"I came from another world," he says, waving a hand.

"Really? Why?"

"It was an accident, actually."

"Oh. Awkward."

"A bit," he agrees. "Also I am curious about something that might be a bit strange to ask, and depending on cultural mores I might not be aware of could perhaps be offensive, though I do not see how."

"Huh?"

"Okay so my magic is that I can see magic, and there's some magic that some people here in this cafeteria have and there's no pattern to whom and you have it and I was wondering if you knew what it was."

"You can see it? What does magic look like to you?"

"Really hard to describe. It's not really see it, it's a whole new sense. It has a certain sense of location and shape and angle but the metaphor doesn't stretch much farther than that."

"Well what's it shaped like?"

"Depends on the magic. As an example, link paper has a sort of—tendril or rope thing connecting it to its pair."

"What about the thing you're saying I have?"

"It's, hmm..." He squints. "Kinda formless, actually? And it—moves?"

"...Moves?"

"Yeah, like, in place. Like it's flickering or something. Huh."

"Why would it do that?"

"No idea. It doesn't necessarily mean anything like what it looks like, and this world's magic is—very different and varied. I'd need to look at it longer. You don't know of any magic you might have that other people don't? And that, oh, she does?" he points. "And him, and him, and her, and him?"

"I don't know those people."

"Yeah, seems really random. And it's not lightness, either, I met a light yesterday and her magic didn't look like this."

"Well, yeah, I'm not a light. Or a sorcerer. I'd know by now."

"What's a sorcerer?"

"They can move stuff."

"Oh, telekinesis? And like all other magic here, it's free?"

"Free? You can't, like, buy it."

"I mean you can just do it without spending any resources. Magic from my world spends a finite resource that humans—only sapients there are humans—generate from birth, when they're mages."