A moment later she is not studying, because something much more interesting has come up. 

She has always wanted magic, does not understand those who are offered it and turn it down. She has not fantasized about it actively in many years--supposedly her great-grandmother's sister was a magical girl, and this is enough to fuel the imagination of a little girl who wants more than anything--but an older girl, who has learned to see the world more cynically, who comprehends statistics--an older girl has better areas to focus her attention on. 

Until now. 

She remembers, from her extensive childhood research, that wings are always enough. 

She is not choosy. She can be choosy later. For now--a set of generic feathered angel wings, pure white. 

There, that's out of the way! Now the magic can get started on judging her dress sense! It's not impressed so far.

Yes, well, her dress sense has been totally irrelevant so far in her life, not being a social sort anyway. 

She stands up from her carrel, spreading her wings. The librarian squawks. Katarzyna ignores her, striding towards the bathroom with its irritatingly inadequate but at least extant mirrors. 

Alright, the pants are the first to go. The shirt isn't great either. The dress she coveted as a little girl--a knee-length amber gown with short puffed sleeves, a square neckline, and bow in the back--is going to need to be improved upon, but is at least a better starting place than this. 

The dress is marginally better than what she was doing before, maybe, hard to tell.

She was wearing pants before. This does not bode well. 

She darkens her hair a shade and lightens the dress a few, then remembers that looking human isn't a good bet. The wings are enough, but that doesn't mean they're enough. She points her ears, and then--can she gather her hair into a high ponytail and then turn the ponytail part into heatless flame?

Nope, the ponytail part works, the flame part doesn't even sort of start to work.

She takes deep breaths. She is over the minimum, she has magic and no one can take that from her. She would rather not present herself to the general public without a halfway decent outfit but if it turns out she needs Jaromira to dictate her look then that's fine. It is much much more fine than accidentally encrypting herself in a panic. 

Okay. Calm. Magical girls need fanciness--for that matter, she doesn't love this color as much as she did when she was five. Let's start over. 

Hair back to its original color, dress red, hugging her upper torso perfectly but not embarrassingly. Long sleeves ending in pointed cuffs that sweep over the backs of her hands. Embroidery in--what color, fuck--gold--no--yes. Don't overthink it. You don't need a good outfit now, just one that isn't embarrassing. Gold embroidery at the neck and hems and cuffs. Topaz cabochons on the cuffs over the backs of her hands. A gold sash. 

That's much better. She could do some magic now. Well, she can't, but she could if there were something to do it to.

Okay. She snaps some selfies so she can get back to this if whatever she tries next doesn't work. 

...What does she actually think would look nice?

Seafoam, is the obvious answer, once she actually asks it of herself. Seafoam green, in--hm. Let's just start by palette-swapping the current dress. Seafoam green dress with dark blue embroidery and cabochons, and make her eyes the same shade of dark blue. Lighten all the blue a little so her eyes look less like black with a hint of color. 

...Lighten the blue some more, make the cabochons opals, and color her irises to look like blue opals too. 

That's an improvement!

This looks like something she wouldn't mind people seeing, at least. She's not going to get anything really impressive off her own sense of style; anything really interesting is going to need Jaromira's help. 

But she can thread silver in with the blue embroidery, and turn her hair silver, and make her feathers silver with a gyrfalcon pattern of crescent stripes on the primaries in opal blue. 

Yay! She could do somewhat more magic now if there were anything to do it to. ...Or is there?

Is there??? She tries to do something--anything--

She... exists!

Yup! She exists.

...Huh. Well. Perhaps it does something else under other circumstances. 

Still. 

She just did magic!!!

Time to go find Jaromira! Her sister has an actual sense of style, this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

She leaves the bathroom and then the library altogether. She will probably get reactions from people in the hallways who are not her sister, but she can just ignore those. 

People do look at her, but it's not like they've never seen a magical girl before. Only one guy tries to pet her wing.

Rude. She beats her wings warningly and hurries on. 

It doesn't take her long to find her sister. 

"Katarzyna! Oh my gosh!" Jaromira leaps up as soon as her sister enters the room. 

"I know!!! Come on, let's go somewhere a little more private, I need you to advise me, insofar as I have aesthetic sensibilities the magic seems most unimpressed with them, I suspect you'll do much better." 

"Sure," she agrees, giving the girls she was with a brief wave before linking arms with her sister and striding off. 

She had been hanging out in the dorm area anyway, so it doesn't take long to get back to their room. 

She inspects her sister's transformations so far. 

"Try a circlet," she suggests, "in titanium anodized the same blue, with a seafoam opal centerpiece."

She does. 

Magic approves! Yup, Katarzyna super exists!

"It works."

"Good. Now modify the circlet so the metal is in a filigree pattern that matches the embroidery on the dress."

That helps too!

"Yes!" 

"Good. Now...hm...you'll need to do something with that hair. Can you give yourself a thin crown braid for the circlet to rest on? And--hm. Make it look like your hair is gently wafting in some breeze?" 

She tries those things. 

