He shakes his head. "I don't know enough about arcane magic to teach it, it's not my area. That does sound like you'd be able to learn some of it, though - maybe not more than second or third tier spells, but there's some pretty respectable ones even at that level."

"Any spell that actually worked for me would..." Wistful sigh.

...she really isn't sure how long Raafi can float like that for the sake of hugging her, but she can't figure out how to ask while she's busy keeping a lid on her inner degeneracy.

"Well, I can ask about getting back, too. I should anyway, people will be worried about me."

Scyelen nods.

Her body is tense as a bowstring, but she's also leaning into the hug to a much greater extent than that level of tension might imply.

She should probably... do something. Or say something. He'd be disgusted if he knew what she was feeling.

"You okay?"

"...no."

Yes. She meant to lie and say yes.

aaaaaaaa

"Anything I can do?"

"...that is quite possibly the most loaded question I have ever been asked," Scyelen remarks, almost marveling. And she goes red again because she didn't really mean to say that out loud either.

He gives her another little squeeze. "Not sure what you mean."

Scyelen tries and fails to form words for several long minutes.

"I... don't think there's anything you can do," she finally says. "Unless you have a spell that fixes broken minds."

"I suppose it depends on what you mean by that."

"I was... there's actually a..." She sounds more scared than hopeful, actually, but not zero hopeful.

"Clerics do healing, yeah. Bodies more than minds but I have a few tricks. I don't think that's what's wrong with your magic, though."

"I wasn't talking about my magic," she says in a small voice.

"Well, maybe I can help, then."

That is utterly terrifying, but... "H-How?"

"I'd need to know what I'm working with, first, I think - not that I can't just run through the whole collection if it turns out to be ambiguous, but some of them are expensive to cast. The spells themselves are - pretty simple? If they fix what's wrong they'll do that and if not they won't do anything."

"...could you maybe tell me what each spell, does? I mean, what it... changes?"

"I don't actually know all of them off the top of my head; if I need something I'm not already aware of I can ask for it and see what happens. But I have a list of the common ones, hold on -" he takes a little notebook out of his belt and pages through it.

"Okay - this one cures pain, this one temporarily suppresses fear, this one removes addictions, this one temporarily calms emotions, these will fix it if there's something making you - stupider, more or less, there's some technical terms that don't translate well - this one breaks enchantments and curses - this one handles a lot of different things but notably insanity - and it looks like that's it among the common spells."

Suppressing fear sounds nice but it would do the opposite of help.

"None of those... sound quite right," Scyelen says, disappointed but also relieved. "What kinds of things does the last one do?"

"The same kinds of stupidity as the other two, a few kinds of disorientation, and exhaustion. Plus some physical problems." Squeeze. "You don't have to tell me what's going on if you don't want to, but it'd help. And I bet I've heard worse, I've been a cleric for a long time."

"I, um, I can't... I don't..."

Scyelen takes a shaky breath, and forces out some vague and hedging words.

"I'm... not afraid," this is a severe understatement, but, "of a bunch of things girls are supposed to be afraid of. And I am afraid of a bunch of things girls are supposed to want."

"Sounds complicated, and not really the kind of thing I'd have magic for. I can say - whatever it is it's probably not going to bother me? If you want to talk about it or just - if I'm going to be around, I might find out, I expect that to be fine. It seems like people here have some pretty strict ideas about how things are supposed to be, and I don't, really. It's part of my calling not to."

Scyelen relaxes a little, part relieved, part disappointed. He doesn't understand. If he understood he'd stop hugging her.

She should probably stop taking advantage of him like that. Any time now.

Reluctantly, she pulls away from the hug and stands up. She goes to her wardrobe, but freezes as she reaches for it. Her... night-time habits. What if he thinks... no. No. That much, that much she has to impose on his tolerance. Or she might as well announce that she has no intention of sleeping at all, and that would be entirely unproductive.

"I should get to bed. Um. I'm... going to try to behave around you in private as though I'm alone. I am absolutely going to fail, but I'm still going to try, because that is... the standard by which our bond is measured. Please, um, accommodate yourself however you like."

He pales a little. "I'll go for a walk, how about. I'll be back in - twenty minutes?" It's not really a question; he's already headed for the door.