"I don't, either. ...I wonder what kind of mage I'd be, I'm betting combo between the 'self' one and the 'others' one."

"Earth and Light. Wood."

"What does that one get?"

"Life manipulation! The thing I wanted to cheat at shapeshifting with!"

"Coooould it by any chance let me change my biological sex, do you figure?"

"...Huh," she says contemplatively. "Not sure. I mean - yes, that's something life manipulation can do, but - it might be difficult, it might take a long time to learn how - if you're lucky enough to get shapeshifting as one of your Earth-derived powers, it'd be much easier to use that, but not everyone gets every possible power."

"Are the powers people get also personality-based?"

"Yes. Well, it's not always obvious why one thing and not another, but mostly yes."

"So I'd probably get that one."

"If you became a Wood mage. How would you do that?" she wonders.

"Become a Wood mage? Obvious thing to try is figure out whether I can borrow a bit of your magic without taking any from you and see if it sticks."

"Okay!"

"But, like I said, the more I know the easier this is, if I just squint at you it might take days for me to get stuff. You showed me the Light thing and the Water thing, what else exactly do you have, and how does stuff interact?"

"I don't actually know everything I have," she says. "I haven't had the chance to use it a whole lot. I've got Light healing, I know that much. Need anything healed?"

"Not particularly, but that kinda makes me wanna, I dunno, cut my hand or something just to see it in action."

"You can if you want! For knowledge!"

So he produces a knife and cuts his hand.

Turns out hands bleed a lot.

Not for long they don't!

The cut glows faintly, feels pleasantly warm, and seals over. In fifteen seconds it's good as new.

"That was cool. And—different. Light is light manipulation and various other powers that affect other people, yeah? And these powers are sorta personality-based, but no Light mage has them all, even though all Light mages have the photokinesis?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"What other powers do you have? What proportion of people get magic where you're from, and is there any pattern?"

"Some people, not a lot, usually but not always ones who are related to other mages. And I only know about my healing, and we don't know hardly anything about her Water powers because she hardly ever - does things."

"And most things you do are not magic things?"

"Yeah."

"—do you—are you okay?"