The wafting thing does not work; she does not have wafting powers. The braid is easy and a little helpful.

She reports these results. 

"Okay, I know I've seen magical girls with crazy hair...can you make your hair unaffected by gravity?" 

She tries. 

She can make it thinner. She cannae break the laws of physics.

"The other magical girls you saw must have been doing something else, because no, I can't." 

"Damn. Okay. Try blue highlights."

Blue highlights are weakly positive.

"That I can do, but they don't help much." 

"Yeah...let's do something with your nails. Make them nice and regular and rounded, then--hm. Blue with silvery white opals, let's start out with." 

That's also positive, a little better than the hair highlighting.

"That's a little better." 

"You need more jewelry. Try a filigree necklace in silver, with a centerpiece of blue opal and smaller seafoam opals trailing up to your shoulders." 

That's good!

"Yes!" 

"Now earrings--those will have to contrast more against the silver hair to be visible, so let's go with seafoam-anodized titanium with blue opals."

The magic thinks that is yummy.

!!!

"Now we need to do shoes, you're still wearing your old ones. Let's start simple--kneehigh blue soft leather boots." 

Meh.

"Hm. Let's try something else--greek sandals with laces spiraling up to the knees? In silver."

Slightly better.

"Add blue and seafoam opals to the places where the laces cross on your feet." 

Ooooh.

"Do your toenails like you did your fingernails." 

That helps a bit more than doing the fingernails in the first place.

"The elf ears are a nice touch, in my opinion. Let's add cuffs that match the earrings going up to the very points." 

The magic likes that a little.

"Hm...what happens if we add smaller silver opals to the earrings and cuffs and circlet?" 

Helps a little bit.

"Okay, let's try rings--one on your left middle finger, one on your right ring finger, one on your right index finger, each one matching one of circlet, earrings, and necklace." 

Meh.

"Hmm. Let's try subsets of the rings." 

Any one of those alone is a bit better than all; the one matching the necklace is best.

"Hmm. Dress details--how do wide flowy sleeves with embroidery along the hems compare to what you have now?"

That's a weak improvement.

"Alright, let's try adding bracelets--let's start with a set of bangles on each wrist, three of them, one in each color." 

That's good.

"Okay, now let's add tiny diamonds to the bangles--white on green, green on blue, blue on silver on the left wrist, then the other way around on the right wrist." 

That's even better! Katarzyna is definitely magic! She can tell!

Eeeeeeeee! 

Can she tell how many spells she has? 

The answer is that she does not have spells, hers is the freeform kind!

Huh. Neat. 

"Hmm. Let's try making the bodice a bit looser and then adding one of these," she says, gesturing at a picture she's pulled up on her phone, "but in silver for the metal and blue opals for the stones. And we'll probably want to alter it a bit more to avoid the plagiarism thing--let's turn the ropes into filigree like the necklace and tiara and so on, and the centerpiece...how about an eight-pointed star."

That's a good addition.

"Hm...let's add another set of crossed filigrees over the hips, but without the centerpiece." 

That's neutral.

"Add the centerpiece?" 

Negative.

"Okay, let's try replacing the crossed filigrees altogether with a filigree belt-slash-sash."

Belt is slightly less good than chest-only crisscross.

"Okay, lose the belt. Hm...makeup, let's do makeup. Try lipstick in each of the three colors?" 

Silver lipstick is weakly good, the others are bad.

"Eyeliner in each of the three colors?" 

Eyeliner is also best in silver.

"Ooh, that really does make your eyes pop. Okay, let's try adding eyeshadow in green and blue, see if either of those helps." 

Either helps, a gradient between them helps more.

"Oh, nice. Okay, let's try adding diamonds at the corners of your eyes, start with white."

Also good.

"Now, the lipstick...we've been running pretty hard with the three-color thing, but you might want to try a few shades of red lipstick, just in case." 

Red is worse.

"Okay, good to know. Are you okay with trying facial piercings?"

"Yeah." 

"Okay, try white diamond snakebites."

A little better.

"Nose stud?"

One is good, two is not.

"Okay...hm. Silver freckles?"

Good! To a point. Diminishing returns hit quick.

"Eyebrow piercings?"

Worse.

"Dermal piercings in the middle of each cheek?"

Even worse!

Hmm. Alright. What if--

They are interrupted by a knock on the door. 

"Yes?" Jaromira asks, opening it.

There is a math teacher on the other side. "Hello. Can I speak to your roommate, please?" 

She gives him an assessing look, then steps aside. 

"Yes, hello, what do you want." 

"Hi! Word's been spreading about, uh," he gestures vaguely at her wings. "Congratulations, by the way!" 

"Thank you, I suppose."

"...Anyway. There isn't a magical girl club here, we're too small, but if you'd like to join the one at the public school in town, we can arrange transport!" 

She considers it for a time, staring at him until his smile grows slightly strained, before saying, "I accept." 

"Wonderful! Now, remember you'll be representing St. Lucia Academy, so--I understand that you've had some difficulty socializing in the past, and of course this is completely normal for a girl your age, but with your new gifts we feel it would be more appropriate if you were to put in more of an effort in that area." 

