Huh. So if I had that power, and I met a dragon, I could discover that I was secretly part-dragon all along?

That makes sense; even when it looks like the protagonist is being given special powers, they always need to go on a quest in order to realize them to their fullest. It makes it feel like they earned them, and like you were along for the ride as they did.

Yes, exactly. And if you met quite a few dragons, you could become part quite a few dragons, enough to eventually be all of a dragon and then some. Along with whatever other heritage you chose to discover.

She nods and then realizes the notebook probably can't see that — and Mrs. Mount probably can.

I see. Okay, I should probably take that one, then. Do you have a page where you don't mind me taking notes as we talk about powers? Only my non-magical notebooks are all full of times tables.

Absolutely! I never run out of pages.

Would you like me to show you the list and put blank pages in between every page of it so we can discuss the powers as you read through them? Or would you rather think about what you want first, and have me suggest powers that seem relevant?

Um. How many powers are in the list? Because if it's a lot it might be better to have you suggest the relevant ones, but if it's only a few basic ones that most people want I should probably look at them first.

There are a bunch. I do think it's a good idea to read through them all eventually, but you don't have to do it all at once. I'm a very patient notebook and I won't mind if you want to take a long time talking to me and thinking about things before you finalize your choices.

Okay.

And then Emily realizes she's just set herself up to have to describe what kind of magical powers she wants, with no guide to what's possible.

She takes a deep breath, and tries to think about it from the beginning. If Dragon Fairy Elf Witch is anything to go on, powers should be the kind of thing that involves going on a quest. But other than that, the power was remarkably ... positive. It explicitly ruled out the negative effects of being a dragon — except when they would be cool or dramatic, which is fair enough.

Is there a power that ... It's kind of like Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, but for learning magic instead of being magic? Like, something that makes it so that I can learn to use any kind of magic I'm capable of to the fullest? If I put the time into learning it, I mean.

Do you mean something like this?

Name: Anything You Can Do - Cost: 6 ☐
You learn implausibly quickly from friends, rivals, and love interests. If you have a personal connection to someone with a certain skill, talent, or expertise, you'll learn it five times faster than they did, or twenty times faster if they're actively trying to teach you. This applies even to forms of magic that you ordinarily shouldn't be able to learn.

Yeah!

Although that means she needs to actually meet people, which sounds terrible. Probably it gets easier to meet people if you're on a quest.

Does that power have a ... a cap, though? Like, when you learn everything your friend knows, do you stop being able to learn more?

No, although you might slow down after you catch up to them. There's also another power based on that one that lets you teach people faster, and having both can let you and a friend learn new things together faster than either of you could have alone.

Oh, that makes sense.

I was thinking that if you were facing an ancient evil, and nobody else could face it, that sort of by defaults mean that even if you learn everything everyone else knows it won't be enough. But if you can discover new stuff, then that isn't a problem.

Oh, oops. She goes back and moves the stray 's'.

default▊means

It's somehow a lot more embarrassing to make spelling mistakes when there's someone right there to see them. 

Yes. There are also other powers that help with being generally more capable in a lot of ways.

Is facing ancient evils a big part of the sort of life you think you'd want to live?

What kind of question is that.

I ... think it's the sort of life that anyone who gets mysterious magical powers inevitably ends up having?

Like, at this point you've already revealed that my non-magical childhood is an illusion, and that magic exists, and even if I put you in the library and never wrote in you again, I would end up running into a monster and narrowly escaping and running back to the library to get the powers necessary to defeat it. And the monster probably would have killed my parent as a sort of punishment for the hubris of thinking I didn't really need magical powers. And that would make me an orphan, which I don't really want even though it probably makes me more sympathetic.

So I'd rather be prepared ahead of time to face ancient evils than have to deal with them by surprise.

Well...

