She nods.

"The City is vast, and the world beyond still grander, and I doubt that the world you lived in prepared you for this." 

She hums softly as she nibbles through the last of the rack of ribs. 

"You have a question for me you are repressing. Ask it."

"...Would you like to help? A vision for a place to build is nothing without people to inhabit it. I have nothing to offer you, right now, beyond myself, though within a few days I will have some power to wield in my own, notionally." 

I almost huff, in the way I sigh, and rub my forehead. 

"Pray tell what you envision for how I could serve?"

I roll my shoulders and sit back, humming. 

"One of the fundamental problems is that the secrets of the classic are largely civilizational - and that required materials, resources, workers, beyond just the manuals and msicellaneous tricks of magic. You have the skills to build magical things, and some capacity to conjure, I understand? I'll pursue my own options, in terms of being able to do every last part of this, but there will be things that you can create that I can't for a good long while, or places where you can make a superior version just from the potentials you have yourself. Likely you'd transition into some sort of team lead, later, if you wanted, or go and simply have all the resources you need to fill your time with the work you enjoy, and whatever accommodations I can arrange to best keep the quality of your life up, too." 

She leans forward, and smiles slightly. 

"I do not mean your vagaries about the future, silly girl. I mean what do you have in mind, if I said yes, right. now." 

I shiver and almost flinch at the intensity of her gaze, and then close my eyes to think. 

"I..." 

I breathe out. 

She stretches out a slightly-bony hand. 

I squeeze it, refocusing. 

"I'd like a friend. It'd be nice to be able to engage you and your skills in some experiments, and I'd greatly appreciate if I could study your skills as well, if I'm compatible with those without further intervention you cannot provide, if it's not unreasonable to ask that -" 

In...

And out. 

"I'd like someone to talk through my transition through, too. I don't know what it's going to feel like and no amount of talking about it before it starts happening changed that, and I want to go through that, soon, and have an interesting person to talk to and hold when I need to." 

Her smile is ghostly, ethereal, barely there but ever so present in the set of her eyes and cheeks. 

"Very well."

She nods decisively.

"I shall be of service to you, then." 

She strokes her fingers along the back of her hand. 

"Do you have any further questions for me, this night?"

"I do." 

My hand draws back, after a while - it's so much, to feel her skin against mine, right now, and my throat is closing up, again. 

I sigh, faintly. 

"Could you share some more on your own abilities? The computer only provided me something of a sketch of them." 

"I can make metal, and things wrought of it, and work with the forces required with some skill." 

...I roll my eyes, a warm smile coming to my lips despite myself.

"Go on?"

She tilts her head in acknowledgement. 

"The creation of iron, steel, silver - that is simple, effortless. The creation of things aside the central conceit of the nature of metal - Lanathides, Mercury, decaying materials - that is... less efficient, finickier, if ultimately a rudimentary exercise, still, for most. The creation of myth-metals - of stability or properties besides - is expensive, arduous, oft a thing more of transmutation then simple conjury, and requires a good deal of study to internalize. I may smith things wrought of those things, and they will become unphysically suitable for purpose, and perhaps animated, tempered - infused with a flame immortal to make them optimized, beyond the simple constraints of their form, and turn them into tools of things beyond their mundane purpose - to reshape the world for destruction, creation, or other things." 

"That makes sense, though I can't say that makes me feel like I have a reasonably complete understanding, as of yet."

"Aside creating items that are superlative in their functions, I can create amplifiers, resistors, capacitors, and such things for esoteric powers, and create effects of flame, transmutation, and a handful of simple 'arcane' effects - blasts and project blades, and such like."

I nod.

"Sound quite versatile but moderately limited in scope. It's fitting, for a start, I think..." 

Eating helps my throat, on some level, though it makes it much much easier to make things feel so much closer to done. 

"There is no need for further words. The ship will ensure we can talk to each other when needed, yes?"

...nod.

"Then there is no need to dwell in arrangements, at a time like this. May the Shadows of the City hide your sins." 

She turns, and walks away without another word, the food waste dissapearing in a flicker of light. 

...Okay then. 

That happened. 

She kinda steamrolled us, didn't she?

That's natural enough, with our level of confidence in these interactions. 

Still, I would rate this fairly positively?

I would as well - we never really came into this with the expectation of sharing more then that. We if anything dilineated this at what was to happen, with the letter.

Still I...

I hang my head.