"Inform me when to arrive where for transport. You are aware of my school email."

"Well, yes, but--"

"Have you any other specific information you wish to convey?" 

"Well, not as such--"

"Then, with all due respect, I would appreciate it if you would cease to interrupt my attempts to tweak my appearance to garner more magic." 

His jaw works for a moment before he turns and leaves. 

She sighs and falls over backwards onto her bed. 

"Where were we?" 

"Uh, try adding some curl to the very end of your hair?" 

She does so. 

Neutral.

"Hmm. Extra length?" 

That's a little better.

"Thicker hair?" 

Also a little better.

"Hmm. Softer hair?"

Doesn't do anything. Does feel real soft though.

"Hmm. Try a tattoo of some kind between the wings." 

She goes for an abstract swirly silver-green-blue pattern. 

It's okay, not great.

She extends it a bit onto her shoulders and out below the wings, swooping out where they can.

That's better.

Hmm. 

She changes it from abstract swirls to twining vines, each vine having flowers of the other two colors.

That is not as good.

She changes it back. 

"I think I've got all the low-hanging fruit on that tattoo," she reports. 

"Okay. let's try...blue fingerless gloves with silver embroidery and green opals set on the backs."

The magic likes them, though not all that much.

"Add tiny green diamonds to the silver embroidery?" 

Barely an improvement.

"Add diamonds to the embroidery on your dress?" 

That helps a little more.

"Let's try some different styles of skirt..." 

Apparently in this situation the magic prefers a handkerchief hem.

"Nice. Okay, try reducing your sleeves to three-quarter length."

This is good, but only a little.

"Let's add another layer of embroidery to your miscellaneous edges."

This is good.

"Let's see how many layers we can add before it stops helping." 

Three.

"Alright...what happens if you thread your hair with strings of blue and green pearls?" 

The magic is meh on this.

"Hmm. Try doing this," she pulls up another image, "with the hair that isn't in the crown braid." 

The magic isn't super into that.

She pulls up another image. "Try this." 

It likes that better.

Another: "This?" 

It likes that even more!

"Try threading blue and green ribbons through it?" 

These are okay, not great.

"Lace instead of ribbons?" 

Worse.

"Embroidery thread?"

That's better than ribbons, barely.

"Strings of crystals?" 

That's another step up, by more than ribbons to thread was.

"Strings of alternating diamonds and opals?"

That's a small boost.

"Okay, that's everything I can think of off the top of my head for hair...silver mascara?"

Worse, just a little.

"Huh. Non-silver mascara with glitter?"

Also just a little worse.

"Completely normal mascara?"

Very faint plus.

"Curlier eyelashes?"

Hits diminishing returns real fast but in modest amounts, slightly good.

"Try adding some opal seafoam to the wings like you did with the opal blue."

This is fine, not a big deal either way.

"Hmm..." she turns around and googles some stuff. "Okay, try restructuring the wings to be shaped more like this than this."

The magic is indifferent to wing structure in this range.

"Yes, but it will probably be better for flying. Try extending the crescent pattern up from the primaries to the whole wing."

The magic likes that a little.

"Try coiling silver helix bracelets over your sleeves on the biceps."

It likes that a little more.

"Now add opals and diamonds."

That is better.

"Magic really likes its glitter, doesn't it. Try adding a beaded fringe to the hem of the skirt."

It likes that but not very much.

"I think at this point we're micromanaging enough that you'll get much better returns from getting opinions from someone who isn't me." 

"Alright. The magical girl club should be useful for that." 

She opens her laptop to see if the teacher has emailed her about when it is. He has; the next meeting is tomorrow, and a different teacher is going to drive her after class. 

Jaromira leaves to manage the gossip mill's interpretation of recent events. 

Katarzyna stays. Going back to the library would involve more interacting with people than she wants to do right now; the internet is an acceptable source of information, and, when it comes to magical girl stuff, much better than the library. 

She waits patiently until the end of classes the next day. 

The big public school is in Phoenix, and its magical girl club has seven members not counting Katarzyna:

- Mercedes, the club president, who introduces herself and everyone else, and has green dragon wings and a dragon tail and horns and wears a lot of gold silk;

- Natalie, approximately a naga, probably culturally appropriating the Roma or at least the pop culture conception thereof with that outfit, jingles when she slithers;

- Alexis, with rabbit ears and a cotton tail, leaning unnecessarily on sex appeal for costume interest but also themed around lavender (plant, not color);

- Faith, who is three feet two inches tall and going for a vaguely period effect with her clothes in homespun-ecru and shades of brown;

- Isabella, with pointy swift wings and nothing else, drapey dress over a clingy underlayer in dark red and dark blue festooned with a motif of circles with circle cutouts;

- Gabrielle, yellow ballgown and sunset-colored wings;

- Brooklyn, managing pants with enough layers and embroidery and rose-themed accessories accenting the black and gold base color scheme that it must take her an hour to get it all right every time she needs to redo it, black bat wings with gold tats of roses.

