She nods. "I..." simplify, simplify "...fell down and hurt myself, so I wasn't looking. And then I fell down again and I was in the water."

"- but from where?"

"Akaiet."

She grabs some of the paper he's been teaching her to write on and draws a respectable rendition of the continent she's familiar with. It looks nothing like any local landmass.

"This is Eianvar," she says, indicating the whole thing. "This," she draws a dot perched amid the peaks of the central mountain range, "is Akaiet, where I live. I was there and then I fell down and then I didn't move but I fell down again somehow and then I was here."

"Why?"

"I don't know! I would like to know but I don't!"

"Okay." He shakes his head. "Well, you're here now. And a goldmage. Because you are somehow four."

"Someone wanted me to grow up very quickly, so she made that happen. She—can do things most people can't, but not in a colours way."

"- not in a colors way?"

"In Eianvar there isn't water that makes people into somethings. We have people who can do things most people can't, but a person either can or can't do those things, nothing makes them that way."

"They're just born like that?" He hasn't said 'born' but perhaps it's clear from context.

She nods.

"Huh... very different. What can they do? Besides grow you."

"Different people can do different things. There are a lot."

"Are you one?"

"...yes but no. I can't do my things; she stopped me."

"- how did she stop you?"

"That's one of her things."

He nods slowly. "- but how, what is the thing."

"She can... do things to people. Stop someone growing or dying or seeing or hearing or moving or doing things."

"Could a whitemage fix you?"

"What do whitemages fix?"

"Whitemages fix people who are injured or sick."

She shakes her head. "I don't think it's the same."

"Greenmage?" he wonders. "They fix it if you can't do something because your head won't let you."

"...maybe. I don't know."