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

[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.

[self_composed]

So I suppose you have a missing finger on each hand then?

What about other people - why does Kolya have his brand of unobtrusiveness and not, like, outright invisibility? Or hiding in a pocket dimension?

Wishing for your jaw not to click seems like a kind of silly wish. Why did you pick that? Was the coin designed to only do that wish, or that kind of thing?

Tell me about your speculations! You've had more time to form them than I have.

[nonbird]

No one ever said Kolya was good at math.

I'm not sure I can explain this to someone who doesn't have one themselves, but as far as I can tell, everyone's power is the kind of thing it makes sense to them to have. That's just intuition, though. For all I know it could be random and we could all just be reading too much into it, like horoscopes. Or having the power could make you the kind of person who would have it instead of the other way around.

Not sure I can get into the whys. Let's say it was supposed to be trivial and leave it at that.

Speculations:

I think the number of sides on a coin is an indicator of power. More sides means it can do bigger or more complicated things.

If mints are where nonnative powers come from, there has to have been a native mint at some point, doesn't there? But I've never seen one. I can't figure out why.

I said nonnative powers are easier to figure out than native ones, and that's almost always true. Mints are the exception. Or I think they are, anyway. They're a lot more complicated than any other power, but at the same time in some ways they're simpler.

There's some element of interpretation involved whenever I figure out a power. I don't just directly perceive how they work.

I've figured some things out about minting that I'm not sure I really believe. They're kind of unnerving.

[self_composed]

Bella resorts to quoting.

Yeah, I was thinking maybe horoscopes, but your way would be interesting too. Do you know any nonmagical people who it's really obvious what they'd have if they had anything?

>They're a lot more complicated than any other power, but at the same time in some ways they're simpler.

You're gonna have to expand that sentence for me a little. I cannot read your mind, natively or otherwise!

>There's some element of interpretation involved whenever I figure out a power. I don't just directly perceive how they work.

What's that like? Is it like... learning to read, or something else?

>I've figured some things out about minting that I'm not sure I really believe. They're kind of unnerving.

Oh, you can't just leave me hanging like that, come on.

[nonbird]

Okay, think of the difference between this picture and this picture. Which one is simpler? Which one is more complicated? Most powers are more like the first one; there's patterns there, but it takes some looking before you start to understand them. Mints are like the second one. It's big and simple and obvious at first glance, and then you look closer and there are all these intricate details.

I wish we could have this conversation over coffee or something. I'm much better at explaining things when I can wave my hands around. Although I guess I'd have a harder time Googling suitable examples. Making explanatory gestures to my computer screen just looks silly and makes it hard to type, though.

Okay, I'll tell you what I think I figured out as soon as I figure out a way to put it into words without creeping myself out.

[self_composed]

Skype? Best of both worlds.

Since he's limited by physical range, this should be fine.

[nonbird]

Webcams are banned in the apartment. It's a Kolya thing.

[self_composed]

Well, a mere phone conversation would satisfy the "don't have to type" criterion, I guess? I believe you have my number if that would suit. As of this moment I can expect to be alone in my room for an hour; after that my roommate may reappear and I'd have to find someplace else to go, but I could manage it.

[nonbird]

No, it's fine, it's fine! I was just grousing. I am still fully capable of delivering my awkwardly worded ramblings. Ask me more interesting questions, this is the most fun I've had all week.

[self_composed]

But you haven't told me what creepy thing you learned about the mints! Or the one about what interpreting powers is like. I generate more questions mostly by seeing what the answers to what I already asked are.

Okay okay... what was removing the jaw-clicking like? What did you do? Did it feel like anything?

Could you get ahold of any of the mints you've met if you really wanted to?

If you were a mint, what experiments would you want to do to figure out about it?

[nonbird]

I forgot about interpreting powers. I was going to add it to the paragraph about the difference between mints and everyone else. Actually, I think that's what's got me going on about explanatory hand gestures in the first place, not that they'd help. It's hard to describe. I'll think about it; ask me again later if I forget again.

It didn't feel like anything. I just thought a wish and the coin disappeared and then I yawned and there was no click.

If I really, really wanted to, I could probably find the sea-green one again. I don't want to that badly. Especially because I'd just be in for another round of mystery theatre.

I don't want to be a mint. If I knew a cooperative mint, I'd want to study their coins and ask them how their power works and maybe but probably not watch them use it.

Because: The creepy thing about mints is how they make coins. I think it has to do with pain somehow. See? I'm creeping myself out already. I think coins are made out of a mint's pain. Why do I think that?

[self_composed]

Bella ramps up to 2x so she can summarize for Alice while composing replies, unimpeded.

Wow, that's got to be the most fucked up magic power ever. Can't they buy a nicer minting power where they can make coins out of sunshine or something instead?

Why do you think that?

[nonbird]

Mints are also the only true duplicate power I've ever seen. That might have something to do with it. Maybe there's only one way to be a mint.

Well, that goes back to what interpreting powers is like.

This is a bad way to put it, but I can't think of any better ones: The way a power 'looks' always has some qualities that make me think of things that are like how the power works. The little bird's power looks strong and solid and, I don't know, outward? It just looks like the kind of thing that's for protecting people. And Kolya's power looks shy and like it wants to be hiding behind something at all times. My power has an outwardness to it, too, but it's not exactly the same outwardness. And it's kind of angular and all-over-the-place, like sugar crystals. (Trying to describe powers in terms of the regular senses is usually doomed to failure, but once in a while I get good analogies referencing shape or size. A certain someone's is exactly person-sized, for example, although that has nothing to do with the size it appears to have in the physical world, because all powers are also the shape and size of the people who have them. But on a different level, they meaningfully aren't. Confused yet?)

So: the mint power 'looks' like a thing that turns pain into wishes.

[self_composed]

I repeat: most fucked up power ever.

Maybe it's a conspiracy and the native mint does it differently but only sells this kind of minting to limit others' power! Wait, that's technically not a conspiracy, it only calls for one person. But you know what I mean.

I am a little confused, but maybe not as confused as you fear? I understand you're trying to talk about an extra sense with a language designed around its absence.

What else do you know about the wishes? What does "complexity" or "size" mean in terms of whether a wish needs one kind of coin or another? Is there any reason for people to be associated with the colors they are or does that seem random?

Bella's pretty sure it's not a conspiracy. She tried hexing herself a better wishcoining power once, even though Elias said it wouldn't work in his book. It didn't work.