These are magical girls and therefore she has nonzero desire to make a good first impression. 

"My name is Katarzyna Kozlov--I apologize if that's hard to pronounce, my parents are from Poland. It's lovely to meet you all." 

"Nice to meet you too," says Mercedes.

"Can we call you Kat or something?" asks Natalie.

"Is Zyna acceptable? I share classes with a Kat, it would be confusing."

"Zyna it is!" says Natalie.

"What are your powers?" asks Isabella.

"It appears to be some sort of--magic perception. Initially all I could sense was that I, myself, existed, but I can sense all of you, as well." 

"I have that, I call it my libido," hoots Alexis.

"Huh," says Isabella, ignoring Alexis. "- can I try something with that?"

To Isabella: "Certainly."

To Alexis: "I believe that your libido draws your attention to the fact that you know we are present, rather than informing you if you had not previously known and/or introducing a new avenue to this perception. If I am wrong, please inform me."

Isabella does something. Now she is unsenseable.

"You have no sense of humor," says Alexis.

"I do have one, it's simply malformed." 

To Isabella: "I can no longer sense you. What ability is that?" 

"What does malformed mean?" Alexis whispers to Gabrielle.

"I can make things that are happening not happen, pretty much," says Isabella. "I mostly use it when I trip."

"Oh, that seems so useful! Could you use it on--a stroke, a hurricane, some more minor natural disaster-"

"I don't think I look good enough to do a natural disaster but I would probably be useful if somebody had a stroke," says Isabella.

"Well, that's what consultants are for, aren't they--I have no head for it whatever, my sister designed this outfit, I only chose the colors."

"My brother helps me. I do have dressier versions, but I've never actually encountered a natural disaster."

"I'm lucky enough that so far I haven't encountered anything I'm not willing to wear day-to-day but of course I would take uncomfortable and powerful over neither if I should in some way discover such." 

"Anyway!" interrupts Mercedes. "Nobody ever made it to the Olympics through chitchat! Fliers in the air, pedestrians on the track, reconvene in thirty minutes for targets and style presentations."

Isabella shrugs and takes off.

So does Katarzyna.

It's a little hard to chat in the air. Isabella gets close to Katarzyna anyway and calls, "So what's your range on the sense?"

"I am currently uncertain! Fairly long on a local scale!"

"What does that mean in yards?"

"More than a thousand, less than ten thousand!"

"I was thinking you might have noticed when your car came in range of us!"

"I did, but there were enough turns that I'm not sure of the distance as the crow flies!"

"Did you note the intersection - no you know what, do you have a watch -"

"I don't have a watch--I did, but I carelessly got rid of it when I first starscaped and haven't found a sufficiently aesthetic replacement yet--but I did note the intersection."

"Oh, cool, what was the intersection?"

She names it. "--But we were actually about half a block away from the intersection itself when I sensed you all."

"Still a decent ballpark. Okay, that might be longer than your swarm sense, I wonder if it works on swarms."

"I sincerely hope so."

"You wanna be a swarm hunter?"

"No, I simply want the maximum warning possible. Additionally, I prefer to have more rather than less information as a general principle."

"I can't fault you there."

"I've been spending a mildly embarrassing fraction of the previous twenty-two hours fantasizing about becoming so beautiful that my sense solves all of the persistent mysteries of magic."

- giggle. "Good luck with that. What are the most annoying ones in your opinion?"

"Well, it used to be 'why are crytpids a thing,' but after becoming a magical girl I have to say it has changed to 'why does magic care about how pretty I am'."

"I assume you don't think Thaumatologists have any insight into the matter."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they have a deeper than average understanding of magic's sartorial preferences, due to having a stronger reason to care and an absurdly high magical-girl-per-capita ratio, and given that magic seems to care about something as anthropocentric as prettiness I wouldn't be shocked if there was, in fact, some intelligence behind the allocation of magic, and that the Thaumotologists had some hypothesis about its characteristics that matched reality, but I do not take their premises at face value."

...snort. "Fair enough. Far as I can tell based on Faith's occasional presentations on the subject they think God likes beauty because beauty is just inherently great, but that's not really helpful, is it?"

"I have aesthetic sensibilities, and they do not match magic's. 'Beauty is inherently good' is a reasonable opinion to have; 'this specific type of beauty is inherently superior to all other forms' impresses me less."

"Where are your disagreements with magic, do you need to be talking to Brooklyn about how to do pants?"

"It's not so much specific disagreements--I don't mind this outfit--as the fact that the first thing I conjured seemed perfectly lovely to me, but my magic considered it barely better than my previous outfit, which consisted of slacks and a button-down shirt."

"Huh. I'd need to see it to even start to guess why and if I did I'd probably be wrong, I outsource to my twin."

"At a guess it wasn't fancy enough, but I, too, outsource to my twin."

"Yay for twins!"

"Yay for twins!!!"

"Mine wants to go pro at style consultancy."

