"I can't none of the living dreamshapers can. It does not feel theoretically impossible though. Some of the dreamborn people came with full-if-fictional episodic memories."

He breathes again. It doesn't, quite, come out as a sigh; he has better control than that. 

"Perhaps one of us will stumble upon the ability," he suggests neutrally. 

"...if we did, do you think your brother would mind having a copy of himself in this world?"

He would normally have thought of it faster, but for a long, terrible moment all he could think of was his own grief. 

"I... I don't think I could do that to him. I don't know if the magic could reach that far either."

Pause.

"But thank you for the offer."

"If I were stranded alone in a strange world, I would like to have my sister with me," Cat says with a shrug.

"And if my sister were in that position I would want her to have me." 

He and Raven share an indecipherable look. 

...they should probably change the subject.

"Can you create essentially arbitrary non-magical objects, then?" Raven asks Felix.

"If so, you could sell them in the city and acquire funds with which to, say, hire mages."

"Yes. I actually find it easier to make luxury items than not. And I have future technology, but that one should wait until I can secure the dreamshard."

Raven visibly restrains herself from asking about the future technology. 

"Secure it how? What would you consider adequate security?" 

"Well, that also depends on the local magic. It also needs to factor the fact that it can apparently move between universes."

"Well, I doubt local magic will be able to prevent it from doing that, since we didn't even know other universes existed before today," Raven muses.

"Ice magic might be able to manage something, though...um, how much do you know about this world's magic already?" 

"Elemental division with some elemental associations, appears to be something you're born with. Weather magic like mine is too expensive for small towns to pay for and the wings don't look very common."

"You have weather magic?" she asks automatically before remembering that it's her turn to explain things to Felix. 

"Alright. Magic is divided into seven elements, or six plus Aether: Fire, Air, Water, Ice, Stone and Nature. Weather working would be Air, Water, or both. Most mages have a natural talent for one or two, and find it more difficult to work with the rest. Around one in every hundred humans is born a mage, but they need to be taught how to use their powers, and can't use magic at all until they reach puberty. Are you following so far?" 

"Yes, I do. The wings are part of the package, which also includes fire. And yes I am."

"Good."

She pauses, thinking about what to say next.

"...this is possibly the point at which I should introduce shapeshifters, and vampires. Do you know anything about either of those yet?" 

"No, I probably have books about them, but I didn't have a lot of time to read."

Now, how to summarise three hundred years of history in a few sentences...

"Shapeshifters are a species who can...shapeshift," she starts. "Every 'shifter has one human form and one animal form. The child of a human and a shifter is a shifter, not that that's a common occurrence. There are fewer shifters than there are mages, and it is impossible to be both." 

Felix nods along. "Any idea why the two things would be incompatible? Are you sure is not a problem with sample size? What sort of animal forms?"

"The leading theory is that shifters are incapable of magic in the same way as animals, by virtue of lacking the necessary - intelligence, theory of mind, whatever it is one believes separates people from beasts," Raven says, a hint of something sharp creeping into her tone towards the end. 

"In three hundred years, there has never been a documented case of a shapeshifter mage, to the best of my knowledge," she continues, more evenly. "The vast majority of shifters are mammals, with a large proportion of those being canines and felines. Next most common is birds, followed by reptiles, fish, insects, and invertebrates.The allocation of forms seems to be hereditary, with children likely to take after one or the other parent in general if not in the specific form; the child of a wolf and a bear might be a fox, say." 

"That conclusion about shifters being unable to do magic sounds... very suspicious for the sensibilities of my Earth and era. Unless shifters have something going on about their intelectual capabilities - and that sounds like something you would mention in this context - I would guess that the explanation would have a biological component such that it's physically impossible to be both or that both shifting and mages draw from the same source to form their powers."

Cat is still, technically, present in the room.

He is no longer paying attention to the conversation, or he would have picked up on Felix's comment about sensibilities and been encouraged by it. 

"Oh, there are, clearly, biological differences between humans and shifters," Raven clarifies. "It is impossible for one to become the other on any level beyond superficial appearance. And, personally, I believe the root of the difference lies in that field. But we digress."

Where were they...

"Vampires are, in some respects, easier to explain. They are humans - never shifters, so there is another difference - who are drained of blood by a vampire and fed the vampire's own blood in return. This gives them the ability to live forever, so long as they regularly drink from humans to replenish their lifespan. The cost is threefold: no vampire can sire or bear a child, those who were mages find their mana - that is, the measure of how much magic they are able to perform in a short time - depleted to approximately half its former levels, and all vampires are burned by the touch of sunlight." 

"We have modern folklore with similar features, but they are not real. Do you think those are all the species in the world?"

"Unless someone discovers that cats are smarter than all of us," she says dryly. 

"More seriously, humans, vampires, and shifters are the only sapient species of which I am aware." 

Cat resumes paying attention to the conversation when he hears the word "cats". 

Oh, good, Raven seems to have finished explaining shifters, it's safe to listen again.

"If there is any doubt I should be able to check. Depending how you count, my world has dozens, actually if we used your definitions I think each kind of mageborn might be a different species and then we end up with two hundred or so."

"That," she observes after a second, "is a very large number of sapient species for one world to have. Are humans the majority, or merely one among many?"