The ping-pong ball disappears. "I'm not at all sure what that entails!"

"He can... do magic... to water? One time he redirected some plumbing... he can move it around... he's still starting out, later he'll be able to make it rain. And he has to meditate a lot."

"He'll be able to make it rain? Wow, that's pretty large-scale."

"Is it?"

"At least compared to the things most people can do where I'm from! Well, I suppose it depends, if he can only make it rain inside a tiny room in Arizona it wouldn't be."

"I don't know what Arizona is, but I meant from the sky..."

"How fast would he be able to do it? How much finesse would he have? Can he freeze water? Is he completely telekinetic with it or is his magic subtler?"

"I don't know. I think freezing yes? Probably? Eventually?"

"Yeah, that's really cool. Oh, also, I forgot to mention, I can do one other thing than conjuring stuff up."

"Ta-da."

"I think life mages can sometimes do... things like that."

"What kinds of magic does your world have?"

"I might forget one or two, but there's water and life... and motion, and energy, and air, and perception, and object, and substance, and pure mana... emotion... I'm sure I'm forgetting one."

"...do you terribly object if I quiz you on all of that?"

"And this is better, not a boy day, definitely."

Fidget. "I don't really know much about magic, it doesn't run in my family even enough that it was worth testing me."

"Oh, it's genetic? Interesting. But well, I have all kinds of other questions, starting with, 'are you alright?'"

"I'm - fine? Why?"

"Dunno, you look a bit nervous."

Shrug.

"If you say so. Anyway, what's your place like? Are you from an Earth? You said you didn't know what an Arizona was."

"I don't know what an Earth is either."

"It's a planet," says a voice from nearer to the door.

"Oh," says Ens. "Uh, well, my planet isn't named that."

"Hello," Sadde greets the new person. "Are you from an Earth?"