"I only got magic yesterday, so if Jaromira's ambitions have shifted in that direction it hasn't come up yet. Previously she was undecided."

"He actually was thinking about it even before I manifested."

"Jaromira is more likely to do something involving larger numbers of people at a time, I think. She is the most outrageous extrovert."

"There are outrageousnesses of extroversion?"

"She prefers being around people whom she actively dislikes to being alone! --With exceptions."

"Okay, yeah, that's a pretty severe case."

"Exceptions primarily being people who can make her life substantially more unpleasant."

"Reasonable! - Do you prefer to be alone, should I stop following you around?"

"I prefer to not be around people I find disinteresting. Thus far, I do not find you disinteresting."

"Thank you, I'm flattered."

"Magical girls have a much higher assumed baseline interestingness but you have in fact been distinguishing yourself upwards."

"What, 'cause of my power?"

"No, because you ask thoughtful questions."

"Oh good, I like that answer better."

"From what I can determine, what magic one obtains is almost certainly completely uncorrelated with the sort of person one is."

"Sure, but if you're interested in studying magic you could still reasonably be particularly interested in people whose magic interacted with yours."

"I distinguish between being interested in the magic and the person. Tolerating someone to study their magic is different from enjoying their company." 

"I enjoy some people's company on net in a way I'd be reluctant to round down to tolerating them for instrumental reasons even when I can identify factors which, if removed, would take with them my interest in the person's company."

"Enjoying someone's company and tolerating it because I want something from them feel very different to me. I suppose it's possible magic will be different."

"Sure, that's fair."

"Magic is already wonderful and I've barely scratched the surface, I'm very excited."

"You hit diminishing returns pretty fast, fair warning, I think I learned more in the first month than I did in the next couple of years."

"That does sound frustrating--but I have hopes that the sheer variety of magical girl powers will keep me in new information for a while if I travel enough, my sense is strikingly fortunate for me."

"There is that! You have a lot of affordances for travel?"

"My father is rich." 

"Convenient!"

"It is most definitely his most convenient feature."

"Mm?"

"He believes it is a husband's job to provide materially for the children and a wife's job to provide emotionally."

"And your mom is..."

"Dead, as of nine years ago, and replaced by a stepmother who views my sister and I as obstacles in the way of our half-siblings' inheritance as of eight years ago."

"Well damn, I'm sorry."

"We have each other, and we currently attend a boarding school, so the situation isn't currently dire, but Jaromira has speculated on more than one occasion that I would be less misanthropic if Mother had survived.

"...I do miss her quite a lot."

"I'm sorry."

"I appreciate the sympathy." 

"You're welcome. My parents are divorced and Charlie lives in Washington, we see him summers."

"When my mother was alive I didn't see my father very often. I have a vague memory of being very small and asking Mother who he was and she stifled a laugh and said 'that's your father' and I asked 'what's a father?'"

"- how sure are you this memory isn't fabricated?"

"--I guess not completely. But I really didn't see him very often, he was busy with his business and usually came home later than our bedtime."

"I could see this being realistic when you were three but I can't remember being three..."

"Oh, I do. At least, I think I do. Not much, just a few individual flashes. Mostly involving learning to read." 

"Heh. I can't remember not being able to read."

"I can't remember not being able to read at all but I do remember not understanding that p h makes a 'f' sound and stubbornly insisting that the main character of a board book was named 'Puh-hil'."

"Hee!"

"I also remember insisting on reading Jaromira's bedtime story once because I was proud that I could." 

"You read first?"

"Yeah, we're both smart but I'm smarter." 

"Congratulations."

"She's far more skilled with people, though, and I like learning more than she does and she likes people more than I do, so we both find the situation quite satisfactory." 

"Sounds good. Xander's more arty than I am, hence the foray into nitpicking my garb."

"Specializing differently is one of the many wonderful things about being a twin." 

"Having one just like me would have been fun too, but differently."

"Having a twin who was just like me would be fun in some ways but I would be concerned that we would--encourage each others' flaws instead of balancing them."

"I would handle this by not having any flaws to exacerbate, problem solved!"

...Giggle. "That works too! I don't think it would work as well for me." 

"It's an inexplicably unpopular strategy."

"I mostly manage my flaws by having Jaromira spot-check me, which would be much harder if my twin had the same blind spots I did."

"Maybe I am actually terrible and don't know because spot-checking me is not one of Xander's hobbies."

"You don't seem terrible to me! I'm not specialized for spot-checking you in particular but I do spot-check my sister, I assume some of the expertise transfers."

"Hmm. Well, go ahead and let me know if you discover latent horribleness."

Giggle. "I will.

"...Also, you probably don't have a single biggest recurring flaw and a history that exacerbates it. My stepmother has not done wonders for avoiding misanthropy."

"Sample sizes," chirps Isabella.

"Hm?"

"Your stepmother's one person, so she's a terrible source from which to draw an opinion of the whole species, no?"

"Yes, that's true. If it weren't, misanthropy wouldn't be a flaw." 

