"S'pose."

Can you hear this?

After confirming that he can, Puchuu asks Bella to imagine extending her protection around him, or creating an entirely different shield around his mind. It's different for different girls.

Well, obviously no one around her should be telepathically poked, that seems just not allowed, right?

Just forming the intent doesn't seem to work. Charlie can still hear Puchuu.

What if she tries to - mentally tag him, as though with a psychic paintball, as Protected -

Psychic paint splatters Charlie in her new sense. There's definitely a distinct travel, something going from her to him.

Charlie can't hear Puchuu anymore, but the 'paint' is already evaporating away.

Okay, higher-maintenance mental image. Holding an umbrella over him?

This one stays connected to her, a slow trickle of energy flowing along it, and seems much more stable!

"With practice you should be able to anchor wards to items, chuu. It's intuitive rather than patrticularly trained, like most magic."

"Wouldn't items make it possible for someone to steal them?"

"...Yes? It's just another option."

"Understood. Do they all require ongoing maintenance like this, or will I eventually be able to make one stable on its own?"

"You'll get better with practice. They won't last forever without you, even item-bound."

She nods. "Can I talk telepathically like you - and if I can will it work as a test or do I automatically get through my own shielding?"

"Try it and see!"

Hey Dad!

(Her umbrella ripples slightly, and Charlie hears this)

Huh, the ripple is interesting. She will keep poking that for a while trying to work out efficiency hacks and general principles while Charlie patiently reports on what he hears.

This ability admits to practice really well. She can make her shields keep even herself out, though it's metaphorically like standing on tiptoes. She can 'solidify' the shields, making them hard to change but slowing their power requirements to a trickle. She can- Woop, it got a little unsteady there, but she kept it from doing anything. The range she can stay connected seems to be independent of any intervening obstacles. She can, if she is daring enough to try, turn her mindsight carefully onto her own mind and keep track of what's going through it much more closely than ever before. There's a visceral flinch reaction against changing anything even aside from any natural hesitance, though.

Oh wow she is going to stare at her own brain so much once Charlie seems a little bored with experiments that involve him.

She can make Charlie (or Puchuu, who volunteers as a target without hesitation) wince in psychic pain, trivially so, disorienting and slowing them, knocking them flat to the ground with more oomph. She can read thoughts and make them forgetful, if she tries this, too. Puchuu urges her to use it as target practice, not really showing any signs of discomfort or self-preservation.

It looks like there ought to be some way to connect the shields with the state of her mind, or the state of Charlie's mind, but actually managing this seems to be beyond her for now.

She will put it on the list of things to retry in the future.

If the puchuu wants to be target practice she has no real grounds to object. What's going on in its little brain?

It's keeping careful track of what Charlie and Bella think, noting all their emotions and reactions in a much more conscious way than humans tend to do social processing. That's occupying a lot of its attention. It thinks she's very sensible and probably not going to get badly injured due to recklessness, which makes her a much safer investment. It's happy that she's taking to magic so well, and happy that she's enjoying magic. It's trying to remember things it heard from other Puchuu about what psychic girls can do, so it can offer hints. It's looking forward to resolving the 2-standard-deviations-likely-to-be-a-vampire situation and anticipating an update from [qualia for telepathy] while Bella is asleep.

Huh. Peculiar little critter. She will go on poking and prodding it for practice till bedtime. (Update from whomst?) She doesn't need as much sleep, so she isn't going to go to bed at bedtime, but she's going to brush her teeth and stuff and then stay up playing Civilization till she gets tired.

Puchuu wanders off while she's brushing her teeth.

I'm going to go get you a present!

Its mind - goes sideways in a direction that feels Overworld-y - and then quickly goes out of range.

Huh. She wonders if it will get back before she crashes for the night. Time to take over the world.