"- sure! How about fifth, give the rumor mill some time. How big a circle can you manage?"

"-sometime after I've had a chance to see how you do things and come up with a lesson plan, not today," he chuckles. "I guess if there's a lot of interest I could start some people on the basics but it wouldn't be a very good class."

"Why wouldn't there be a lot of interest? You're an alien!"

"All right. I hear ten is a pretty normal circle size here, that should be comfortable enough - how long do they run?"

"Hour and a half."

"I might only have enough material for half of that. I can do a general question-and-answer session with the other half, though, if that's all right."

"Sounds good to me. I'll get a roster and wait list posted."

"Mmhmm. And I'm hoping to go to Uamok's second and fourth period circles with her and the art history one first period, and use the library during third to go over my language notes."

"That all sounds fine to me," the head teacher says, after glancing at Uamok.

"All right, thank you. Oh, and - I might want to hold a circle at some point on how to try to get the sort of magic I have, but only people with the right kind of aptitude can pick it up; is there a way to get that information to people beforehand so that only ones who think they have a chance will sign up?"

"What's the aptitude?"

"There's two parts to it; one is the sort of mental strength that leads to perceptiveness, good judgement, and good self-control, which affects how powerful of a spellcaster they might be, and the other is a deep personal interest in and connection to some concept, which affects some of the spells they get and what they have to do to keep the magic. Mine's travel, for example, which means that unlike most clerics I can fly and teleport, and that if I ever decided to settle down to live in one place I'd lose my magic for it. Which is fine, because if I was the sort of person who wanted to, I wouldn't have the magic to begin with."

"- what are some other concepts you can do it with?" asks Uamok.

"I have a list in my notes, there's plenty of obscure ones I'll never remember without it. Ethics is pretty common, though - wanting to do good for people, or caring a lot about personal freedom or about finding a fair set of rules for everyone to live under. And some things you'd think of as careers, healing or smithing or working with nature or things, though it can be tough to get the right depth of feeling for something broad enough that way, most people with those careers aren't clerics. Really though if what I first described reminds you of someone there's a pretty good chance they can do it."

"It didn't especially," says Uamok. "Didn't you say clerics have to be too obsessed to have mates, that would make it very strange for anyone to be like that already without trying to so they could do spells."

"Not that obsessed, plenty of us would like to have both. We're just not willing to compromise on our calling for it, and it sounds like most of your females wouldn't have to. I'm not sure what it'd be like for your males, but they're going to need to be with somebody, a mate might be easier than their parents. - should we get going to the circle?"

"Yeah, it'll be forming about now." She leads him to the art history circle, which is outside and about half male, half female, with a female teacher in the middle. They take up places in the ring and Uamok explains the hummun to the instructor.

Raafi waits for the circle to settle before sitting, possibly quite close to Uamok if their neighbors are crowding them, and listens attentively.

The male on Raafi's other side seems to feel it is important to sniff him and Uamok appears to find this reasonable behavior. Otherwise nobody's crowding.

The art history lecture is about materials science as it pertains to art, mostly sculpture but also other artforms.

It's pretty interesting! They're much more limited in some ways, without magical materials or spells to help work mundane ones, but also more advanced technologically; the result is a bit of a patchwork compared to what Raafi's used to. He stays quiet for most of the lesson, but at the end he asks what innovations the teacher thinks might be most useful.

"Most useful in what sense?"

"I was hoping there'd be an obvious one - to let artists do more of the things they think are interesting right now, let's say."

"Oh, let's see - anti-weathering treatments so art can be safe outside are always big."

"Thank you," he nods, and then adds quietly to Uamok, "our magic can do that."

"Ooh," whispers Uamok, as the circle produces a few more questions and then disperses.