"I wouldn't blame you for it if you had met seven hundred people and by some astounding coincidence all of them sucked!"

"The problem is that since I don't enjoy being around people who don't interest me it might be difficult to notice ways in which people don't suck if my twin shared my flaws instead of complementing them." 

"That makes sense. So you have a selection problem, your sample is mostly people who inflict themselves on you despite your disinterest!"

"Broadly accurate. There are other factors, too--I don't only judge based on the people I meet, for example, and since sensationalism sells it's often easier to hear about crimes and other human-caused disasters than, say, the Norman Borlaugs of the world, if you aren't motivated to go looking." 

"How great is Norman Borlaug, though."

"I don't know if I would find him personally interesting but I certainly appreciate him on an abstract level! There's also the fact that harm is usually easier than good, so if the bad people are doing much more bad than the good people are doing good that doesn't mean the bad people are worse than the good people are good, which is something I might not have thought to factor in if Jaromira hadn't pointed it out." 

"If I detect misanthropic tendencies in myself I remind myself that e.g. Norman Borlaug is principally admirable because he didn't decide people sucked too much to deserve adequate agricultural yields."

"That's a very good point!"

"Thank you!"

"The fact of the matter is that I'm naively more inclined to spend my time studying other things than myself--not that introspection isn't important, but there are just so many fascinating things to learn about." 

"You are the tool you use to learn those things."

"Perhaps if I were less externally motivated to introspect I would run into a point where I was the bottleneck and quickly become intrinsically motivated." 

"Ha, okay. I like introspecting. Keeps the gears oiled."

"I like it too, but I would probably like it less if it took a form other than narrating my internal monologue to my sister and listening to her commentary, supplemented with writing things down when she's not there so I can recount them later. It's so useful to get another perspective." 

"I have an all-writing model. Xander can be a sounding board but he's not really good for this particular purpose, alas."

"Jaromira's great for it--it's one of the extensions of her liking-people thing, I think, is that she really appreciates being in a position to--really get into the gears of one? I think I would probably be her favorite regardless but it doesn't hurt." 

"Awwww!"

"She'd be a terrible psychiatrist, though, always getting too personally invested in her patients. It's--remarkable how much I love it about her, I think, given that it's a trait I don't especially want to cultivate myself. Something about the--integrity of it? It's not a good way for everyone to be, but it's a very good way for her to be, and she really commits to it." 

"How old are you guys?"

"Fourteen." 

"We turned fifteen in September. It -"

"Hey!" calls Mercedes, swooping up to them. "Time to land!"

"Coming!" says Isabella, more polite than earnest, and she banks.

Katarzyna imitates her, fumbles slightly due to different wing designs, but recovers and lands safely. 

Isabella trips when she lands, but arrests the movement and rights herself and proceeds to where everyone's convening.

"Zyna," says Mercedes, when Katarzyna has arrived, "in some magical girl clubs people take turns being surrounded for amateur style nitpicks, but here we do things differently; we all take turns giving presentations on facts about style for magical girls that will be useful to everyone. There's a club rule that even if you're a Thaumatologist you have to give the presentation in secular terms. Sometimes people stay late to do conventional circle critiques, too. While you're listening, if you have stardarters or a ranged magic weapon you may fire at the targets; I'll muffle the sound so you can still hear the presenter. This week it's Isabella!"

Isabella gets up and produces a notebook with her presentation outlined in it. "We don't have a projector yet, do we."

"No."

"Right, I guess I'll just demo on myself. I did some research on effective hairstyles. Of girls who participated in the Baseline Comparison Survey or equivalent Canadian research more than half found that as long as their hair was not tangled, split, messy, or otherwise obviously flawed in some way, and it was longer than shoulder length, it was competitive with the best-performing updos and braids in lab conditions while worn down. The reason more elaborate styles seem to perform better appears to have to do with the accessibility of ornamentation and the risk that wind and activity will tangle or damage loose hair; Coast Paladins and other Paladin squads generally have tight updos with stuff in them." While she talks she's occasionally blinking and swapping out her hair to demonstrate examples.

--Oh that's fascinating. Katarzyna takes out a notepad and earnestly starts taking notes. 

"Wait, what's the Baseless Comparison Survey," says Natalie.

"Baseline," says Isabella. "The Baseline Comparison Survey was a huge project they did in the sixties to figure out general principles of magical girling less obvious than 'wear skirts'. They designed a basic boring outfit that worked with wings and surface or extremity mods except tails, made all the participants wear it exactly so they'd all be taking the same plagiarism penalty, and then tried iterations from there, also all the same across participants, so they could shake out some of the statistical noise from girls going 'well, that helps a little but not very much' and 'ooh the magic really likes that' in lieu of producing numbers. And most of my presentation is about what they found out about hair."

"Go on," says Mercedes.

