"You probably could make all kinds of things from honey to milk to cruelty-free filet mignon, although I don't know that I'd advise telling anyone where you got your potluck contributions."

He giggles. "Now that's fun, I could become vegetarian by eating myself." More giggling. "...seriously, though, where is this mass coming from? I've not been eating noticeably more between yesterday and today."

"Magic. Or maybe you're breathing out less than usual and using the carbon. Or you'll be ravenous tomorrow. Or the chlorophyll worked better than you thought."

He looks at the horn he's holding. "Maybe I should have tested this before shedding mass like that."

"I don't think having a really big breakfast tomorrow will do you any harm. But come to think of it, can you reabsorb it?"

He looks at the bone then touches its tip to the part of his forehead's that's still exposed. The bone there starts shifting to try to engulf the detached one, but then it stops and returns to its old shape. "It doesn't feel like me at all. It feels like some random object I just happen to be holding."

"When did that kick in?"

"Hmmm... what about fluids? Those don't have as clear a point of disconnection."

More pondering, some licking lips. "It doesn't feel like me at all. After I've actually produced it I can't seem to change it. Well, saliva, anyway, maybe blood's different? I'm not sure I want to change my blood inside my veins, though, I think that might kill me."

"But you were able to grow a new finger, which presumably got blood, and then get rid of it after. Maybe you need to watch your blood pressure."

"Okay, that's actually a good test, yeah. Grow something that'd need more blood, then shrink it back, measure my blood pressure throughout. It'd need to be something pretty large to be noticeable, though."

"I don't have a blood pressure cuff or know offhand where to buy one but I can get a decent reading with my bare hand."

"Okay. What should I grow?"

"Ooh, do a tail."

Addy's very patient, with a light grip on his elbow to monitor blood flow. She does not lick her lips.

"Nope, steady the entire time. So you are definitely making new blood. Now the question is whether you can get rid of it. Preferably without endangering the carpet."

"And you are getting rid of the blood, or your pressure would have gone way up when you squished the tail's worth in. So you can too handle fluids - at least that one - but so far you only know how to do it as part of another shift."

"Hmm. Okay. I can too handle fluids. Any idea on how to do it? I'm grasping at straws here with figuring out how the heck my power decides what's actually a part of me and what isn't."

"What did you notice when you were so absorbed in removing your tail?"

"I was only really paying attention to the solid parts, shrinking and reabsorbing bone and hair, unstretching—destretching? Something like that, with the skin and the muscles and the nerves and the blood vessels. I didn't actually pay any attention to the blood itself, though."

"Well, it may have folded in with the vessels... are you doing capillaries individually or does your magic handle those okay?"