helps." He gives a weak smile. "Flying is scary though."

Freya pats him on the shoulder lightly. "We have a boat ride tomorrow. Just a short while longer for now."

Eredan gulps, then nods rapidly. His sister laughs and chatters something in their mystery language.

"I've never been on a boat before. Do you want to do English lessons now or should I go pack first?"

"You should pack. We have rooms in a town a few miles over - if you don't want to go there on an old broom yourself I can make several trips - and a ship that will arrive there in the morning and take us to London."

"If I took the kitchen broom it would be hard to get it back to my parents. I'll go pack."

She doesn't have much to pack, and most of it is in her bag already--clothes, toiletries, a couple scraps of metal she's been practicing with. 

Freya fetches the other pair over while she packs. Their rooms are in the town that Amat took her to sometimes; The harbormaster and that blacksmith are happy to see her again and wish her luck for witch school.

Mala falls dead asleep in one of their inn rooms pretty much as soon as they've gotten dinner. "My apologies, but do you mind if the English lessons wait until tomorrow? Those two have had a very long day."

She's happy to see the harbormaster and the blacksmith, too.

Regarding English lessons: "That's quite alright. I should probably try to sleep too, though I might be too excited to manage."

She does manage, eventually, and wakes up bright and early.

Freya is happy to teach all three of them English, though she warns them that she is not actually a teacher, exactly. Here are some basic words (Hello, goodbye, my name is, I am a witch, how do you say, who what when where why how). This is the alphabet - No accents or tildes in English and most of the letters have two pronunciations, at least, with complicated rules for which to use. Mala and Eredan have a harder time with it.

Margaret doesn't have a perfect memory, but she soaks up information pretty well.

Mala seems to be having a lot of fun playing with the few words she has, at least.

"I am witch!"

Freya tuts and corrects her, "I am a witch, Mala."

"Yes, you too." (Giggle.)

Playing with words sounds like a good way to help remember them! "Who am you? Where am you a witch?" She jokes.

"Witch with fly can broom!"

Freya tries to look severe but they can tell she's amused. She patiently corrects everyone. "Try not to memorize things incorrectly, now. I don't expect you all to get it in one day but do stay on task."

Mala nods. "Fly is fun." ("Fly is not fun," insists her brother).

Freya nods and says in Spanish, "Now to talk about tense and verbs. If you are doing something, you usually add -ing..."

And the English lessons are back on track.

English has a stupid number of kinds of "to be", but at least the other verbs are easier. Margaretta wants to know the words for kinds of metal! "It's my special, moving metal", she explains to Mala. "What's yours?"

It looks like she's about to do something - her expression changes slightly - and then Freya sharply says, "Mala."

Mala talks to her brother in their fast language and her brother asks "...Can she show you, Margaretta? It doesn't hurt. It's alright if Margaretta says so, right, Lady Freya?"

"The first part at least, that'll be fine. But you should explain your second skill before using it outside of emergencies. I will explain your special to Margaretta if she asks, but I take it you want to surprise her, Mala?"

Mala nods.

"It's not going to hurt or anything, is it?"

"No. No hurt. Just - see." And more chatter.

Her brother explains, "The first thing won't touch you at all. The second thing is surprising and can be kind of overwhelming she will explain it and not do it without asking."

"Or emergency."

"Or if there's an emergency and it seems like the best idea at the time. I don't think that's very likely at all. Sorry to confuse you, she just likes surprising people with it."

Well, she thinks, if it won't touch her she's okay with being surprised. She's about to say, "Alright, show me the first thing"--

Mala grins and pipes up before Margaretta can, in a pretty close copy of Margaretta's accent, "Alright, show me the first thing!"

And then looking at Freya and also accent-copying, "Don't get too carried away. I will not. Promise!"

"Whoa! You can read people's minds?!" 

"No. I see - What you will do." Mala crosses her arms at the exact same time her brother does without looking. "Is hard. Is fun!"

She giggles as the arm-crossing. "Fun! How long before someone does a thing can you see it?"

(Further translation and getting new English words redacted for brevity.)

"About five seconds. And only people near me. It can be confusing. It's like - I am you? But only a little bit."

"That sounds . . . very strange. I'm glad you like it. I don't think I would. Do you know if you want to use it for anything?"

"I don't know yet. I can also help someone do a thing that I see. Make you really strong or fast for a second. Or stop them. Miss Freya thinks there might be something else I can do."

"What does 'helping someone do a thing you see' mean? Is it like if you see someone is going to fail at a thing you can make it so they succeed instead?"

"I don't know for a lot of it. Sometimes I can help, yes. Almost like bending what you do so it works? But only if I know how to do it right. If I see you drop something I can make you catch it. If I see you do a puzzle wrong I can't make you do the puzzle right. My brother helps me practice sometimes. Favorite brother."

(Said brother rolls his eyes, but smiles slightly.)

"I can see how that would be good in emergencies."

"Yeah. It's hard to do right though. You said you do magic to metal?"

"I do! I can tell where metal is and what kind it is, and move it around, and maybe learn to do other things too."

"Huh. Just metal? We don't have a lot of metal where I'm from."

"We don't have a lot where I come from either. I want to see the great forge works at London; I bet it will be amazing. So much metal, and so many things being done with it!"

Freya hmms. "I wonder if our sloop's anchor will be the largest metal thing you've ever seen? It's bigger than an anvil but its shape is such that it might be less metal anyway, anvils are rather boxy."

"It might be! I expect I'll know when I get near it; I remember the anvil quite well."

Mala shivers a bit. "There are too many things and too many people. I've never heard of any of them. It's kind of scary."

"Aww, don't worry, I bet the new things will mostly be fun. After all, I'm one of the new things and I'm not scary."

"You're a little bit scary. So is Miss Freya. So is - everyone being different from us. My brother isn't scary."

She nods sympathetically. "Is there anything you really like to do, at home?"

"...I like harvest times. Everyone is together and there's so much food, and singing, and stories."

"Ooh, yes, singing and stories are great. And the sense of accomplishment when the harvest is in and you've all helped out somehow."

"Harvest time means festivals and special harvest foods. And after, it's the easy season where everyone has less work. Maybe that is what I like about it."

"Special foods are pretty great! How about you, Eredan, what's your favorite thing about harvest time?"

Eredan shrugs. "It is a time like any other."