"Bad hair tanks a look fast," she continues. "Clothes can handle some distressing and still look all right - a few people use something along those lines as their motif - but hair basically can't. You can get away with some sloppiness in styling like messy braids and floppy buns if it suits what you're doing otherwise, short hair is not as hard to pull off as pants, but nobody makes a birds' nest work. Now, the Baseline Comparison Survey did include girls of all races, but since this was the sixties, they dropped girls from the study if they weren't willing to wear their hair in an approximately white-person texture. We have way less systematized data about how natural black hair works, especially since on hair that hangs down by default, length past the shoulders matters - is there an equivalent for natural black hair, we don't know!"

"So racist," opines Gabrielle, who is black.

Isabella doesn't directly respond to that. "The anecdotal evidence suggests that natural hair in assorted styles can perform at top levels; for example, Coast Paladin Keisha Vaughn has dreadlocks. But there's less to go on from a data-driven perspective."

Natural black hair is of little interest to eastern-European-stock Katarzyna, of itself, but research certainly is, and gaps in research even more so. She is taking notes furiously in her personal shorthand. 

"The rules for hair ornaments seem to be about the same as the rules for other ornaments. The rules for hair color are not - you don't take as much of a penalty for having hair of an out-of-scheme color in the natural human hair color range, your original or not, as you do for having an out-of-scheme accessory or clothing item. Basically, magic seems to consider hair to be an automatic candidate for a statement piece - a thing that's allowed to stand on its own without forming a motif. Both curly and straight hair were found to work, as well as all stages of intermediate waviness; worn down, straight hair works better if you go to knee-length or longer, wavy hair works better between there and mid-back, and curly hair works better between there and shoulder-length. Shorter hair performed worse with a few individual outliers - face shape affects this a lot. Also, all the length-and-curliness rules go out the window if you wear it up. Then it doesn't seem to matter at all. From baseline, statistically speaking, bangs are worse -"

Faith raises her hand.

"- but like everything else to do with how your hair is arranged close to your face that varies with face shape, and 'baseline' here means 'worn down', not your braid crown there."

It is tempting to start fiddling with her look based on this data right here and now but she will refrain. 

"Hair that does not behave like any nonmagical human hair - via the application of the magical equivalent of hairspray, or changing its material, or replacing it with a garden of daisies," says Isabella, "is tentatively hypothesized to revert to the standards for elements elsewhere on your person - so it loses the thing about being in human-range colors, its length and curliness are no longer interacting, etcetera - but the Baseline Comparison Survey didn't get very into a lot of alternative hair options and no similarly sized survey has been conducted since. This can still work if whatever weird hair thing you do plays into a motif; Rockies Paladin Miranda Cooper has feather hair that matches her wings.

"A cautionary note," she goes on, "replacing your hair with twenty-seven snakes is known to carry enough points to turn you into a cryptid if applied on top of wings and basic human-range cosmetic cleanup. We don't know if fewer than twenty-seven snakes would have been fine, since this has only been recorded happening the once, but twenty-seven snakes plus wings and cosmetic cleanup definitely cryptidizes you, so don't do it.

"That's what I've got, thank you all."

Light applause.

Somewhat less light applause! 

And Isabella collects her stardarters and joins target practice, her hair still in its latest example.

Katarzyna...does not have stardarters. 

She can fix that more quickly than most people, but she cannot fix it immediately. She loiters slightly, feeling awkward. 

"Do you want to borrow one?" Isabella asks, holding out the one she's got in her left hand.

"Thank you--I would love that," she says, relieved. 

"I've told the school they should buy one for this exact situation but they didn't think it was a good use of two hundred dollars," Isabella says, trotting over to her target to gather her ammo.

"Irritating. If you don't mind my asking--why did you think this was a good use of two hundred dollars? You don't strike me as the type to swarm-hunt."

"I'm not. Got them for my birthday. It's not hard to make two hundred dollars with the right powers, though, my dad's a cop and he hooked me up with a gig where I ride along on car chases and stop the car they're chasing, I can do that again and a few days of being on call and one car chase gets me well over two hundred bucks."

"That makes sense. My reasons, on top of having a rich father, include: 'it seems like an asset when networking with magical girls,' and 'magical girls are, absent relevant powers, not significantly less squishy than baseline humans and I would be surprised if a magical girl carrying stardarters wasn't legal more places than anyone outside of police officers carrying pepper spray or a tazer.'" 

"It is. I mean, these won't stop somebody who really wants your purse, they don't even hit hard enough to kill a swarmling that's been around for six hours and you can still kill those bugs if you step on them hard enough, but you can sure take them places. Not on planes, though."

"I cannot imagine the planes are interested in having any weapons whatever on them." She picks up the stardarter; she assumes the magic will ding it for being off-theme but the magic can cope. "I am consoled by the fact that everyone else on the plane will also have been stripped of weapons." 

"Swarms don't manifest on planes much but when they do people get hurt before all the bugs get geeshed. I don't think stardarters'd improve the situation though."

"Eesh. No, I imagine not." She take aim at the target, taking her time to line up the shot, and fires. 

She isn't a great shot. She doesn't take it personally. 

Isabella's okay but slow at picking up her ammo since she walks carefully instead of jogging over.

