"Well if it was the opposite you would usually be full. Anyway, how are people from the mountains different?"

"Do you want to come sit in the front room?" she offers. "I'm happy to answer your questions, but I like to be available in case someone else comes in."

"As for people from the mountains — it's just really far away, you know? I guess they like the cold more, but generally they've just seen so much, to have gotten here."

"I'm happy to I go back down with you. So they had good stories then?"

"Oh, absolutely! There was one man who came through here who had actually been all over. Terrance was over to the east at that point, and he was stopping here on his way between the capital and Dragon Mountain. He said he didn't know why he needed to go there, but he felt sure that he did. Anyway, he had come from the capital, right? And he had the most wonderful description of the tower there — taller than Terrance and made entirely of white stone, hung with colorful banners, he said."

She pulls a chair down for Sapphire when they reach the front room and then takes up her mop again.

"And at night, it was lit up with wizard-lights in dozens of colors, so that you could see it from anywhere in the city. It looked like the aurora, he said, although that didn't help me much because I haven't seen one of those either. But he said they came during the winter to the mountains: great sheets of wizard-light left over from some epic duel in the past, drifting around over the north and painting the snows in pale greens and blues by their light."

She sighs wistfully.

"Sometimes I wish Terrance ranged further north, you know? I know he doesn't like the snow, but it would be nice to see."

"Auroras are very pretty, I haven't seen one in person but I've seen illusions of them. And snow is nice as long as you don't need to be the one shoveling. Shovelling is hard work. I can understand Terrance not wanting to carry a bunch of extra snow on his back."

"Oh, I think he also gets torporous in the cold. But I suppose the snow thing makes sense too. I've seen it on the forest when we've passed by in winter, but I haven't actually had to clear it up myself."

"I played with it more when I was a kid. We made forts and threw clumps of it around or moved our arms and legs while lying down to make patterns. Oh and we stacked big balls of the stuff and used sticks and things to make them look very loosely like people."

The girl smiles.

"That sounds like fun," she agrees. "Where did you grow up?"

"A very very long way away from here. It was a town called Arlmont."

Her knowledge of geography is nowhere near good enough to refute that.

"Is it up in the farmlands? It sounds like a farmish name."

She considers lying and accepting that for a moment before deciding against it. "I'm from somewhere a lot further than that. I'm pretty sure you couldn't get there without magic. I'm not actually sure how to go back, but the being who put me near Terrance promised I could figure it out if I wanted."

Her eyes go wide.

"Oh, wow! Was it a dragon? I thought we would have spotted a dragon, but maybe they didn't want to be seen."

"The Spirit is a lot stranger than a Dragon. I don't think they have a physical body."

She's heard stories about spirits, of course, but only stories.

"That's amazing! What were they like?"

"I didn't exactly meet them, when I say The Spirit promised what I really mean is that the magic notebook they sent to talk to me on their behalf promised. Being moved by the Spirit was... I don't think I can put words to it. It was both incredibly gentle but backed by this sense of power that it's too big to really describe. I'm not really sure if I had a body while I was being moved."

"... huh."

She finishes mopping a section of floor and starts moving the furniture over so she can get at the area under where it was.

"I don't think I've heard of anything like that happening before," she says, which is probably the politest way to phrase her thoughts. "Do you know why The Spirit sent you to Terrance?"

"Not really. They said it would be good for me somehow but why that is, I think that's something I'll have to figure out."

It's not the normal sort of quest, but it does sound like a quest, so that's fair enough.

"No wonder you were curious about where to find things here," she says, for lack of anything better to say. "What do you think you'll do next?"

"I'm not really sure, I want to get a better handle on things but after that I might stay on Terrance or I might go to Dragon Mountain. I'm pretty sure I count as a wizard or that if I don't I could be one without a lot of work."

The girl freezes, trying to find some mental framework with which to grasp the idea of Sudden Wizard.

"Well, I ... I hope that you find things to your liking," she settles on. "I'm sorry, I think I've gotten carried away. Did you have more questions for me? Ma'am."

Her face falls. "Do wizards have a bad reputation? You're the second person who reacted like I was dangerous when I told them I probably count as one."

"It's ... not a bad reputation," she replies. "Do you — in Arlmont, did you have, like, a mayor? Someone important, who it would be unsettling if they suddenly showed up? That's wizards."

"They mostly live in the capital, and they're all involved in government, and they can set you on fire with their minds and copy your special talent. So ..."

She shrugs.

"That makes sense. I can't set anyone on fire though. I can copy things like special talents but I haven't actually tried to do that yet. On a related note, is there etiquette around asking people what their special talents are?"

If you haven't done it, how do you know you can, the girl doesn't ask.

"I don't think so? Or —"

She mentally adjusts for a visitor from much further away, who hasn't heard of things like what wizards are like.

"If someone doesn't want to tell you, it's rude to press. It's also rude to judge someone on what their special talent is. But it's not rude to ask. Mine is that I can tell when people are asleep from a good distance."

"Huh, that sounds useful for an innkeeper, well more for a bartender really but maybe those aren't too different. Do people resent wizards for copying their special talents?"