"Most people on Earth don't know magic exists and destabilizing that incorrectly would be bad so I can't get as much done as much as I want. I think my powers'd go farther somewhere without that problem."

"I don't know what there is at home to destabilize. It might be nothing or it might be lots of things."

"It's evidently not 'the common expectation that magic definitely isn't real', but yeah I take your point it could be something else. ...do you maybe want to evacuate more of you guys here? It would be... hard... but if I were on it full time I could maybe finagle something... you'd have to like, time the stock market for me or something..."

"I'm not sure," she says doubtfully. "I think my brother wouldn't do well in a world where people shouldn't know magic exists. And my parents don't do well anywhere. I could... try to bring you some scavengers...?"

"...that might be good or it might just be, uh, kidnapping."

"The scavengers in the enclosure at school might like to be here instead?" she says uncertainly.

"If they're humans, yeah, they probably don't like being class pets very much. - you read minds, right? Which is separately fucky but like can you tell if they're people."

"I can tell that they... have thoughts and feelings? I am not so good at telling what the thoughts and feelings are. In general and also specifically with scavengers; they're harder to read than dragons."

"Do you read the minds of, like, squirrels and sheep and whatnot?"

"I mostly can't tell whether whatnots have feelings."

"...squirrels, sheep, and other animals not in the context of this conversation candidates for sapience."

Confused blinking. "Yes, those are the general kind of creature whose feelings I mostly can't tell about."

"Just checking, your answer made me concerned we'd miscommunicated."

"It's good of you to check. Miscommunicating with me is very usual."

"Dragons don't talk to - scavengers - at all? None of them have learned your language or vice versa?"

"Scavengers make sounds but I've never wondered before if they made a language of them."

"Nobody keeps scavengers as pets long enough that a baby one could grow up hearing dragons talk?"

"I haven't heard of any such thing, but there are many things I haven't heard of..."

"Because I would expect a human child to pick up language they were exposed to that way but I'm not sure adults would."

"I don't know very much about how people normally learn to talk. I was very bad at it myself."

"Well, I don't know how dragons do it. - I am a dragon but I am clearly a different kind of dragon and in particular I think all the kinds of magical critters on this planet are basically psychologically like humans."

"Oh, are there many kinds? Do you all change back and forth?"

"There are many kinds. Some change back and forth on their own, some need magic items to do it."

"Is it more of your drawing magic?"

"The magic items probably were a few thousand years ago."