"Yeah."

Hug.

"Hmm. I'm not sure that counts as healing, though. We should try to find a way to test if you can do more than just - be a really good box of band-aids. I mean, magic fairy princess, you could be even more super magic. I have no idea."

"Maybe we both had Stealth Diseases, maybe I have infinite cosmic power and can learn to channel it in eight simple steps with a home video series that can be mine for nineteen ninety-nine. I don't know. Is it going to look suspicious for a 'winged lion' to go looking for books on sphinxes in the Avalon, should you do that instead?"

"I should probably be the one to do that. Just because people might connect the dots. A winged lion that never shows up in fullform researching sphinxes and who turned at the same time as a magic - thing happened. Kind of indicative."

"Okay. Do you think it was my turning or whatever magic I was doing when I passed out that made the magic thing happen?"

Darren looks amused. "You keep asking questions that I couldn't even begin to answer with any proof. I'm going to guess it was the magic that made you pass out? But I could be wrong, you're the only sphinx I know. You could be different."

"Well, I suppose we'll go to the Avalon at some time and you will be suddenly very geeky about sphinxes and I will publicly consider you hopelessly and foolishly obsessed and prefer to read about runes."

He snickers. "Yup. And, what a pity, I'll suddenly and miraculously gain an interest in lots of extinct critters, like dragons, too. It'll probably get on your nerves, while you read about runes."

"Yeah. 'Bella, Bella, did you know that dragons have this characteristic?'" she exclaims in a terrible Darren impression. "'I didn't know, Darren. Did I say something that sounded like 'tell me about dragons, again?'" she replies to herself in the most bored of tones.

The snickers become full-fledged giggles. "'No, but no one will talk to be about dragons and you happen to be present! Can I tell you about unicorns, too? Some people think they existed once, centuries ago, did you know?'"

"'I suppose I will not literally claw you for subjecting me to this appallingly nerdy interest you have picked up,'" replies Bella in the guise of Hypothetical Bella.

"'Bwuahahahaha!'" laughs Hypothetical Darren. "'Excellent, now let me tell you some more about dragons!'"

"Are we convincing?" Bella inquires of Vernon, who is presumably hearing this entire thing since he's driving.

That is indeed what he has been doing, staying politely out of the conversation. He snorts, when addressed. "Yes."

"Awesome."

"It's because we're nerds, isn't it, dad."

"Huge, huge nerds," agrees Vernon.

"But what will happen to my promising career in soccer if I am branded with that reputation-destroying label? Oh no!"

"You will have to take up knitting, or maybe underwater basket weaving. Not as a hobby, but as a career."

"Alas. Those fields are just so competitive."

"Yup. Completely unlike soccer."