"Yambe Akka isn't very popular because her strongest association is death, but she also does - mercy, winter, calm, starlight. Ice, circles. Kas Petaal has a male aspect and minds our beloved mortals - the verses usually say 'husbands and sons' but she can stretch to cover friends and the like. Sacrificial magic, autumn, violence, that sort of thing. Evisa Iannakara is Isabella's blessing goddess; Isabella's blessing is for the goddess's focus on the cerebral, it's a mental protection, though my mother was trying to get a blessed runecaster. She does art, time, water, curiosity... Segaard Oskei is spring, healing, the sun, motherhood, rain, herbs, music. Farakhel Nimah is summer and fire and animals and war - not violence, war, they're distinguished - curses. Amariah Lytess, whose name Isabella bears, covers verse magic and daemons and weather in general and protection spells... and Memma Belir does flight and sleep and friendship and wind. I'm forgetting some details, I'm not a theologian."

Zeviana makes a 'hmm' sound. "None of them are really jumping out at me as, 'That one, pick that one' but Zeviana Nimah rolls off the tongue reasonably well. Think it fits?"

"Zeviana Nimah. Sounds good to me."

"Cool. I think I'll just drop the names I don't like, I never used 'em anyway. Zeviana Nimah it is!"

"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves, I think the queen will like you but you should probably be making a suggestion to her, not presenting her with your false identity and assuming she'll back it."

"Aww. Makes sense, though. Zeviana Nimah it will be sometime in the foreseeable future. Eventually."

Ranata nods. "I know there are more things to know about witches, but I'm drawing a blank - do you have any questions?" she asks.

"Hmmm. What's starlight like?"

"I've never heard a description that really did it justice. It's sort of... I'd say it's like being snowed on, but we'd experience snow differently, since you don't find cold irrelevant..."

"Aw. Oh well. I'm glad it's nice, though."

"It's lovely. Your world has beautiful stars, and moons."

"Yeah. Pity about the people, though," says Zeviana. "I kinda feel bad for that world, honestly. It didn't do anything wrong, and now suddenly it's just tainted by the assholes that decided to crash there."

"I don't think the planet itself is likely to mind, do you?"

"Eh, I dunno. Maybe. Pretty sure the last one's pissed with us."

"What's that mean?"

"'Cause we invited some magical guys over from another plane for tea and crumpets and they proceeded to wreck the place. We ditched rather than punching them out. I was against it, but Adarin was out of commission and I didn't want those bastards to get at him while he was out. So I went, too."

"I don't think I heard anything about this."

"Adarin kind of doesn't like to talk about it. I don't care, it was a thing that happened and another reason for me to hate them. I've got lots."

"Why were these people invited in the first place?"

"Because those people are stupid and greedy bastards. They wanted magic. Oh boy did they get it."

"Therein lies a tale, I suspect."

"Which part? Wanting magic's pretty obvious, but getting it - eh. Pretty straightforward. They were used to being the top dogs, with only other mages to deal with. Not so much, in this case, and they got conquered rather than doing the conquering."

"You realize I'm missing a lot of context here? I don't understand half what you're getting at."

"Oh, right, sorry. Uh, basically - mages are a bunch of conquerors, and have been like that for a while. I guess it didn't go that way with witches, but with us - like you hand them power and they're like, 'Let's go oppress some peasants, that sounds like a great idea!' So they did that, except our magic dwindles over generations. So they're constantly afraid of losing it. Thus - trying to find more options for it. Personally I don't give a damn about any of that crap, and neither does my brother, but they do."

"It didn't go that way with witches," confirms Ranata. "We don't have the - dwindling problem, and while there are places in our history where mortals have come off the worse for knowing us, this is mostly an individual matter, not larger populations."