"If I pick Natural Awakening, do I risk being Defeated and thus killed before awakening?"

"Unveiled's permanent, but witches over a few centuries usually lose all connection to mortal humans and leave the Veiled world anyway. The other worlds aren't veiled. If you get the natural awakening, big brother, your defeat, and your nemesis typically won't take notice until then. Defeat definitely not - Fate guarantees that it all happens. But it's entirely possible that your defeat could come within moments - nearly kill you, you Awaken, they keep attacking, you suffer the first death and maybe the second. It's risky."

"You would recall me and all of this conversation when you awoke. For your gender situation... probably you'd be subconsciously a little closer to working it out, but you'd be back to thinking you're male for the time being."

"So I should pick either defeat or natural awakening, both would be cutting it way too close for my liking. And natural awakening is ten points instead of six. But. But. Uuuugh."

"Unveiled would suck with the ID situation, and especially because I could really do without explaining I'm a girl to everyone. But it's six points that would be really nice to avoid getting Defeated."

"That's probably wise. I'd try to watch out and come to help you, I take care of my people, but I wouldn't bet on succeeding in time. And it's more likely than chance - awakening is typically at least mildly traumatic and being attacked by a stalker or ganger is the kind of thing that triggers a natural, or a house fire, et cetera. If it's an overlap with the non-mundane I couldn't promise. There are other flaws we can consider and you can come back to it. Sink like a stone, float like a duck, make your senses duller, or sharper. There's options."

"Wait, making my senses sharper is a flaw? Why wouldn't someone want that? Sink like a stone is also probably fine if I can find some way to breathe underwater?"

"Painfully sharp. Only wear silk because everything else irritates too much, wear wrap-around shades to go outside during the day, or similar issues. Four for one sense, up to eight if you pick three. It's common enough that, for example, there's a section for silk in most witch clothing stores. The opposite is two points per dulled sense or five to lose it entirely, no overlap - losing smell entirely isn't that bad if you pay twice-weekly cleaners and have a personal hygiene routine you can stick to when you half-forget why."

"Oh, but losing smell would be utterly unacceptable, think about all the nice things that will never taste the same. I think I might pick the sharp hearing, do people do that often? I guess there are earplugs for it, if so. Vision would also be fine, probably? Although constantly wearing shades would isolate me a bit..."

"Earplugs make sharp hearing generally inoffensive, though it's also the one most likely to incapacitate you suddenly when they're not quite enough. You wouldn't be too isolated among witches with shades, but mortals and the other races probably more."

"Yeah. Let's pen down super sharp hearing and a good pair of earplugs."

"I had been thinking about the Natural Awakening, sans Defeated, and... I think I'm taking it. I survived this long living as a man, I think I'll survive until the awakening. I'm not overjoyed, but I won't know it, so it's... acceptable."

"Harder for me to help you with than the reverse, but not so inconvenient I'll push you on it. Should I look for you? It's not impossible to be pulled in behind the Veil early. Big brother and the nemesis might take an interest early if you are. Possibly the question is, how long should I wait before looking?"

"If you pulled me in, that would mean I'd be at danger and not have magic yet? Seems risky."

"Ooooor, I could take a nemesis and be awakened now. It still doesn't seem very appealing but. You said a nemesis can be overcome eventually? And I wouldn't take the one that kills me, to be safer."

"Minor danger and if necessary non-minor support. Nemeses will rarely kill you; beat you up, yes, but it's more... political, than that? Killing a rival is a bad way to disgrace them. It's a good choice, but it's rewarding for good reason, until you talk them out of it, it will be unpleasant."

"What do you recommend? You're the. Witch? Sorceress? Mage?"

"Hmmm. Nemesis and Big Brother, skip the defeat and natural awakening. Probably. And I'm a witch, but not a sorceress - I'm a academic type."

"Then nemesis it is, and I don't need to die or - worse - forget your pretty face."

"Ok, this was the bad stuff. How about the powers? What do I get?"

"Oh, you might recognize me if I tried. I can be very memorable," she half-purrs.

"But business - Let's say elementalism. Each of these comes with a specific element it has an 'affinity' for, or another pair where you can get affinity if you have both; that cuts the price in points by half, but it rounds up for each rank - there are five, for the naturally talented, which you and I both are. As a Jotun, you won't get any of the classic elements, but there's a rarer element called Visceramancy and..." She sweeps away a 'cloud' "...yes, here it is for you to take. Not quite as gruesome as it sounds but that's a near thing. The classics are firecalling, windkeeping, waterworking, earthmoving, naturalism - that's plants - metallurgy, and psychotics - often called psionics but Hawthorne gave them the standard names and she wasn't a fan. You get a free rank of each of these for being a sorceress, and a handful of free points besides, and the same for getting a familiar."

She taps a few reddish-tinged lights in the clouds, and they glow brighter; some kind of energy flows toward Simone as they light up.

"There's also metamorphosis, which is the animal element, but you can only get it at rank 5 and only if you have get yourself a grafted affinity for beasts. Otherwise it's only for your familiar."

"Oooh, I could feel that."

"How would I graft an affinity? Is it worth it? Could I possibly do it later if I change my mind?"

"There's a relic for it, cosmic pearls. You can tweak fate to bring you one sooner than later rather than buy spells - eight points - and that's about the only relic I ever suggest tweaking fate for as you awaken. It gets you the discount on learning anything tied to the element even if you wait for me to get one through my contacts, and it'd free up the same points of magic, but it wouldn't get you back the time you spent mastering it without an affinity."

"Seems worth it! So, I should get some ranks in most elementalism probably. Visceramancy was the cheap one you said? What do I get out of it?"

"Visceramancy is the element of Blood, which largely means flesh in general. Passively it protects against physical transformations and scarring; if you get up to rank five you'll keep living even if you're badly mutilated and taken apart into pieces. Actively, you can control threads of flesh and sinew; the first rank it's a few feet of thread and with the precision of sewing needles, by rank three you can control about a full body's worth and shape them into fully-functional sensory organs. You can create new flesh from rank two up - about an arm's mass at rank two, up to a full whale's mass at rank five. You can keep the flesh attached to yourself and use it as tentacles, growing in strength and precision from rank three up to five; you can also throw gobs of flesh or bone like sling-stones, but you won't be able to sense or control them unless you get rank five. Which you can and probably should do - a sorceress can get one elementalism for free if it fits their affinity, so it's either this or something you pick up with a Pearl."

"Ooooh, I really like the part where I keep living no matter what! Plus the ability to create fully functional tentacles sounds... fun. Completely negates the need to spend points on... you know. Let's pen this down at rank five."

"I think that, considering I can use Visceramancy, I probably don't super need Metamorphosis right now? So I could get the pearl through your contacts, and use those points for other things. Having a familiar sounds nice tho. I guess cats are traditional? Although I must admit I'm partial to bunnies. Little furballs of love and destruction."