"Do you - know how to get back?"

"No."

"What year is it here?"

"Twenty twelve. It's mid-October."

"...flying cars yet?"

Laugh. "No, sadly. I have a flying broom, though."

"That's cool, that's cool. I mean my sister can fly but she can't share, you know."

"Flight here's finicky and difficult and a huge time investment to learn and totally worth it. ...Though we can only fly at night in deserted areas."

"I'm not going to be able to walk down the street, am I."

" - Magic is largely a secret, but witchcraft's actually extremely specialized toward perceptions, either enhancing or messing with. I'm not great at illusions, but hiding people is a really basic survival skill. I can keep the unaware from noticing you until we can get you to an illusion specialist, if shifting to normal human's not on the table."

"Can't get all the way human, no. I can get less conspicuous but not baseline."

She pauses, and then, a bit slowly: "It's - in some ways up to you and how much risk you feel like taking. My illusion could fail, but it's unlikely, especially in passing with people not anticipating non-human features, and anyone able to see through it should already know magic exists or desperately needs to be initiated anyways."

"Desperately needs to be initiated?"

"Some people get magic without having been taught it by a coven, and using magic untrained isn't always safe or - good at remaining secret. Initiating someone means bringing them at least into the secret of magic, if not into a coven entirely."

"Oh. Magical girls aren't secret at all where I'm from, so - an illusion will probably be good if that's convenient for you, I don't have habits around being secret."

"An illusion's convenient. And witches didn't really used to be secret, and then we nearly got wiped out in the sixteen hundreds. There's a lot of younger witches pushing for unveiling now, but - anyone old's pretty hesitant."

"We're useful for fighting swarms, but maybe you don't have those either, in our world they and magical girls appeared within a year of each other."

"I haven't heard of those, no. And we don't actually know how long we've had witches..."

"Huh. What things do you guys do besides illusions? It sounded like you - learn various techniques instead of just each having some, like us."

"We have to train, yeah, though some people have visions even untrained. The base is - pretty much perceiving what's normally unseen. Illusions are basic, and so's divination and speaking to spirits, mostly of the land or the dead. Mental curses - forgetfulness, madness, sleep - are also considered somewhat basic, as an extension of illusions, though they're also controversial... Some people can speak to or possess animals, and fewer people can change their shape entirely. Healing and causing diseases and wounds is also - not simple, but it's a common thing to strive for, as is encouraging or blighting specific plants and predicting the weather. You can make protective items, if you're worried someone might be cursed or simply unlucky, and you can lift curses. Speaking across long distances is a common trick. Flight's complicated but possible. Most witches can extend someone's life by a few years or decades, though rarely more than that."

"There's some - mythical powers, too, that no one on record actually provably has. Changing the weather, causing earthquakes, changing or binding fate, immortality..."

"And most witches specialize; I'm specialized in dealing with spirits."

"...can we have some anti-curse items."

"Yeah. I can get you basic ones, at least."

"What's a spirit?"

"A kind of complicated category, mostly - things that don't necessarily have a physical form. Ghosts are a central example."

"No shit, straight up ghosts?"