i'm just that fascinating i guess

[self_composed]

The first day Bella spends out and about with her new who's-watching-me powers, she is rather alarmed.

Maybe she's just mistaken about how much time people spend looking at reasonably pretty eighteen-year-old girls. She kills a pentagon to try it on a nearby control - who's looking at that girl over there?

Fewer people. Fewer people are looking at that random girl, and less intently. They're looking at her familiarly - they know her - or casually - they're checking her out.

[I have a spy problem,] Bella says. She makes a faintly exaggerated show of snapping her fingers in frustration and turning around. She's going back to her room to get a mirror and bobby pins and barettes, so she can spy back on the pretense of checking her hair, without making it overwhelmingly obvious that she knows what's going on.

Comments

[queensidecastle]

"My niece, for one."

[self_composed]

"How come she hasn't bought some?"

[queensidecastle]

"Well, part of the reason I say that the price of superpowers is probably beyond the reach of a Stanford undergrad is that I know it's definitely beyond the reach of a PhD in mathematics."

[self_composed]

"You said it wasn't a monetary cost. What is it about undergrads and PhDs that makes us unlikely to be able to scrape up whatever the not-money is?"

[queensidecastle]

"Now, granted I'm just guessing because I don't know the details of that conversation, but I'm betting they turned her down because she couldn't do them interesting enough favours."

[self_composed]

"What do people with magic to sell even want?"

[queensidecastle]

"I really couldn't tell you," says Chris, amused.

[self_composed]

"Do you know anybody with bought magic?" Bella tries. "Or anybody who knows anybody? Does Lazarus detect that too?"

[queensidecastle]

"I don't personally know anybody with bought magic, but I do know Lazarus can detect it."

[self_composed]

"So maybe he can tell me about them," Bella says. "Okay, this conversation seems to keep leading back to 'I should just ask Lazarus'. Anything you're willing to tell me that he doesn't know, before I bid you goodbye?"

[queensidecastle]

"Nope," says Chris.

[self_composed]

"All right then. Thanks for your time," Bella says politely. "Please tell Lazarus that I'd love to listen to him talk about magic for hours if he'd be so kind."

[queensidecastle]

"I think you two are going to get along really, really well," Chris predicts. "Should I give him your email address, your phone number, or both?"

[self_composed]

"Both," says Bella. "Weak preference for email; allows latency."

[queensidecastle]

"Will do," she says. "And you're welcome."

[self_composed]

"Thanks again. Bye," says Bella brightly, and she hangs up.

He probably doesn't work over the phone. And she has two hex layers of anti-spying. And he's guaranteed to be interesting.

[queensidecastle]

There is that.

So, a few days later, Bella gets an email from someone called L. Anson:

Hi!

A little bird told me you have questions about magic? She is a somewhat paranoid little bird sometimes, so she would probably rather we didn't mention her name, but I am neither paranoid nor little nor a bird so I have no problem talking magic over email.

[self_composed]

Bella grins at this. She's even surer he doesn't work over email.

Hello, nonbird! You must be Lazarus. I have all of the questions about magic and how people act around it. Do let me know if my questions begin to annoy you, but I'm led to believe that's unlikely. Here's some to start with; I don't know how much time you have and my impatience can put up a good fight against my curiosity sometimes.

- What "native" powers have you seen that the little bird didn't mention, assuming there are some? We covered Bridget and little bird herself and a precog and you and someone with an "unobtrusiveness" power.
- Are there patterns to where and when they appear? How many people have them in the general population?
- What's up with the storebought powers? Who's buying them, what are they paying, what kinds of powers do they tend to walk away with?
- How do you work? (I'm going to want similar detail about everybody, but I might as well start with you.) What's your range? Do you function through barriers, electronic media, etc.? What does it tell you exactly, do you have to turn it on or is it passive, does anything (like little bird's power?) block you or are you some sort of unstoppable force of divination...?

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!

-Bella

[nonbird]

I'm making all my friends call me Nonbird now. You have no idea what you've wrought.

To answer all your questions completely out of order:

I have a sense for powers the same way I have a sense of touch or taste or sight or sound or balance. It works in all directions and through barriers, up to the same range as sight and with about the same loss of detail over distance. I know where people with powers are when they're nearby, and most of the time I can figure out what they do if I look at them long enough. 'Look' is a metaphor, of course, I used to actually squint at people but it only helps psychologically.

I haven't gathered detailed statistics, but I live in a fairly big city and I can go as long as a month without seeing any new powers, so the overall percentage can't be that high. Everyone I've talked to who knows they have a power and remembers a time when they didn't has said it came in before they were ten; I'm in the 'can't remember a time when I didn't' category. It always seems to be relevant to them in some way, although it's not always obvious until you get to know them.

"Storebought" powers are interesting. I know one or two people with them, but they're even more secretive than the little bird; they haven't told me much and they probably don't want me to repeat any of it. I can talk about the powers in the abstract, though. They're very easy to tell apart from native powers, and it's usually easier for me to tell what they do without getting up close. I've seen a few 'in the wild', so to speak; there was a mint who rode two cars down from me on the subway once, who I never saw again, and someone who walked past me in a mall who had remote viewing.

To know if the little bird's power blocked me, I would have to have looked at someone she was covering who had a power. I haven't looked at someone she was covering, powers or no, so it's hard to say. At a guess, though, I'd bet she wouldn't. Her power is very protective, and mine isn't harmful.

