i wasn't looking for this

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to call me maybe and trade my soul for a wish, which were getting crowded.

with Emily (Maggie)

with Alex (ErinFlight)

with Destin (Rockeye)

with Nick (Rockeye)

Comments

[iamnotpolaris]

Emily had decided to check out a new universe and log its coordinates, mostly to get away from her sister being overwhelmingly mushy with her new...boyfriend? What labels did you even use in a situation like this. She loves her sister, really she does, but this is...not normal, and probably not going away. So she needs a little space to process this.

Since this universe seems to be well-nigh deserted too (or at least the bit of it she landed in, a lovely plain with isolated trees here and there) she's going to work on some more art projects. She'd gotten the frost gels to embed nicely in her armor, and added one as the centerpiece for the circlet she'd made her crown into, because they were pretty and why not. Together with the pink-and-purple butterfly wings, they made quite a striking image.

Now she was working on some new metal-lace designs. In a circular pattern, because why not, maybe it would make a good rug-ish thing or something.

[from_scratch]

When the circle closes, a shirtless twentysomething in jeans and fetching blue bat wings appears all of a sudden in the circle.

He looks at her.

"Okay, I'm sure there's a great explanation for this one, hit me."

[iamnotpolaris]

"My life is an increasingly bizarre set of improbabilities?"

[from_scratch]

"So this is 'improbability' - the wings are fake - not 'impossibility' - you are a fairy?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Uh, no. The wings aren't properly mine, they're a magic artifact thing." She reaches behind her and tugs the wings off.

[from_scratch]

"Magic, you say."

[iamnotpolaris]

"You have wings and a tail and you appeared out of nowhere, please don't tell me you don't believe in magic."

[from_scratch]

"No, I believe in magic, but I believe in a fairly constrained variety of magic which doesn't do fairy wings that convincing which also come off unless someone's been making really interesting advances in textiles and deploying it for cosplay. I am very intrigued by the possibility that you are about to de-constrain my belief in magic; do go on."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Well, while my sister and I were traveling through universes we stumbled across one world that seems to consist of a bunch of islands separated by strange telepathy-dampening walls of cloud that contained a number of nifty magic things. There we met a helpful person who'd been stuck there for a while and had the system pretty well figured out who gave us nifty magic objects like the wings." She puts them back on and flaps them a few times. "My sister got brown and blue feathered ones."

[from_scratch]

"Okay, I'm familiar with a small number of universes which under most circumstances people do not travel between except when summoned by a mortal as you have just unprecedentedly done outside the standard area code. None of which feature telepathy or fog that dampens it but now I'm curious if I can manufacture that fog because yikes. And my wings and tail are only magical in the sense that they were made in the first place by magic and now count as a part of my body and I'm magical."

[iamnotpolaris]

"So you aren't a demon of some kind like the last shirtless guy with bat wings and a tail we ran into?"

[from_scratch]

"I mean, I don't know, shirtless guys with bat wings and tails are reasonably common where I'm from. What kind of demon is he?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Literally the only non-evil member of a species called the Endarkened, over ten thousand years old, the rest of his species was destroyed which saved my sister the trouble of hunting them down and making them wish they hadn't done the things to him they did because he wasn't evil..."

[from_scratch]

"Okay, different kinda demon then, we aren't called 'Endarkened' in any languages I've met, most of us are perfectly nice sorts, and you'd have a hell of a time getting us down to one instance because we're indestructible."

[iamnotpolaris]

"He's...apparently damn near indestructible too, the other ones got got by magic of some kind."

beat

"Also he didn't originally come with pants, either, so thank you for that."

[from_scratch]

"...I am concerned by the possibility that I might get got magic of some kind. That is concerning. You are welcome for the pants."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I mean, you shouldn't have to worry about that magic at least, it's even less likely to get you than it would have been to get him, and it didn't. You don't have that universe's...I don't know which direction the causal arrows point, if you get it if you're a certain kind of evil or if it makes you be a certain kind of evil, but there were definitely causal arrows going in at least one direction."

[from_scratch]

"I do like to think of myself as non-evil. How worried should I be about the telepathy?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"You shouldn't. My sister doesn't read nonconsenting minds without a really good reason, and anyway we're currently in a different universe from her. That being said, if I'm wrong and you're lying and you secretly are evil and kill me or something she will find out and she will find you and she will wreck your shit. Telepathically or otherwise."

[from_scratch]

"Oh, if I were evil I'd put you in a coma, not kill you. ...That may not have been the most reassuring thing to say. Summoners don't usually let demons talk."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I mean, if you put me in a coma the results would be more, 'I am fixing this and don't care if the perpetrator gets squished in the process' than 'My name is Edie Lehnsherr, you killed my sister, prepare to die horribly,' but it still wouldn't be fun for you."

[from_scratch]

"So, does your world have The Princess Bride or is that a coincidence?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"My original world has The Princess Bride, as do several I've visited in the interim. It's kind of Earth standard."

[from_scratch]

"So Earths are a plural thing. Curious. ...My name is Cam, by the by."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Emily. What, that wasn't obvious from the fact that I'm speaking late twentieth century English?"