Mm, pretty sure they do. Some of that armor's like... well, like some of your girl dresses with the corsets and stuff. They didn't exactly make clothes for the high ups to be a one person job, did they? But yeah, maybe... Though I think I'm sort of the apprentice right now. Hermione knows way more magic stuff than I do. She comes from somewhere where she was born with it, so she's got a pretty big advantage on me. But hey, that just means she can teach me how to do it right and not wind up... you know, setting things on fire.

Hey, I'll listen. I'm not exactly in the market for blowing parts of myself off.

[He wasn't flippant. He was... easily distracted. More so now that he didn't have access to his medication. Maybe he could talk to Hermione about whipping up some sort of replacement potion or something.

The mention of being respectful gets a snort, one he tries to hide in his cup.]

[He looked so genuinely afraid, he couldn't help the small laugh before he shook his head.]

No, no, Alayne. She doesn't blow stuff off. I'm just... it's a thing. When you mess around with chemicals, you can blow stuff up. I'm sure neither of us plan to do any blowing up. We're good. Don't worry so much.

[He puffs out his cheeks and looks at her.]

I can't really be sure about that since I don't know what wildfire is? I mean, I can make fire from my staff, so that... I don't know if that counts.

Um... no. It's pretty fiery colored. I mean, if I was back home I could maybe make green fire with one of those logs, but I don't think we're talking about the same kind of fire.

Oh. Huh. No, I can't say I've seen anything like that.

[But how he was intrigued. Water burning fire, you say?]

I just go by what's in the books. This is all pretty new to me and I may seem kind of flippant with it, but trust me, I'm not ready to go making stuff up on my own. I'll follow the rules until I think I have them down well enough to try tweaking things.

[There's a moment where he's trying really, really hard not to laugh, face strained with the effort of it.]

Of all the things I'm afraid of, Alayne, getting caught by tweaking things isn't one of them.

Losing the people I love.

[It comes out with almost no thought; Stiles' number one fear always present at the forefront of his mind.]

Being alone. Like, really, really, alone. Dying. Pain. Needles. Spiders. Low test scores.

Oh, but I am. Not those ones you guys sew with or whatever pretty girls do up in towers in castles, but the ones they give you shots with. They go in your arm. They hurt.

Except we have to do it for medical reasons. The needles I'm talking about are hollow and they're attached to vials to either extract blood with minimal damage or inject things in for health reasons like antibiotics or immunizations.

See? Hah. And I get crap because 'they're just needles'. Pff.

[He had a somewhat vindicated look on his face.]

[He thought about that.]

I'd say it's a coin toss. Some people are afraid of them, so it's not like it's unheard of or anything, but a lot of people aren't.