It makes him look... human? That's wrong, it implies he wasn't human before, but - it takes an edge off of him, makes him look relatable. An everyman, someone who you can talk to. 

The shopgirl hums. "I do think I like that one."

That is a strange effect. All of the hats have different, noticeable effects, and - not ones that obviously come out of their literal appearance.... 

Leareth looks carefully at her. "...Were you by any chance tested for Gifts, as a child?" 

She gives him a slightly odd look. "Well, yes? We all got tested - my little sisters are mages, they went off to the University, but I didn't have a lick of it. Father used to say it all went into my fingers."

(There's a flicker in her expression when she mentions her father, barely noticeable.)

"I see." Leareth keeps his expression pleasantly neutral. "Would you mind if I checked again, now? I am a mage, I can do so easily." He'll mention the unusual nature of her hats if she asks why, but he doesn't want to spook her, and he has the sense that she may be easily spooked. 

"I... sure? You'll just need me to stand here, I guess?"

She looks - bemused is an accurate word, but perhaps insufficient.

Leareth can't really blame her! If she has a late-awakening mage-gift that she's managed not to ever consciously notice and is using it without even being aware of this, then no wonder she's confused at his response. 

He takes a step closer, and dives in with his mage-sight, seeking out any sign of active Gift-channels. 

She's not a mage.

She is, however, a Mindhealer. Making matters even odder, she's got a Wild Gift twining through her Mindhealing. It would be very difficult to blame the overworked Rethwellan mage-finders for not knowing what was going on here, if it even was at the time.

Leareth's only visible sign of surprise is that his eyes narrow slightly. 

"- In case you were wondering," he says after a longish silence, "you are in fact Gifted, though you may not yet have been when you were tested. Do you know anything of Mindhealers?" 

- Hats, that change your body language and have hard-to-describe but noticeable effects on how others perceive you, but that don't show up to mage-sight. A number of things are suddenly falling into place, and now Leareth has a completely different set of questions! 

"Mindhealers?" She shakes her head slowly. "I... know about Healers. You're saying I could, um. Cure... madness? But I know what Healers do isn't that simple..."

"Mindhealing can do something like that, yes, and many other things, though it takes extensive training to use safely. It seems likely you have not been using it in the standard way at all, though - I am curious about something. When you were picking out hats for me to try, was there something about me you were observing - something you could see even with your eyes closed...?" 

She suddenly looks profoundly embarrassed. "Oh no - um, yes, I, when my eyes are closed I see, um, instead of the people around me they're - dummies, dressed differently, in shifting clothes? And the dummy is such a way for each person, and the clothes are such a way, and I can see through the clothes to the dummy underneath? But. When you walked in I thought something was strange because, well, your dummy - it's not a dummy? It's just... you. You all the way down. And. I really didn't mean to see through your clothes."

Sophie seeing through his Mindhealing-metaphor-clothes is really the least of Leareth's concerns! 

"Fascinating," he breathes. "That would be Mindhealing Sight. All Mindhealers have a different metaphorical representation of minds - the characteristics of the dummy and the clothing you see will represent things about the person. ...Have you ever checked if you could change what you see?" A brief pause. "- Please do not try it on me right now." 

"Once."

Leareth watches her intently, trying to gauge from her expression how she feels about this line of questioning. "And what happened, then?" 

"...my father had recently died. I was looking in the mirror... and I closed my eyes... and I saw myself in a mourning veil, and I was - I was so tired of it. I tore the veil and burned it until it was gone, and - and I didn't feel it anymore."

"Oh. I...see." Leareth ducks his head. "My condolences." 

It would be tactless to add that this is a very impressive use of untrained Mindhealing; it may not have been the ideal way to approach dealing with grief, but she clearly managed to do something that had a clear effect and that didn't damage her ability to function. 

He takes a deep breath. "- When you work on the hats, here, is there - anything similar, anything you can see but not with your eyes, or sense in some other way?" He has no idea how he would expect her mysterious Wild Gift to feel from the inside. 

"...not quite like that, but... I do a kind of - thing, in my mind, that's difficult to describe? Sort of like painting a pattern inside my head. And. I talk to the hats I'm stitching while I do it, to keep myself on-task. I tell them, you know, what a lovely hat you are, you're full of youth and vigor, you have such mysterious allure - you're supposed to flatter your customers, and I suppose I'm just starting early."

Leareth nods. He's still looking at her very intently. This is possibly the most attention anyone has ever paid to Sophie. 

"Do you remember when that began? And - whether it correlated with an increase in your shop's popularity and reputation, or your sales?" 

"...yes, it was... when I was first employed at the shop... Fana said it had been going downhill, but when I picked up it... oh gods. Are you telling me I've been somehow ensorcelling my fucking hats?"

"Well. I believe you have been placing some sort of ongoing Mindhealing effect in your hats. I have never seen anything like it before and would not have assumed it was possible! You have an additional Wild Gift, one I do not recognize; I suspect that is what enables it."

He smiles reassuringly at her. "I think you would benefit from formal training. Mindhealers are very rare, but I happen to work closely with one, and she would be delighted to teach you." 

"I - I'm still - I mean -"

She takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I don't know you. I clearly can't keep doing what I'm doing, but - can you at least tell me, you know, who you are? I'm Sufya. Sufya Milin. We never actually, you know - just sort of jumped from customer-and-shopgirl to. Whatever's happening now."

Leareth opens his mouth to introduce himself using his local persona, and then stops. 

"- Actually, if we are going to speak of this, I would rather do so with more privacy, and with your agreement not to share certain things more widely. Is that all right?" His Thoughtsensing is fully open, trying to pick up as much as he can from her surface thoughts.  

"You realize that's not exactly reassuring? But - do what you need to do. Are you saying private room at the inn or set up some kind of scrying ward to throw your enemies off the scent? Or, you know, both."

Her mind is more than slightly full of static even internally. He's getting mingled guilt and hope, plus a general sense of a person too stressed to filter her speech effectively.

"Oh, here is fine if you have some kind of back room. I can provide wards. To be clear, I have no particular reason to think that anyone will be trying to eavesdrop, it is more out of general caution." 

Sufya turns the sign on the door to CLOSED and shows Leareth into the back room. She perches on a box of wax fruit and closes her eyes, then remembers that he knows about her Sight and hastily opens them again.