does not anymore work

[campanas]

Here, in a place where she is quite an unexpected sight, is:

an eight year old girl with brown-flecked white wings, looking dismayed and lost.

with Prime (Aestrix)

with Edie and Emily (Maggie)

with Gloria (Maggie)

with Gren (Rockeye)

Comments

[thaumobabble]

Glass looks at her necklace. "Most worlds that have Christianity actually don't," she says. "Even the one that has crosses that repel local vampires, though I'm gathering that your kind doesn't have that problem. ...And the last time we encountered a plausibly Christian mythos playing out in real life we didn't get along with it. Fair warning."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"From my point of view, that is disappointing and sad. But I hope you don't mind if I hold out hope for my universe.
...And if I haven't misunderstood you, I do think having a native afterlife is better than lacking one and hoping a more convenient one than the one you hypothetically would have will show up and rescue you from oblivion."

[thaumobabble]

"It's more convenient at the time when we can just attach new worlds to Downside, but having been attached to Downside before we came along is only dubiously advantageous. The question is whether you have a nice afterlife, and if Downside was dubious the other ones we've found are mysterious or worse. We'll check it out - assuming you don't mind our leaving a node in the world that will sync up its progression of time and allow us to come and go without waiting for Milliways doors."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Sure, I don't have a problem with it."

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell steps in and then disappears to do the honors. She's back a moment later.

[thaumobabble]

"Anyway, we're reluctant to kill your problem without sussing out the afterlife, but if all he has is super-speed and super-strength and super-healing he's not interestingly equipped to annoy us or interfere with our nonlethal measures. Can you be more specific about his disagreeable habits?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"He assaults young women and turns them into vampires of various classes without their consent in a way my therapist has identified as having similar psychological aftereffects as rape."

[she_sells_seashells]

"If he just stopped being a vampire how much of the problem would that solve?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"I strongly recommend also putting him into some sort of Witness Protection if you don't want one of his other victims hunting him down. And it's possible that whatever it is that makes him do what he does would then cause him to commit actual rape. It's also theoretically possible he could convince someone else to turn him back into a vampire but it's massively unlikely he could get back to becoming a reproductive vampire. ...Only the top five classes of vampire can create other vampires and most people don't even count the fifth."

[thaumobabble]

"...Devamp him, geas him on the rape tendencies, have a chat with him in which he may decide to stay here and risk retribution or drop him Downside? Downside also works if he won't take the geas, the ground rules will do it."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Sounds all right. A little involved for one guy, but it wouldn't actually take that long unless we let him monologue."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Thanks. There's nonzero evidence he has, um, some tendencies that have made me worry about some of my friends."

[she_sells_seashells]

"What do you mean?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"I mean I'm a Class One vampire. I don't know why he picked me to turn into a Class One vampire, but that is a significant allocation of resources, and another vampire of my acquaintance who used to know him back before she knew he was terrible thinks he's doing some kind of...experiment...which suggests he has some way of observing me, which means he might be anywhere near my loved ones."

[she_sells_seashells]

"We'll take care of it. Well, someone will, anyway, who should take point on this world - My and Glass's aura powers mean that we're bouncing around a little more than our alts and someone else should probably take your world under their wing, perhaps literally, maybe Pen's mom."

[thaumobabble]

"It's an Earth. Maybe give it to somebody who knows Earths. Maybe Golden - I'd say Juliet but she's busy with a sheaf. Golden's got a singlet and a competent adult princess plus a Libby to take up the slack at home."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Golden's probably got the room for an extra project. In your opinion, Gloria, how would locals in your world react to a new kind of vampire?"

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"...Most of the world doesn't know that magic and so on exists, but the people who do--and know enough that their reaction isn't to become 'monster hunters' won't have a problem with it once she assures them that she's not going to kill people or make ghouls or whatever."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Golden can pass for human to people not in the know when it's called for. And doesn't kill people or make ghouls."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"I didn't think she would. I don't think her kind of vampire probably even does ghouls."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Well, no. She's also against nonconsensual or careless turning in general. Reasons not to go with Golden in particular include factors like 'she's not the friendliest Bell' and stuff like that."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Ahuh. Okay, I probably won't introduce her to my wife, but I run a moderately successful nightclub--I'm used to people I wouldn't necessarily choose to interact with just on their own merit. Other vampires might be more...touchy. Unfriendly like grouchy or unfriendly like overly dignified?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"She's not un-friendly exactly, just sort of businesslike. She'll still do Bell-quality work on whatever needs doing, but she probably doesn't want to do lunch or make small talk."

[maggie_of_the_owls]

"Oh, that's fine then. Lunch is a bit of an awkward social situation for vampires anyway."

[thaumobabble]

"Everybody in Golden's world is on a synthetic these days."