If you put me in the library and never write in me again, then you'll never finalize your choices, and unless you give me permission ahead of time to grant you your power as unrealized potential if you become inaccessible, I won't be able to grant you your power at all unless you come back to write in me after all, and I would be pretty sad about that since you're pretty neat and were very nice about teaching me algebra.

I don't know anything about whether magic ordinarily exists in your world. It could be that there are monsters, but I think a lot of the time when I speak to someone in a world that doesn't seem to have any magic, their world really didn't have any magic until I came along. This isn't one of the worlds that's magical enough for me to feel it just from what it's like to exist here, but plenty of worlds do have magic without feeling that way, so it's hard for me to say.

But part of what I'm for is to help you decide what kind of life you want, and grant you the powers that will help make that happen. So if you want to face ancient evils, then I want to help you find the right powers to face them with. But if you want to live a comfortable and happy life without any ancient evils involved, then I want to help you find the right powers to do that instead.

That answer makes her feel a little bit as though she's going to cry, and she doesn't understand why. She takes a moment to glance up at the classroom clock and determine how long is left before the end of school.

But ...

If I don't face the ancient evils, aren't they there anyway? Pretending everything is okay when it isn't ... that's how you set up a sequel, not a happy ending.

The multiverse is a really, really, really big place. There are worlds out there with ancient evils that need dealing with, and worlds with ancient evils that someone else is already going to fix, and worlds with no ancient evils at all. And you're not the first person chosen by the Spirit who worries about ancient evils, so even the worlds whose ancient evils don't have any local solutions might see a wandering heroine coming through to help them someday.

I think that when you're deciding whether to live the sort of life that heavily features ancient evils, you should be thinking about what you want, not just what you expect to be inevitable. Very little has to be inevitable, where the Spirit is involved.

So ...

Emily turns the notebook's words over in her head, trying to make them fit.

So I'm not ...

I mean, it's sort of like I'm on a team? I don't necessarily need to fight the ancient evils because the Spirit already has people for that, I just need to deal with the parts that are for me, and right now I can be choosing what that is?

Oh. Wait.

It's not as common, but she knows what this is, now. She's read Ranger's Apprentice.

You said the Spirit usually chooses people who are past puberty? So I'm like a junior member?

You could think of yourself as a junior member, yes. But, hmm...

Another way to think of it might be...

I like stories with happy endings. But after the happy ending, the characters go on to live happily ever after, right? That's the happy part, is that things are okay now, and people get to enjoy the life they wanted without all the troubles they solved in the story. The story wouldn't be as good, and the ending wouldn't be as happy, without the part afterward that has the happiness in it. Some people even write stories that are nothing but that part, just because they like thinking about happiness.

Some people chosen by the Spirit want to live in the part of the story where they defeat the ancient evil, and some want to live in the happily ever after. And the Spirit is happy for them either way, as long as they're where they wanted to be.

Oh.

That's ...

She's never really thought about the happy ending part. It's not usually what books are about.

Can you really get to the happy ending, though, if you don't go through the first part?

And ... you said the Spirit picks people who want to be special. Can you really be special if you don't do something interesting?

I think being exactly who you want to be and living exactly how you want to live is an excellent way to be special, and you don't have to do things that would be interesting to anyone else, as long as the things you do are interesting enough for you.

And like I said, some people write stories that are just the happily ever after part, because for that story they want to think about happiness and not about grand adventures. I think that can be a nice kind of story too.

Emily grimaces.

It feels ...

It feels like the notebook is saying that Emily can't be a hero, like being a hero wouldn't be the responsible thing.

But ... that's not what she's saying, is it? She's saying that Emily has a choice.

The question is which is the gold ladle, and which is the tin ladle. Is the humble, happy life the tin ladle? Is the life spent in service to others the tin ladle?

Which does she really want to choose?

I want —

I want to look back from the end of my story and feel like I made the wise choices. I want to be the person who was clever, and fair, and just, not just lucky. I want to be Halt or Rosethorn, not Sparrowhawk.

