, but it is Diana's hands and thoughts that work the magic, still, that learn these techniques and apply them to the flame she carries.

She can certainly make a lot of progress on flame control. It gets easier fairly quickly. She does seem to be getting awfully tired, somehow, though.

She'll see if it's just Diana that's having this problem real quick, but, uh, suffocation risk bad, so she'll step out of the fire room.

Leaving the room doesn't seem to make any difference; And there is plenty of ventilation there. It's almost like the soreness of a workout, except not... Actually located in any muscles? She just feels heavy and sore. In the soul.

Ah.  Well, that checks out.  Time to...probably head home, then, though they are going to get in a semi-decent physical workout if they have the time, at Diana's insistence.

It's 8 PM now, though only she knows if that's too late/time to get home given that she's in DC right now.

Gah.  Well, they really ought to look up whether exercise in spirit form actually does anything, anyway.  She'd best get going.

...Though she does have one last experiment to run: Can she turn water into ice?  Because getting this damn sweat to work faster would be nice, she thinks.

That does not appear to be something she can do.

Well. She's got her action item for tomorrow's practice, then, and it's time to go home.

...This might be a slog, honestly.  But it's entirely worth it, considering what they gained.

It is Ophelia who walks through the door of her mother's home, sometime around ten.  That soul-weariness still clings, but she refuses to let it show, at least where anyone can see.

Once she has done the obligatory "Mom, I'm home!" - despite the absence of her vehicle from the premises - and climbed up the stairs to her room, she crashes into her bed, opting to dismiss her raiment instead of trying to take it off, because taking it off is effortful.

This, predictably, sucks.  Because, now, they're all-too-mortal again.  And not shaped right, unlike how they've been all day.  But...They've endured worse, and she needs the rest.

(It still prompts Luna to idly think about ways of speeding up the process of transition, but she knows she doesn't know enough, yet.)

She's now wearing what she wore before putting on the raiment at her transformation. That is, nothing. Anything that was in her pockets ends up spread around her as if dropped or set down.

The magicmagicmagic that is now an integral part of her is still there, just- Muffled. Far away, through a layer of blur. It's harder to distinguish between everyone inside her, whatever magic was doing to help with that now being gone. The feeling of a muscle that's not a muscle is all but gone, and the tiredness of spending most of the day transformed seems to hit her all at once.

It hardly seems harder to call herself up when she must, Ophelia muses, despite the way one might expect Diana to be instinctively predominant.  She supposes that it's her mission they're on; to reveal what she felt necessary to keep secret, lest some abreaction have-broken Diana's resolve.

Regardless.  She allows herself the luxury of a long, hot shower, and then makes final preparations, because while she has never lied to her mother about today's events...she still needs to tell her what she hadn't said this morning.

"I'm going to go out, go on a hike; might visit a friend later.  Or go to the gym."

All so true, and so misleading.  She's disgustedly proud of herself for managing that.  She shouldn't have needed it.

But she did, so she did, and it is done; now without even magic in her veins she must face the consequences of her actions.

(Though, by the end, the comfort of magic shall blanket her once more, she thinks.)

Eventually, the front door sqrawks open once more, and a so-very-tired woman drags herself through.

It is rote pabulum, "how was practice", "fine", "how was your day", "fine" - which makes her departure from it all the more surprising.

"Well.  This morning, I became a magical girl or seven.  This afternoon, I went up to DC, because I wanted to get a sense of how the most political members of the Spirit Association behaved.  It went reasonably well, I think, in that I neither felt the need nor was I asked to write an angry letter to someone more in charge.

"You're probably wondering why I didn't tell you about this beforehand.  The truth is - you could have scared me off, and I'm certain I would have regretted letting you do that.  I've been detransformed for half an hour or so, and it already feels almost crushing, to be back in - an ill-fitting shape.

"Because this one is, and it's going to play merry hell on my wardrobe to fix, I'm sure.

"Not that there's going to be a sudden pivot to filling my closet like my grandmother's on your side, but I'm almost certain that having my raiment on all day exhausts something.  As much as I'd rather it didn't.

"...I wonder, though..."

"Mm.  Later."  She pulls out a pad of paper from the pocket in her sweatshirt, and writes down 'pseudomatter/raiment enchant item?', before examining her mother's reaction.

...It appears that her mother's reaction is to actively avoid contemplating any of that until her coat is off, her various (choral) music supplies divested, and her dinner (leftovers) reheated.

"...Can you say that again?"

"I said," she huffs, frustratedly, "that this morning, I became a magical girl.  Or possibly five to seven magical girls; there's not a totally solid count, just yet.  Then I went to the DC Spirit Association Office, which, speaking of, there's paperwork they want an adult's signature upon because somehow it's alright for me to fight monsters but not to handle money - anyway.  Did not burn the building down.  May have been tempted the one time, but I know better.

"What are you about to tell me I did wrong, then?  You're looking at me."

"Magical girl?  I'm not even touching this 'or seven' thing; why couldn't you tell me you're a girl?  Why do you feel like you have to keep secrets from me like this?  You shouldn't need to; I want to help you!  But.  No matter how frustrating, surprising, and complicated this is.  You're still my so—daughter.  And I love you."

"...Thanks.  But I told you why I kept this secret.  I didn't want you stopping me.  Or deciding that you knew better, when -- "

"I will point you to the debacle over laundry, a few years back; I told you what I needed to do it properly, according to the system you have, and you wouldn't give me what I needed, so now I can't.  I can't even try; you've given me no real opportunity to learn.  Admittedly, this is not that...but - you refuse to accomodate, like every time I ask it is an attack upon your dignity.  I'm oh-so-very certain that you would have tripped me when I was about to start running towards the future with something exactly like that, because it wasn't something you'd planned.  And I'm sure I could use your help - learn from your accumulated experience - but I need control of my life and circumstances, to feel like I am the captain of my fate, the master of my soul - and you are subtly sabotaging that every second I spend under your roof!  Everything I do has to be perfect, has to succeed, and - don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you're willing to help me, but the number of times your 'help' turns into a vector of doing whatever-it-is yourself - you're already planning that takeover!  And sure, I'm still a child, but - I can't ever become an adult if that's all I ever am!  So I'm sure you're planning to meddle - but - just, don't!  Not unless I ask you to!"

"So you think I'm, what, trying to micromanage your life just because I care about you and want you to succeed?  I spend all this time helping you, out of all the things I could be doing, and you want me to stop?  Should I stop cooking food, huh?  Should I stop packing your lunch for school?  Should I stop giving you pocket money?  Is that what you want?  Is there anything, anything I can do that you'll be happy with?!"

" -- you know I don't mean that!  Goddammit, all I wanted to do with this conversation is see if I could help you any given that I have fucking magic now and now it's devolved into this!"

There's no real response to that, save some halfhearted remonstrations about language.