"Oh! That's really interesting. Hmm... I wonder what you see when I—"

"—do this?"

The kobold blinks, and spends a few moments peering at Sadde. "That's definitely some magic, yep. Are those both natural forms, or both magic, or something else? You've been little bit magic all the time, and you still are, but I don't know if that's got anything to do with this; it might not, it didn't change when you did."

"Both natural forms is a good way of describing it, I guess. I don't have to actually pay attention or spend energy or anything to keep a form. Some forms are uncomfortable to keep, like clothes that don't fit very well, to varying degrees. Like age, if I change my age it feels uncomfortable, more the longer I keep it or the farther that age is from my actual age. Species, too." Duck beak! Then human mouth. "I can't change species completely, but I can adopt certain characteristics from other species at will." Kobold ears!

Huh. That's.... kinda weird. (She is not going to say that.) "Is that something your whole species can do?"

"No, that's a thing very very few people can do. In fact most of my species is not capable of magic, only a tiny minority is, and of that tiny minority, only a tiny minority can do this at will. Everyone else has to rely on spells with their wands or potions. Also magic tends to be hereditary, in that most humans with magic—wixen—have children with magic even if their spouses aren't magical—are Muggles. Then some wixen parents have non-magical children, called Squibs, and some muggle parents have wixen children, called muggleborns. Yours truly is one."

"That sounds like it'd make things really complicated."

"In multiple related and relatedly annoying ways, yes. I'm working on it."

She chuckles. "Good. And that sounds like the sort of project I might be willing to help with, too."

"Really? Now I'm interested. How do you plan to do that?"

"I don't know. If it was just me, and I wanted to try to fix it on my own anyway, the first thing I'd need to do would be to just watch for a while, to figure out what the exact problems are and what's causing them and if there's anything I can do to fix those causes - which there may or may not be, especially with me being an outsider - or anything I can do to to make the problems hurt people less. But it sounds like you already have a plan, so I'd probably just help with that, once I knew enough about your plan and your world to know that it's a good plan and not going to hurt anyone unnecessarily. Or not do anything; it isn't my world, after all."

"Well I'd accept help, but I'm not entirely sure someone who doesn't look human would help with that particular problem. Non-human sapients have been a productive part of society for a while and human purebloods—that's wixen who come from a wixen family—still look down on them and treat them as inferior. Mostly I've been trying to combat muggleborn hate by being particularly awesome, networking, and making bigots' lives more miserable. I'll probably want to work in the Ministry—that's our government—to try to change relevant laws. And of course there's still my standing project of eliminating death and disease but that one's easier."

The kobold goes still as Sadde explains how nonhumans in his world are treated, and doesn't quite listen to the rest of what he's saying. "Well, good luck, then." (Quietly and without comment, she takes her bracelet off and perhaps begins casting on it - her eyes are open, unlike last time, and she already had a far-away look, so it's really not clear, perhaps she's just holding it.)

"Er. Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend."

(Yup, casting: the loop becomes a portal, similar to the last one.) She gives Sadde a long, assessing look, and her posture softens just slightly. "Other people thinking I'm not as good as them doesn't actually mean I'm not, or that I'm less effective. It means I need to take that into account, and be thoughtful about what I do and how, but I have a lot of practice at that," she says, her tone soft and level but her shoulders going slightly tense as she speaks. She reaches into the portal without looking at it and retrieves a small waterskin, which she takes a drink from.

"Oh. Erm, I don't think you're less effective? But yeah, erm, a lot of humans back home don't think much of nonhumans, it's ridiculously silly and makes no sense and I'm definitely going to try to fix that as well. And I'm not saying you won't be good at that, it's just, kobolds don't even exist there."

She gives him another assessing look - this one with tones of 'are you really this dense, or do you just think I am' - and then repeats his earlier words back to him, her imitation accurate enough to make itself obvious: "but I'm not entirely sure someone who doesn't look human would help with that particular problem."

He tilts his head. "I'm not sure what you're getting at? Unless you mean to do lots of magic, you would have to do it the same way I do, politics, and other humans would take you less seriously because you're not a human, and it could take years before you could make a difference and I wouldn't expect you to want to spend years fixing the government of a tiny minority of the population of a world in another universe."

"...you know what, don't worry about it."

"Well I'm kinda curious if you have better ideas, now, I could definitely use them. Also I'm having a hard time not offending you here, aren't I."

Sigh. "It's not that I have ideas, it's that I'm pretty sure I could come up with some, if I knew more about the situation. Politics is important - I've done more than a little of that myself - but it's not the only way to approach things, especially if you have an advantage that they don't know you have."

"Okay! I mean, I personally don't have an advantage they don't know I have, they're all magical and have wands and there's only so much I can do by impersonating other people or looking differently than I do. So. Politics it is, at least for now. ...I'm also twelve, that's pretty young for humans, I dunno how kobolds age, people take me even less seriously, and I haven't really done anything yet though I'm working on it. Do you wanna know more things about the situation?"

"Sure, tell me more."

"Okay, let's see. Humans are by far the most numerous species on my planet, we number about six billion now if I'm not mistaken. Nonmagical humans in general do not know about any other sapient species or about magic at all. They're organised in countries, with various kinds of government from direct democracies to dictatorships. The tiny minority is also divided into a number of individual geographically-based governments, my specific one being the United Kingdom's Ministry of Magic. Years of prejudice means that in the eyes of the law Muggles and nonhuman sapients are various degrees of nonpeople. ...I might need more specific questions from now on."

She considers this. "What's stopping the nonmagical humans from knowing about the magic?"