"I know. Aren't they awful?" they asked, grinning and rolling the pin across the back of their fingers clumsily, like all the old-timey magicians used to do. "So have things been going well for you these past few days? I know I haven't been back here in a couple weeks, but you're all the most regular people in my life." Friends? Friends, would be the normal human way to say that, Hope.

The pin rolled over a small patch of persistent redness on Hope's hand, and they winced and dropped it to the table. "Nothing blew up since the last time we saw each other, did it?" It was just supposed to be a joke. God knew the last actual explosion they'd been too close to left them with that recovering burn on their hand.