"Um. Is this a prank."

They tap their foot nervously before seeming to make a decision.

"You - can come inside. I guess. But - if I tell you to leave, and you don't, I'm getting my master."

(Glance at the cat before opening the door wider.)

"… Also, it's Lucy. Uh, 'now.' If you're not playing some sort of horrible prank. And I use they pronouns."

Su-Yeong steps inside as though she expects Lucy to suddenly retract their offer.

"For what it's worth, you do sound a lot like how my friend did. You really don't remember Tobi and me? It was only five years ago…"

"If it was a prank, I would hardly make outlandish claims like this that - aren't funny.  No, I'm - worried that there's something unpleasant afoot, and - of course you should take your own precautions."  Though she's still unsure how much this master could have had to do with this; the cat's reactions are a good sign but not probative.  "...It's a pleasure to meet you, Lucy; I'm Hali."  The door's shut now, right?  "Some of the things I want to talk about with you might merit the input of your familiar."

"… Five years is about the right time. I - there's kids, down at the marketplace I go to, who talk about a Tobi, but I've never met him. Uh, that I know. I guess."

The living room is comfortably decorated in a way that still somehow conveys that nobody really spends much time in it without actually being dusty. The overwhelming theme of the furniture is a familiar deep blue - that, and peacocks. Peacock figurines, a clock shaped like a peacock, wall hangings depicting peacocks…

As Hali mentions familiar input, Lucy freezes. Glances at the cat.

There's absolutely zero magical connection between the two of them.

"What for?"

Hali casts some runes over the scene, in light that is invisibly deeper than red, to ensure that no-one can scry upon them.

"Well, firstly, I have to admit that we already know that your familiar's a swan.  And not this cat.  Because how I found you in the first place was by searching for people with a certain color of soul and a swan attached to it.  But the thing that has me equal parts incredibly scientifically interested and deeply concerned is that you are especially devoid of that color of mana, in that - normally, those without magic simply fail to accumulate the mana they naturally color, but you don't produce any at all."

Shit, they can't lie their way out of this. Ivy help

Fortunately (?), they're too confused to freak out, at least for now.

"Uh… maybe this is just the amnesia talking, but I don't have a familiar. Since that's already out in the open. I mean, maybe I had a swan five years ago, but… who ever heard of someone having a familiar and losing it?"

They sigh.

"It is true that I can't do magic, no matter how hard I try. And I've tried, me and Master Rothart both. Uh - is the color pink? He pretty much only has me try with spinels, at least when he was still trying. You're saying I have less magic than someone without magic? Figures."

(Over the course of the last minute or so, the extra magic Su-Yeong and Morgan generate has been drifting towards Lucy, like drops of dye in a container of water that's slowly draining.)

"...No, you definitely still...

"Oh.  I thought that had looked weird but I figured it was a consequence of the magic or lack thereof.

"Here, look at - you still have the familiar spirit.  ...And it's drawing in 'loose' color-attuned magic?"  She can produce a soul-projection!  "...My 'I'm being jerked around by a deific figure' senses are tingling, I fucking swear.  This is just...the number of weird things happening..."

At first, it isn't quite obvious to Lucy what they're looking at. There's… an illusion of someone who looks like them, kind of, and they can definitely see why you'd think there was a swan there, and a weird hint of pinkishness… And they can also see the cloud of a redder red drifting towards them, trying to take root in the area around their eyes but dissipating before that can happen. After looking at it for a little while, it becomes clear that the magic that dissipates is closer to Lucy's not-color than to Su-Yeong's.

"So that red stuff is her magic? How come it does that? Why isn't your magic doing anything like that… actually, how come you're able to see all that in the first place?"

"Well, I'm not actually inherently magical either, which was a whole thing back home, and I learned the techniques I use now to compensate.  Which makes it quite a coincidence to stumble upon someone else with the problem of lacking some fundamental magical organ, though you actually have a soul."

"Huh, can you teach me? And what do you mean about a magical organ?"

"Your eye's not working in the fashion normal to most.  Because somehow eyes are involved in the process of attuning magic.  And - can I teach you runes, yes.  Will I - I'm not sure.  Not that you don't seem to be a lovely person, but - I worry that the tools I use can be used to quite harmful ends, ends beyond normal magic to achieve, and I wish to be careful of what I then spread of it.  Certain things are less sensitive than others, though."

(It isn't a personal attack. She's just being cautious. She barely knows them; they barely know her. She isn't saying a hard no yet, she might make up her mind later-)

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"You seem like the kind of person to take to it like a duck to water, honestly; runecraft is as much engineering as art, and while I barely know you, you seem to have both talents."

✨

"Oh - well, thanks. I guess I do, I make basically all my own clothes-"

They smooth the front of their clothing with their hands.

Su-Yeong smiles.

"You liked to mend stuff, too, back when - uh, before."

She glances at Hali.

"Did you wanna do any more magic tests? I wanna catch up, but I don't wanna keep you waiting or anything."

Lucy gets a soft smile!  The poor dear needs all the encouragement they can get.

To Su-Yeong, though, Hali has a followup:

"Well, it kind of depends on what I can tell Lucy about you."

"I don't mind telling them…"

She remembers the cat and tilts her head.

"Unless… if that cat isn't yours, whose…?"

"Oh, Ivy? She's Master Rothart's, but - you can tell her anything you can tell me. She spends more time with me anyway."

Ivy seems a little more hesitant, but:

"As long as you aren't planning to hurt Lucy or Thierry, I won't tell anyone else. I guess I can leave if it'd make you more comfortable, though."

There definitely seems to be a complicated array of royal blue magic around her!

"I don't think I mind her hearing, then. Anyway, I… am? Used to be? A… husk. Hali used her magic to fix it, though - she can probably tell you more about that than I can."

(At "husk," Ivy tenses up, but doesn't say anything.)

"I mean, I'd hardly say it's fixed until you're sustaining your familiar without a prosthetic, but - this is relevant because it's only Su-Yeong's magic that you're drawing to yourself, as far as I can tell, Lucy."