"These areas," which are mostly not in the forest but there is a place where the forest has recently expanded beyond its originally planned dimensions, "are supposed to have people eventually and don't yet. I think. Approximately."

"Hmm, maybe right here at the edge of the forest, then?"

"I think so, yeah. I would check with a bigger map that has these kinds of things marked on it. And if someone beat you to it then maybe not. But probably? I bet that's fine."

"Okay. Who would have a bigger map? The government?"

"Probably? I think the college would. You probably don't have one of those. Didn't, I mean. Uh, not to make assumptions, did you?"

"What's a college?"

"A college is a place where adults get together to teach each other weird things, sometimes weird things they just found out. There's also a place where adults teach children things that aren't weird but that's a different place."

"Huh. I guess that's a good kind of place to have. Which do you think makes more sense to do first, looking at maps at the college or talking to the government?"

"I would go to the government first but maybe if we go to the college and let someone know we're going to the government next they'll have more time to think about what they want to say?"

"... Okay. I guess." She nervously holds her hand like it's about to be gripping something, but then before her crown can do more than start to slide meltily sideways on her head, she stops doing that and it resolidifies.

"Anyway, they're both in the same direction from here." Lia starts walking. Slowly, because the lamb is short and recently injured.

She's pretty creaky at first but soon enough she's trotting along just fine.

Oh, good. They head in a direction where the buildings get denser.

"Uh, I just realized I'm not sure if you were saying okay to the college or the government. Sorry."

"You seemed like you settled on college first government second but maybe I misunderstood?"

"Okay! Okay. I mean I actually talked myself into having no idea but that’s probably fine. College it is." It is over there and consists of multiple buildings and a tree and a fence which has been painted about fifty times and been artistically carved by dozens of people who did not discuss a unified artistic vision with each other.

There are people staring at them on the way. Lia keeps reminding herself to breathe. Someone waves.

She's sort of fascinated by the fence situation but if she slows down to look at it they'll be here all day. People here are really unfairly tall. Trot trot.

Lia really does not know what she’s doing but if she panics and freezes there isn’t anyone with a better idea of what to do waiting in the wings so she takes a wild guess about who to talk to first and heads into the library (this is a room full of collections of knotted strings and various scientific and technical illustrations and people observing those things; one of them compliments the lamb’s appearance) and asks the librarian what exactly they're supposed to do now.

"Oh," says the librarian, "someone should check it's not a hoax and someone should go tell the government, I guess? Did you see them appear?"

"Yes and they said they have different magic - but it was - I want to talk to the government about it, it has huge implications and testing it would be, uh, if it does work as advertised it'd involve mind control."

The librarian's hands just kind of hover in the air like the librarian just cannot figure out what to say about that.

(The Lamb's little grey face looks unhappily apologetic.)

The librarian also looks like that. "...We don't have to test it if they don't want anything anyone couldn't get by asking," the librarian eventually says.

"No, I don't think they do."

"Okay, well, in that case I don't think we need to do experiments here, but we could send someone to let the government know while they hang out and read or ask questions." In the original language, this is actually unambiguously about the stranger but slowly shifts from probably third person to probably second person during the sentence.

"That sounds like probably a good idea, if I understood right, which I might not have? ...um, I guess one thing I can do that I don't need to mind-control anyone for is," the crown flows off her head and down her arm and into the shape of a hoe, which then unforms and winds around her wrist in a quick inky motion before landing in her other hand as a mallet, and from there unforms again and spirals up that arm and back into the shape of a crown on her head. "But I don't know if that's the sort of thing you can use to tell I'm not hoaxing. And it's not urgent."

" - Yeah, if you can do that much magic and have eyes that’s too expensive for a hoax," says the librarian. "I shudder to think how many people would have to pay how much for you to scam people out of something already free."

"Actually, I think you could outright prove it that way if you don’t have to recharge," says Lia.

"I could do this all day if for some reason it was important to do it all day. I guess I couldn't turn it into different weapons all day, it's finicky about those. Anyway my crown turning into things doesn't have costs, it's just the sort of thing that can do that." Among many other properties she is declining to mention at this time.

"If it doesn't cost you anything, I have a decent sense of how much of that would be possible for a mage."

The Lamb agreeably begins fidgeting with her crown again. It swishes around and morphs into a wide variety of gardening tools, plus a few other odds and ends like a hatchet and a broom.

That's weirdly cute. A local mage would have to have practiced a lot to pull off something that looks like that, and it's clear pretty quickly that even if they had practiced there's no way they could hold onto enough magic to do it so many times. She waits until it's also impossible that there's just another mage hiding nearby and helping.

"That's really cool," Lia says after a while. "And I don't think you could be a hoax."

(Meanwhile someone leaves to go spread the news, and other people gather to watch.)