"I don't know what I'd cover either so same goes for me, I guess."

"The only thing I know enough about and am interested enough in to exposit about is magic. So far, anyway; many of the concepts I've been introduced to since coming here are fascinating." 

"If it comes down to it, you could do a research project in the library in your free time and present that."

"Oh, that's true, I could." 

"Oh, I like that idea."

"I like the idea of someone spying on us in the library trying to figure out what we're up to and they catch one of us researching, I dunno, esoteric musical forms, for a recreational presentation, and have to try to figure out what it means." 

Lucy giggles. "It's not impossible. Hey, Edie, let us know if you catch someone spying on us so we can confuse them." 

"Will do."

"Thank you for your service."

"Speaking of me noticing people doing things, probably the blonde creep is going to try to engage with us at some point. Do we want me to just prevent her from messing with us and not say why or should we tell her to fuck off." 

"First one sounds funnier." 

"I don't think we should make that decision based on that criterion but if she's busy trying to figure out why she can't touch us then she isn't messing with anyone else." 

"That is a really good point. On the other hand, I feel like we ought to be able to do better than waste our own time with stalling tactics."

"I'm not sure I see much material difference between the two. Like, isn't the why we'd stop her kind of obviously because we would rather she fuck off."

"I can stop her without it being obvious that the reason why she can't do anything is because I'm actively stopping her and not because we all have some kind of passive protective effect." 

"Oh. If you can do that I think I vote making it look like a passive effect."

Edie briefly considers trying to explain with her words, then realizes she doesn't have to and leans into Kiri's range. 

She can "grab" the mental "hands" that Chelsea uses to exercise her own power, but Chelsea doesn't have the perceptive capabilities right now to "feel" that her hands have been grabbed and that's why nothing is happening. 

Nod nod. "Yeah. I think that's better, although if she picks up more perceptual finesse..."

"I think it's less if than when, honestly. I don't think we'll be able to put off a full-blown confrontation forever."

"There's a conversation we're going to have to have at some point about what we're willing to do to people to protect others from them."

"Yeah. Which might be practically limited as well as ethically, if third parties interfere with anything less than a rock-solid hold on somebody."

Lucy steps into Kiri's range. 

Lucy does not want to enslave anyone. Lucy thinks the entire concept is stupid and distasteful. But Lucy is very aware that there are people here who don't think that, who are dangerous to everyone around them, quite possibly in more than just a mind control way, and Lucy has very little patience for people who insist on playing negative-sum games for their own benefit. Back home she would just kill them and resurrect them later when she had more free time to deal with them or things had changed enough that they weren't going to be dangerous anyway. But that's not an option here; both the Death Ward and the rule against interfering with anyone's studies prevent it. So it seems likely that they're going to have to do some stupid and distasteful things, and Lucy suspects that her threshold for doing that is lower than that of much of the rest of the good guy group, and she can't think of a credible way to express that this is the case but she really honestly doesn't want to besides getting indiscriminately mind-read. 

Kiri sighs. Nods. "Do you want me to - translate that for the rest of us, or -"

"If you just vouch for my motives that's good enough--I think we want to think really hard about what level of dangerous somebody has to be before we start going more offensive than Edie not letting Chelsea at us. Violating somebody's free will is a fundamentally bad thing but we are in a fundamentally bad situation and anyone who attacks us has--oh what was that phrase--'forfeited the protection of the innocent;' anyone who thinks enslaving people is a great idea can't really complain if it happens to them. I'm not saying this because I want to do it but because I've had a taste of what it looks like to try to accomplish things with malefactors sabotaging you at every turn."

"I acknowledge your reasoning as valid, but...it can be very easy to argue yourself into doing the wrong thing because the right thing is more difficult."