"...I apologize if this is a rude observation but when you talk about this other magic it kind of sounds like you're dancing around a sensitive subject..."

"...yeah. So, the power for normal magic doesn't, like, come from anywhere really, you just kinda have it and you can move it around and use it however you want. The power for the other magic comes from - if you're around somebody who's in pain, you can pick that up kind of the same way you'd pick up your normal-magic power, and it doesn't do anything to the person either way but now you have some power. I kind of expect people to be weirded out by where it comes from, so I was trying not to mention that part, but as you can see I'm not super good at that."

"...that is a pretty weird place to get magic from," he says, but he doesn't look at all upset.

"Huh. Like, the fire thing you could get around, have a fire mage or a dragon do it, but - yeah I brought you to the right place."

"Oh?"

Aurin gestures all-encompassingly at Mial.

"I'm a shren," he says, "which, among other things, means I have an alarmingly high pain tolerance. Also I'm exactly the sort of person you should bring your interestingly exploitable magic systems to. Aurin may have been referring to either or both of these qualities."

"Yes, those."

"Oh, nifty," she says. "I'm not sure I can teach you pain magic but I can at least think of a way I might try to; wanna see if it works?"

"Yes, but perhaps not in my house. In case of fire."

"We can go outside and I can be a fire suppressant. By rolling around on the grass."

"How much fire is involved, it'd be very awkward if I lost a form..."

"If you what? Not that much, anyway, I screwed up plenty when I was learning and the worst I got was 'badly scorched'."

"Oh yes, awkward. Perhaps wizard based fire suppression."

"I am super confused right now," says Anlei.

"He's got a thing and if he exploded it'd be contagious. Not to you, to me."

"Oh."

"I can go light myself on fire at my newspaper-burning spot on the bottom of the world," he says. "Just in case."

"...the... bottom... of the world?"

"We're on the top at the moment. Nobody lives on the bottom."

"...what, um, shape. Is the world."

"Square."

...she seems to be having difficulty articulating her confusion.

"What shape were you expecting?"

"Sphere!"