“Ah, you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart and the fluffiness of your ears?”

"Not at all! Business model very much exists, just does not charge you. Natural awakened witches are so much less useful for everyone to have around, so aforementioned everyone compensates awakeners for doing the job and for being very neutral about all of everyone."

“Less useful?”

"You do not have to work for any of everyone if you do not so wish. But natural awakenings come out with things like the water allergy, which is real and can hurt not you but people who have it, and they have ranks in magics they do not want to have jobs in, and inconvenient talents in things like making the weather change with their mood, and species that are unpleasant to be and hard to do workplace accommodations of. Bad for the labor pool, for recruitment, et cetera. Like if everyone were coming out of universities having accidentally got a double doctorate in basket weaving and history of australopithecene dance, perhaps it would be nice to open a nursing school and a computer science program, you see? Also all the everyone would like to be able to send their children to professionals, too - you are something of a sideline."

“That makes sense. So how does professional awakening work? On my end, I mean.”

"I walk you through what-all you have the potential for and you pick things and you walk out a witch! You will pick a species and a way of getting better at magic and some magic to already be able to do, and if you want more points' worth of magic than you already have the potential for you can pick up some inconveniences. Such as the water allergy. But you did not sound keen on it. There are more popular ones."

“—species?”

"Species!" She pets one of her own ears. "I am an oread for instance. You can stay a human, or, the PC thing to say is 'neutral', because you will be a witch human not a mundane human. But many species are more fun or make it easier to learn more of some or another type of magic."

“Neat. Disguisable?”

"Varies. Oreads have the convenient shapeshifty thing as you saw, that comes standard with us-es. If you stay neutral but do a cosmetic tune-up of your true form while awakening, the Veil will cover that. If you walk out of here on four legs, Veil will have a bit of a time, but you could get a special wheelchair for pretending in and that would most likely do. If you go around being hashtag ifrit pride it will be pretty hard for the Veil to conceal that you are at all times very much on fire, so you should be also invisible or something if you do this."

“Flexible. All right. What do I have the potential for?”

"In the species department?"

“Well, for everything, but we can start there, why not. I do want to get the whole picture before deciding anything.”

"In your family tree way back it looks like we have... neutral, aforementioned; daeva, souped-up superhero-comic-book-human-ish guys; dryads, treeple; lamia, like a snake-taur; elf, what it sounds like; undine, water elemental; sprite, tiny insect fey; lilin, demonic folks; erinyes, fallen angels; pixie, tiny plant-theme fey; fairy, tiny party fey."

“— I’m getting the impression that a lot of myths are actual things leaking through the Veil. But what does it mean to be an actual fallen angel? Is there an actual Hell involved? Where’s the fall?”

She can see that mundane culture might have accreted a distinctly filtered view of what necessarily-secret magical beings might be up to. But still.

"Actual Hell exists. Erinyes connection to it is pretty tenuous, there's hellier things out there, if they have very corroboratey mythology of it they did not tell us oreads, but they have feather wings and permanent weepy mascara, very goth, and the put-about summary is the fallen angel one. They get mana from people about them having a bad time of it, especially if they yell about it. Does not have to be the erinyes's fault, necessarily."

She makes such a face about that. “How about the opposite of that.”

"Regular not fallen angels are also real but not at this retail environment for you to be. But if you mean the mana part, closest you get to opposite is fairies, they throw magical parties and the partiers get them mana. Fun weekend if very exhausting."

“I suppose I could learn to pull that off…”

She reaches into her pocket, and pauses. “Is it okay if I take notes? Do I have to make sure that’s not any kind of information leak?”

"Oh, go right ahead, the veil will make sure it looks as though you are planning to dungeon some dragons should anybody see, it is a good and helpful veil."

She finishes the motion of pulling out her phone and unlocking it. Tap tap. “Can you give me, like, the physical description and the way of getting mana, for each of the species, and we’ll save the cultural and metaphysical implications for later?”

"Sure! Neutral is just like you are with a tune-up. Mana from sleep. Daeva are more - statuesque, let us say. Mana from emotions - directed right at them, or a whole crowd all around them having a time at the ballgame or whatever. Dryads can turn straight up into a tree, you look like a... an oak dryad, if you become one - and even when not turned into a tree have some tree bits upon them, can be very stylish. Mana from tending to living things, gardens or groves or Grandma, so long as you are feeding and watering and so on. Lamia I mentioned are snake-taurs, trade everything below the waist for most of a snake yea big around. Mana from swallowing stuff alive yes that is often people no it does not actually have to make them be dead. Elf - you'd be a sun elf, you'd get a bit browner - looks passable as human, pointy ears, gracile, shortish, but basically just a regular Jo. Mana from meditating. Undines are all water all through, a bit jello-y, can get bigger or smaller or change shape but will settle to being about shaped like you are now. Mana from filtering water, which comes naturally with being an undine and poking some water. Sprites and fairies and pixies are all little." She pinches her fingers an inch apart. "They have them-sized cities and it is very much the advantage if you want to pave the streets with commodities or do square-cube-law fun with architecture, but does make it tricky going home again. Sprites are bee-ish more than any other one thing, make honey, get mana from fermenting it into a mana potion, slurp. Pixies can have bugly wings like sprites do or leafy ones, either, and get mana from growing flowers-in-particular. Fairies can have sprite wings or wings that are barely there at all and made of light, and get their mana from the party situation."

Tap tap taptaptaptap tap furiously tap.

“Is the dryad thing more like having two bodies but only one at a time, or more like shapeshifting where the result is always a tree? Can they move as a tree? Does losing branches hurt if you still have plenty?”

"More like shapeshifting. Trees do not move much, dryad ones can flex a little more. I... do not think anyone has asked me this before ever, I will look up at it..." She produces her phone and inquires of the internet. "Small branches do not hurt, anything thicker than your wrist will," she reports.

Tap tap. “Is meditating, uh, a very specific elf practice designed for getting mana, or is it more like take your pick from the kind of things people call meditation? — if that even makes sense; I don't know very much.”