[Liem is usually pretty willing to go to bat for humans in general, but he can’t take offence at Hayame’s derision about human fighting abilities when he knows she’s used to being much stronger and faster and hardier than any human warrior could be. Why else were jinba warriors so prized, after all?

He thinks for a moment.]

From what I know, in my own world, transformation spells such as this were not expected to have a long learning period, regardless of how different the shapes might be. There was learning involved, of course, but if you acquired, for instance, a cloak that gave you the shape of a bat, you could expect to fly as one in short order.

[He’s rambling, he thinks. He’s never had to try to reassure someone in this circumstance before, and he’s a bit out to sea. Nonetheless.]

What I mean is—the skills and training you had before are still with you, and they are what you spent your entire life learning. Balance and ease in this body will come much more quickly, I think, once the strangeness lessens.

[Don’t horses learn to run within hours of birth? Not that jinba and horses are the same, but if a baby horse can run around right after being born, surely an adult woman can learn to do the same in a magical shape.]