"Mhm. Scrolls, too, I suppose we could sell scrolls. Harmless ones."

"Yes. Can anybody use a spell or do you have to be a critter?"

"Anybody. My tutor was human. We just - don't tell the general populace because huge upheaval due to scary mythological critters. It's the sort of thing that doesn't happen accidentally, so they're not likely to stumble upon it without help."

Bella nods. "It seems like you could probably do a slow reveal on the strength of 'nobody would ever believe you' - right? Tell one friend at a time, if they freak out everybody who's in on it says they're clearly having trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality."

Darren smiles. "... It's actually one of my main goals to get critters out in the open and accepted. So, yeah. I was actually uh - trying to set you up for an eventual 'I am a peryton' reveal without you freaking out, but you beat me to it."

Bella laughs. "You were? You'd known me for a week and - awww. Have you told anybody else?"

"Well I wasn't going to tell you then. Just setup for eventually. And no, not yet, I've thought about telling Angela a few times but I am worried about how she would handle it with her father being a pastor, and therefore religious."

"I meant you'd known me for a week and you were already even thinking about it. Does Angela's father tend to be freak-out-about-things-y?"

"I haven't met him, so I wouldn't know. I also sort of tend to think about showing people a lot. Kinda... Bothers me a bit that I am basically lying to everyone that doesn't know."

"I'm disinclined to think of it as lying, but I get that, yeah."

"Well. Neglecting to tell the truth, then. It wears, after a while."

"Haven't visited this one. I had some friends in Detroit but we drifted apart a bit after I left. Other than them.... Not really."

"I wasn't really close to anybody back in Phoenix, myself."

"You see why my sister was so excited that I made a friend."

"A bit, yes. I'm glad we're friends."

"Me, too. And not just because you are a magic fairy princess equivalent and I am a huge magic nerd, even."

"Any idea how I should go about figuring out how I do my fairy princess magic, by the way?"

"Experiments? Safe ones? That's all I can think of, I've got no clue, really. This has never been a thing that has come up before in my life."

"Okay, well, if you skin your knee, let me know and I'll... stare at it and see if I wake up having spent the last while unconscious nearby. But I'm probably going to skin my knee first, considering."

"Yeah. Then we'll find out if you can self-heal. Hopefully the answer is yes."

"I assume I had to be doing something the first couple times I passed out. I mean, I didn't feel sick, but there were no other discernible effects either time."

"... I don't really know what you could be healing. I mean, maybe like - I had some kind of latent inherited mental disease from my mom and you fixed it? Or something?"

"I passed out the first time before you showed up, and I've never passed out around Savannah - the latter doesn't guarantee anything but it's suggestive."

Darren shrugs. "I dunno, it was an idea. I have no idea what it could be. I'm curious, though."