[Atlantis]

"Being forced into dealing with magic sounds pretty harsh. And kind of dangerous. I mean, not everyone is meant for magic, you know? That's what they used to say when I was studying. Might've been wrong them, bunch of damn hypocrites that they were. Oh sure, we're free to explore the wonders of magic, find our own areas of expertise! But making animals better? Oh no! That's an abomination against nature!"

...

Cedric shrieks soothingly in Isabelle's ear. I'm...not sure how it's possible to shriek soothingly, but Cedric's doing it.

It takes a moment or two for Isabelle to calm down. Her faded smile quickly returns to normal.

"Like I said, maybe there's something in the spell making process I can refine. At the moment I basically have a decent idea how to make each spell work, but my only way to fine-tune it is to simply try it out, see which part of the animal breaks, and adjust the spell so that part doesn't break. After a few attempts, bits stop breaking and everything works."