"Most mages I know—academic mages—work in fairly specified ways. I know most of the basic theory, but my magic is strongly tied to plants. It has disadvantages, mostly in flexibility, I'm basically a gardener who can do a bit extra, but it has advantages in being more intuitive, more powerful, and more unexpected when I've had the occasion to go up against other mages.

"Blood magic is somewhat concerning. Your whole thing seems a bit off so I won't judge but I had a teacher who made us promise to never use anyone's blood in spells other than our own."

'...sorry, I can see how that can be concerning without context, yes, that's an important rule of blood magic - with ours you can also use the blood of the target of the magic but only if they are very clearly and freely consenting to this, otherwise, as you say, bad things happen!

You absolutely don't want to be connected by blood to anything that didn't want you to be."

So far all this magic talk is making him sound more and more like a Spring herald, but from his magic signature it's obviously somehow more complicated than that.

"Would you mind if I had a look at your soul? I think you don't exactly fit our categories of being and it's fascinating."

"I don't know what 'looking at my soul' means. I don't mind as long as it's, well, looking and not touching, I guess."

"No touching involved, you'll feel a sense of being observed, other than that it doesn't leave anything behind."

She gets out a small vial of a purple liquid, dabs some on her fingers, and dabs those on her eyes. She stares at him and intones, "My eyes are opened; the eyes of my soul are opened; I see yourself, into your soul."

Usually the rite of Insight reveals the species of the target and any marks on their soul - there are a set of standardised ways to write on and place auras on the soul, but any curse or mark will show up in some fashion, although they may be harder to interpret.

The target is human.

There isn’t any standard writing nor aura on his soul. There are a few marks, hard to interpret. Three old scars, patched over and woven shut, plus a weak point—this soul’s connection to life is slightly weaker than you would expect from a healthy seventeen year old.

"Congratulations, or possibly commiserations, you're human. And, uh, I might be able to patch up whatever is wrong with your soul with a bit more study, if you'd like - it just seems to be a bit, uh, unseated. Shouldn't cause you any trouble in the short term."

One of the plant-y people is trying to offer him a waterskin; another couple of them have headed back up into the cluster of buildings to fetch chairs and something nicer to drink.