"Oh, so I know I'm at the bottom of the pecking order, then," snorts May.

"It's okay. I can beat them up for you," Alli says. She just barely manages to say this with a straight face.

"So your kind of thing is a scary thing?"

"Depends how you mean? We don't go around being scary at people or anything. We have a whole code devoted to not doing that. If you break it, you are in trouble, we take your medallion, and so on so on. But we are still scary for existing, probably, we're large carnivores with super strength and invulnerable hides? We are the human equivalent of being really really tall and jacked."

"Invulnerable? Is it very rude of me to wonder about the details?"

"You're a newbie, you can get away with a lot. In general it's- not rude, but also still weird? It's just not the sort of thing people get asked much, so they would be confused." She hums thoughtfully for a second. "The short answer is that the only thing that can break through my hide are the claws of a Nemean Lion."

"What's it like when something fails, though? If someone tries to stab you with a fork."

"The same as when people stab me with things that wouldn't hurt a human? I mean, picture yourself being stabbed with, I dunno, a hockey puck. Something that is hilariously unlikely to break your skin for any reason. Like that."

"But a hockey puck hitting me in the face at high speed could do damage. So you're only invulnerable to sharp, or is something more complicated going on?"

"Hmm. More complicated. Or maybe less complicated? I just- don't get damaged. So me getting hit by a hockey puck at really high speed is still equivalent to someone poking you with one."

"Huh. Does that apply when you're being human too?"

"Hah. No. That would be wicked, I wish it did, but no. Humans are not invulnerable, medallion makes me a human, so human-me's not invulnerable." She sighs. "Probably for the best, though. It would be so obvious if anything happened."

"Yeah, I imagine so. 'There was one survivor, mysteriously unharmed. Paramedics suspect witchcraft.'"

"Bet you they just take credit for some 'new experimental safety feature', trot me out as a success story and claim to install it in everything."

"That sounds like a lot of willful disbelief to me. Have I missed a lot of stuff that is in fact explainable via magic and/or critters? How much magic is there beyond critterhood, anyway?"

"I want to learn magic."

"Er. Just- be careful? There's all these horror stories about, like, 'I tried to use magic and gave myself horns in human form and could never leave Avalon again'. That's why Mike just reads about it."

"I'll be careful, but I want to at least learn about it and probably learn to do it."

"Figure out how to make new medallions," Alli suggests facetiously. "Be a hero to critters everywhere."

"You laugh."

"You've been a critter for maybe three hours and we're not even old enough to drink yet. I am allowed to laugh until you have at least encountered a spell book."

"What? It's a good idea! Don't be so dismissive. We need more medallions, why can't she be the one to make them?" Jenny huffs.

"It's a very good idea! And it is also the magical equivalent of proclaiming you'll win the Stanley Cup before ever going ice skating. I am fully in support of medallion-y goals, and all that. I'm just- laughing at the lack of in between steps."

"There is an important difference between magic and ice skating, namely I strongly expect that ice skating involves a lot more standing up - I suspect this because if magic involved a lot of standing up instead of laughing you would have gently explained to me that I am probably unable for obvious reasons."