"Do you want some help?" Katarzyna asks once she's gathered her own (technically also Isabella's, but).

"If you don't mind!"

"I don't!" she assures her, then goes to collect Isabella's darts. 

Then Isabella can get in a little more shooting before Mercedes announces the end of the club!

Katarzyna hands back Isabella's stardarter and ammo. "Thank you again for the loan." 

"No problem! See you next week!" And she collects her bag (it's like a messenger bag, but designed to sit between wings in the back) and takes off.

Katarzyna stands there for a minute being happy for no reason she can figure out for a minute before heading back to the St. Lucia car. 

When they get back to the school, the first thing she does is hunt down her sister to talk to. 

(It's not gossip if it's the core of your introspection process, right?)

She outlines the club meeting (thus and such was the agenda, this is what my power does) and then launches into details and internal monologue. 

It isn't until about the fortieth Isabella this and Isabella that that Jaromira starts giggling. 

"What?" 

"I guess the magic gay kicks in harder than I thought! You, my dear sister, have a crush." 

"Oh, shit, I have a crush on Isabella." 

"That's what I just said! And why, exactly, is this a bad thing?" 

"I don't want to be one of those people who only hangs out with someone because they want to date them!"

"Then don't be. Ask her out, or don't, but--if she doesn't go out with you, would you stop wanting to be around her?" 

"No!!! She's so thoughtful and interesting and insightful and--she's amazing, Jaromira, amaaaaaaziiiiiiing." 

"Then you're not like that. Don't stress out about it." 

"Mngh." 

She flops on her bed face-first. 

"I can't believe it's a week until the next meeting and I didn't get her phone number or email or anything." 

"Aww. You'll live, dearheart," Jaromira says, sitting down beside her sister to pet her hair.

"I knoooow." Sigh. "Okay, I have my hair-related notes from the meeting, let's try some things--" 

They try some things. 

The hair length thing turns out to be less good than keeping it partially up in a hair-flower-thing with gems woven in; of other things they try because Jaromira thought of them, replacing the leg laces on her sandals with helixes like her bicep bracelets, adding toe rings, and turning all the metal in her jewelry into diamond and opal of the same colors constitute improvement. She is mildly put out that she will not be able to see the effect this has on her magic sense until next week when she can interact with other magical girls again. 

She emails her father to inform him that she is a magical girl now. She looks up stardarters online. 

Ones like Isabella has are $200 and come in custom colors; for extra you can get an emblem or other little touches added to them.

...Ooh. 

How much would it cost to get them in opalescent seafoam with blue and silver filigree?

Opalescence is extra, and the coverage she has in mind is a lot extra on top of that, but she can still get them both for under $500.

She goes for it, then, and selects the electronic receipt option at checkout and then forwards it to her father with a note saying that while of course she will not neglect her studies she also intends to take being a magical girl seriously. 

Her stardarters arrive in four days, pleasingly packaged and very shiny. The ammo is heavy.

Katarzyna has a fight with the school administration over them, due to weapons being Not Allowed on school grounds no matter what. 

Katarzyna does not win the fight, exactly; weapons are still Not Allowed inside the school no matter what. But she is stubborn and while she isn't good at people Jaromira is, and is on her side. The stardarters and ammo live in an equipment shed, to be picked up when she leaves for a magical girl meeting (...or for other reasons, if she really wants, the administration is worn down into conceding) and returned when she returns to campus. 

It's not optimal, but it will do. 

Katarzyna spends much of her free time studying, now, but less. 

Flying is not against the rules. 

Flying is great! Depending on how far afield she wanders, she might encounter other girls in the sky (as well as kites, RC airplanes, and balloons).

Encountering other girls in the sky is exciting!!! Probably none of them are as good conversationalists as Isabella but she can examine their magic and that is so cool. 

She can! It's a little easier than it was at the club meeting, even, probably because she is dressed up more to the magic's liking. Over there is a girl with a kinda creepily elongated neck and vulture wings!

"Hi!!!" 

"- hello," says vulture girl. "What's up?"

"Nothing in particular, it's only that I go to a boarding school and I'm the only magical girl there so outside of a club meeting they ferried me to at a larger school I haven't met many other magical girls. And my power is that I can sense magic! Or, at least, magical girls; I have thankfully not yet had the chance to test if it registers swarms." 

"Everybody can sense swarms," says vulture girl, gliding. Her wingspan is huge.

"Yes, but I think my range is higher on the magic sense. I like your wings." 

"Thanks." The vulture girl is oddly underdressed for a magical girl. She doesn't look like a slob, but she wouldn't look out of place on a Land's End catalog cover. Neck and wings aside.

Odd. 

Can she pick out anything interesting about her with her magic sense? 

Well, she's not very magic. Which is what you'd expect given the whole Land's End catalog look.

What a bizarre individual. 

If the vulture girl seems to want to talk more she's willing to pay her social dues but will not initiate further discourse. 

Vulture girl is not super talkative.

That's fine. Flying is lovely, regardless of what company there is or is not.