"United Defense Force. International military and evacuation organization, that took over quite a lot of stuff from National governments, and the only thing that has kept humanity from being wiped out by the Neuroi. They pay for fighting witches' training, salaries, equipment and support. Also fund science and evacuation and health or famine relief programs, and have their own code of laws now."

"And it includes prohibiting people from fixing their dysphoria?"

"If it makes them unfit for combat service in violation of the enlistment contract... Yes."

"That's barbaric."

"It's an edge case and they've written over new laws since then that improve the situation. The contracts themselves, with exit penalties, I do think are a good system."

"How're the new laws?"

"Essentially, added dysphoria to the medical excuse clause. Now you'd lose your wage and pension but not get tossed in jail or saddled with exit fees."

"...okay I suppose that's more reasonable."

"...Anyway trying to take mana directly from me and trying to turn it back as a girl, both things to test. And watching you make artifact mana to see if I can copy that."

"Right, okay. Should I try getting it from you now?"

"Sure. Just a bit, in case it does something weird."

He tries, then.

This magic belongs where it is screw you very much.

It moves a little bit and might respond to more tugging, though? More stubborn than anything.

He relays this to her.

"Then I suppose you can't take it directly from me. Interesting. I would have thought you could, since you can do the local kinds..."

"It feels like if I insist I might be able to."

"Are metamancers rare? If I meet a hostile one I want to know what they can do to me. I insist you insist." She snorts in amusement at her joke.

"Quite rare, and most of them pretend they're not."

He insists.

Tch. Fine he can have a little magic. A little bit of it. It clings to her like honey mixed with glue. She starts. "Feels... Cold."

"Should I stop?"

"Let me see if I..."

Now he cannot have any of this magic, even if he insists, no sir. "That stopped it. Mental state of that's mine I need it. Would be annoying to keep up all the time."

"Can you adopt the converse state? 'My magic is free to share and anyone can have it'?"

"I might be a little paranoid to be sincere about that but..." She tries.

Now it's only somewhat harder to grab than when it was in the amulet.

And he informs her of this. "Your magic's pretty interesting. Mental state has zero to do with mana with my magic."

"Mental state has a lot to do with Witch magic. I don't think I explained... Every witch gets four basic spells - flying on brooms, casting shields, physical boosts, and manalights - or manablasts, but that's just a matter of magnitude. And then one special, which is something like an Elementalist's thing. A suite of actions strongly themed around one thing. Mine is copying. They seem mostly random, but a few kinds are more common."