:No. But our education wasn't normal. We couldn't go to normal school 'cause we grew so fast and people couldn't know I existed, so Mom and Grandfather taught us, but they didn't have that many books, and the books they did have, a lot of them were about magic and other things most people don't know. So probably there's lots of places we haven't heard of.:

:That sounds stressful: Vanyel sends. :That people couldn't know you existed: Although maybe that isn't a topic she wants to talk about and it's rude to bring up and he should change the subject – that's probably how he would feel about it. :Er, can you do magic then? Aside from the shapeshifting, I mean: 

:Oh! Yeah. I learned some from the books and then when we left home and I learned to turn human-shaped we met someone else who knew about those kinds of things, and he was just human but he knew a lot of magic, and he taught us. Magic mostly but also mundane medicine. For humans. We don't get sick and it's good because no one would know how to treat us.:

:That would be awkward: Savil agrees, keeping her poise even though all of this is weird weird weird. :What sort of mundane medicine? Most of our medicine is magical, except for herbs and things:

:Well, there's herbs,: she agrees, :and how to disinfect a wound, and how to do surgery if the situation is bad enough to warrant it and how to tell if it is. And blood transfusions, and how to breathe into someone's mouth if their lungs have stopped, and how to set broken limbs, and what shock is and how to treat it, and how you hafta be careful when you're warming up someone who's got hypothermia because if you raise their temperature too fast it can do more damage.:

Savil is blinking faster and faster trying to keep up. :Whoa: she sends finally. 

Moondance sticks his head out from behind Vanyel, who he's holding onto to stay on Yfandes back. :What, exactly, is a 'blood transfusion'? I am a Healer myself and I have never heard of that: 

:So! People--human people, I mean--have blood that comes in different kinds. And if somebody has lost a lot of blood, then you can take blood out of someone healthy who has the same kind, and put it in them. If it's a different kind it can just make things worse.:

He looks amazed. :Can you really? How do you take the blood out and put it back in without getting it dirty?: 

:Umm. Do you have syringes?:

Based on Moondance's baffled look, evidently not!

:So, you take a glass tube, and on one end you put a cap that has a hollow needle, and on the other end you put a cap that has a plunger, and then you can fill it with medicine and stick it in someone's arm and put the medicine directly in their blood, or you can draw their blood to do tests on or to put in other people:

Moondance is starting to look cross-eyed. :I have about a thousand questions but maybe later, once I can write it down: He chuckles. :We have been rather hogging the floor here. Do you have questions for us?: 

:Um. Yes. Probably. Uh. Does everyone know about magic here? Even in places that don't have weird animals and turn your hair white?:

A smile. :Most places, yes. Though our world has different kinds of Gifts that can touch magic in different ways, and not all of them are known in all places. For example, I am a Healing-Adept – my type of Gift is not known in Valdemar, our destination. And Valdemar knows of Mindhealers, which my people do not have: He frowns. :I know of places that shun the use of magic – our sister people, the Shin'a'in, are one such – but they still know of its existence. Is this different in your homeland?: 

:Yeah. Most people don't know magic exists, and a lot of people are scared of it when they find out. That's part of why I expected you to be scared of me although the fact that I'm big and can kill a basilisk was a lot of it. Even people like my teacher, who's completely human, have to hide.:

Vanyel shivers. :That doesn't sound like a nice place for, er, someone like you to live: 

:It wasn't great. I couldn't interact with any people besides my family until I was eighteen and figured out how to shapeshift.: Pause. :What did you mean by Gifts?:

:I don't know how it is where you're from: Vanyel starts, :but in this world, you usually need something called a Gift in order to use magic at all. Mage-gift is a general way of using magic, but there are also specific Mind-Gifts – like Mindspeech, which is how all of us are talking to you: He grins. :It's really useful for that! Since we don't speak the same language. I mean, it's still not that easy to understand you but I'm getting more used to it. Are you finding us easier to understand too with practice?:

:Yeah. I don't think we have anything like that though. Everything I know of is either stuff like my shapeshifting, or stuff like what I learned from Teacher and books, and anyone can learn that stuff. I think. I guess I dunno if people here can.:

:Really? That is different. It's not like that here: 

They ride in thoughtful silence for a while. 

Eventually, after some uneasy pondering: :So, if there was a kind of magic that people found extra-scary at home, but could help a lot of people, you guys would probably be fine with it, right?:

:...Probably, yes: A considering look. :Not everyone in Valdemar would be, necessarily, but they might not be comfortable with everything I can do, either. The four of us aren't likely to be put off though. I'm rather curious now?: 

:Um. I know how to raise the dead.:

Both Companions stop dead. All four of the riders look shocked; Vanyel in particular has a frozen, trapped-animal look.