On the other hand, Kolya's unobtrusiveness hides itself just as well as it hides the rest of him. When he has it turned up, I'm as oblivious to him as anybody.

[self_composed]

Bella suspects she knows what a "mint" is, but cannot think of a plausible way to guess.

You're welcome for your new nickname.

A "mint"? Like... the herb, or what?

"Most of the time"? When can you not, what goes wrong?

It being a sense sounds really interesting. Do you have magical aesthetics? Would it really annoy you if someone with a certain power moved in upstairs and just went on having it at all hours of the night? Do you sense your own power directly?

Do you go out a lot? That affects how much your big city is affecting what people you see; if you're a shut-in you have your neighbors and delivery people, not a huge sample size.

What do you mean by "relevant"?

Is it generally easy to get people to talk to you about their powers, once you walk up to them and ask if they believe in magic?

Knowing a dude who can be completely unobtrusive like that sounds really disconcerting.

[nonbird]

"Most of the time": all powers vary in how hard to figure out they are. Nonnative are always easier than native, but besides that, it just seems to be a normal variance.

I sense my own power, yes. I've never seen a power that grated on me like you describe, but I guess it's theoretically possible. Some powers are definitely prettier than others.

A certain little bird was my biggest success story in walking up to a stranger and anouncing I could see their magic underwear (so to speak). Poor Kolya faded right out from in front of me and left me saying "...I should've expected that" to thin air.

It's not that bad, honestly. Whatever stories you might have been told, his pranking days were over before I met him.

Relevance: Like the little bird having a protective power and Kolya having an unobtrusiveness power and me having a nosy power. Native powers are always something the power-haver finds useful, or something that reflects their personality.

Shut-in: Nope! I sometimes go a day without leaving the apartment, but it's rare. I see plenty of people.

Mint: Did nobody tell you about wishcoins? Who have you been talking to about magic who didn't think that was the first thing to mention? Never mind, I can guess. Mints are where "storebought" powers come from. They're very distinctive. I've never seen a native mint, but they don't exactly look like other nonnative powers, either. Anyway, a mint is what I call someone who can make coins that grant wishes. I have a lot of theories about them, but I've never met one who felt like answering my questions, so my theories remain theories. I've seen the coins, though. Even used one once. They come in different shapes and colours and they disappear when you're done with them.

[self_composed]

Always easier as in, the easiest-to-see native power is still harder to see than the hardest-to-see bought power?

Whose power is prettiest?

How'd you salvage the situation with Kolya?

Is there a good reason for you to have this particular nosy power, and not mindreading or something?

How big's the city? Better yet, what city? Have you traveled much, does it vary regionally or anything? Besides announcing that you know, what do you usually do when you spot somebody with a power - do you ever want to become a substitute teacher of sixth-graders and patrol the country and whisk away the ones with magic to your very own Hogwarts?

The little bird mentioned wishes but didn't use the word "mint", I think I'd have remembered that. What are your theories? What shapes and colors; do those matter? What kind did you get? What did you do with it - do you have a storebought power too?

[nonbird]

Yep.

Kolya's. But no, in all seriousness, there's no one power that stands out as obviously the prettiest in the world.

He followed me home. I promise it was cuter and less creepy than it sounds.

I've lived in a few, actually. I met Chris in New York. As far as I can tell, there aren't especially more or less powers in any one place I've been.

I have never wanted to found Hogwarts before...

Oh, don't get me started on mints. Or do, if you really really want to. But they're almost a subject unto themselves, and I know less about them than I do about the rest of magic combined but I definitely think there's more to know about them than there is about the rest of magic combined. And that's the kind of sentence they reduce me to.

[self_composed]

So no speculations about why this nosy power and not another?

Who has an ugly power? (Are people offended if you tell them they have ugly powers?)

I think I feel like getting you started on mints. What would you have asked that fellow on the train? What have you figured out despite such uncooperativeness? How do they make the coins - at some kind of fixed rate? Performing some kind of action? You didn't tell me about what kind of wish you made either, is it private?

I don't even know what you look like (except that you are a nonbird) and I'm still forming a clear mental picture of you informing an eleven year old boy, "You're a wizard, Harry."

[nonbird]

According to Kolya, I am, quote, "a six-four scarecrow with a nose like an ice pick and hands like two halves of a bleached spider", end quote. I don't know what that's going to do to your mental picture, but there you have it.

Whoops, forgot about the nosiness. I've thought about it, but I couldn't tell you exactly why it fits. It just does.

I've never told anybody they have an ugly power. I'm not sure anybody really does. They range from neutral to kind of pretty.

Okay, I'll start you off with the list of things I've observed directly about wishcoins, because it's much shorter:

I've seen triangular coins, square coins, and a five-sided coin. I spent a square one to fix the way my jaw used to click when I yawned and it hasn't done it since. Some of the coins were sea-green and translucent, and some of them were dark purple and opaque.

I've 'seen' three mints in my life, and only met one of them face to face. That's where I got the square. The mint who gave it to me was really intent about me keeping secret pretty much everything about our meeting, and didn't tell me much anyway, but that's where I learned that wishcoins are where nonnative powers come from. Not that I couldn't have guessed that.

I think I can 'see' coins the same way I see powers. They're much subtler, though. If I'm right, then I think the colour of a coin represents who made it, because those sea-green coins 'looked' like the power of the mint who had them.

Anything beyond that is rampant speculation.