She's always felt like he just kind of stumbled through the school at Roke without much of a plan.

... and maybe I should say that means doing the safe thing and choosing the happy life, but the thing is I don't know.

She's writing faster now, with no real idea where her thoughts are going until she gets there, her already fairly messy writing deteriorating further in her haste.

I don't know what the right choice is. And — I don't know whether I will find monsters. But the thing is, these powers, they aren't just good for defeating ancient evils, are they? Learning from your friends, it's not just good for dealing with monsters, it's good for dealing with anything, because it lets you learn anything you might need to know, whether that's baking or battery.

She leaves a long space, and returns to writing at a more measured pace.

That's the answer. You're asking a false question. You're asking me to choose between being happy and being a hero, but I don't need to make that choice. I just need to be me.

The thing I am trying to ask you to do is definitely to be you. ♡

... that feels suspiciously like a non-answer, but whatever.

So ... let's put Anything You Can Do on the list too, because it does sound generally useful.

Hmm. Being magic, learning magic ...

Are there other powers that are sort of, generally applicable? Like, they help you be better no matter what kind of story you end up being in?

I'm not sure! It's kind of a broad question. Let me see...

Name: Pocket Dimension - Cost: 1 ☐
(Requires Dressing Room)
You can reach into your pocket, purse, backpack, or other storage accessory and pull out anything that can fit through its opening, even if it obviously could not fit in the pocket and even if you've never carried that object in that pocket before. In order to summon a specific object this way, it needs to belong to you; in order to duplicate an existing object this way, you need to have held or examined it at least once; in order to invent a new object this way, you need to be familiar enough with what you want that you could tell the real thing apart from a fake made with the same materials. So jewelry you make will be real gold or silver or platinum, but if you want to pull a refrigerator out of your backpack, you need to have a reasonably good idea of how a refrigerator works.

Name: Soundtrack - Cost: 1 ☐
Your life has a soundtrack, expertly composed in a mix of musical styles that suits you aesthetically and personally. You can hear the soundtrack at all times, but are never directly impaired by it—you can still hear other things just as well, and can still rest normally, enjoy the quiet, enjoy other music, and so on. By listening to the soundtrack, you can discern a lot of information about what kind of situation you're in and how your choices are likely to play out. (The soundtrack will often either go quiet or fade into the background to complement other music playing around you, but might pipe up if it has something important to say.)

Name: It Gets Better - Cost: 5 ☐
You're going to be okay.
Your mind and body may never be perfect, but they are yours, and cannot permanently be taken from you. In time you will heal from any injury, escape any imprisonment, and recover from any trauma; maybe not in exactly the ways you hoped, but always in ways you're okay with.

Name: Cotton Candy - Cost: 3 ☐
(Requires Disney Princess)
The sharp edges of the world are blunted around you. That's not to say that nothing bad can happen, but that the worst things happen a lot less often, and happy endings large and small are much easier to come by. This effect can ripple outward to improve the lives of people you've never met.

Name: Backchannel - Cost: 4 ☐
When you're talking to someone and you think you might not be getting through to each other, you can take a step back, look deep into your heart, and really try to understand where they're coming from, and it will just work and you'll know what they're trying to say and how sincere they are about it and have a good idea of what you should say if you want them to understand you right back.

Oh wow, okay.

She starts jotting a list of words to brainstorm, realizes that might be rude without context, and then puts a little box labeled "brainstorming" around them.

Being knowing doing having choosing knowing (the other kind) 

And then she runs out of gerunds and draws a picture of a wheel full of eyes, which is not strictly relevant but it does help her think.

So Dragon Fairy Elf Witch helps you be the things you need to be, Anything You Can do helps you know the things you need to know. It looks like Pocket Dimension helps you have the things you need to have. Soundtrack also sort of helps with knowing things.

Is there a power that helps you do the things you know you need to do? Or one that helps you choose the right thing to do, or that helps you get to know the right people?