picknicking

[dark_light]

There's something unutterably pleasant about landing in a bit of woods in the middle of Nowhere, Manitoba, removing a sandwich and an apple from her backpack and having a picnic before she's ready to move on. She could eat in midair, but it makes it too likely that she'll drop something and find it unrecoverable.

Path's on her knee, and her cloudpine is propped up against the tree next to her.

Comments

[prodigal_miser]

"Thank you very much," he says, with a smile. "I'd have to wear the appropriate outfit and I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to pull it off. Age wise - it varies, a little. Four-hundred to six-hundred years, or so? Maybe longer, if I was particularly lucky."

[dark_light]

"Not bad. Witches usually get to be about that old before keeling over of boredom. Which I am not planning to do."

[prodigal_miser]

"Thank you. But - beg pardon? Witches die out of boredom?"

[dark_light]

"Or loneliness. We can live indefinitely - we don't age past young adulthood, we just sort of accumulate patina. But the timing is always suspicious if we die not-of-violence. Somebody's favorite husband dies and his wife follows. Somebody completes their project of visiting every single country once, and then lasts about a week after. Somebody's clan gets wiped out in a war and she's the lone survivor and she sets up the pyre and then dies after she lights it up. Somebody finishes her epic poem, gets her niece to write it down, and doesn't wake up again after she goes to bed that night."

[prodigal_miser]

"That is truly unfortunate, but convenient, in a way? From your description, if you pick a project that will take a millennium then you're set for at least a very long time," he says. "Loneliness I can understand, but boredom? No. There's too much work to be done."

[dark_light]

"Heaps and heaps! I do not expect to die of boredom, and hope to have immortality figured out for at least the people I most want to keep with the help of this alethiometer and its shiny accessories."

[prodigal_miser]

"Yes, you mentioned that," replies Adarin, with a grin. "I approve of and support this goal. Admittedly I wasn't looking forward to the obvious results of living a long life where everyone else doesn't."

[dark_light]

"Few centuries very abnormal lifespan in New Kystle?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Somewhat," he says, nodding a little. "My mother would have lived over a thousand years if she hadn't died. I inherited longevity from her. Most of the others - if they have any magic in them at all they'd get anywhere from three hundred years to a hundred, depending on how far down they are in the generation levels. Anyone without - normal lifespan, sixty to eighty if they're healthy."

[dark_light]

"Even humans often live longer than that here. Dying at sixty is dying young."

[prodigal_miser]

"... Ah. Well. I'm trying to improve living conditions. It's sort of working, but it's slow progress."

[dark_light]

"What've you been working on?"

[prodigal_miser]

He ticks off his fingers as he goes down the list. "Having proper buildings made, with adequate light, structural integrity, and living space. Access to multiple kinds of food to help with dietary integrity. Fixing health issues from living in an unfamiliar plane - the chamomile is one of those. Organizing standards of healing so some idiot doesn't think putting pieces of a dead animal in someone is okay. Trying to keep the nobility from levying huge amounts of taxes and taxing their people into oblivion while still trying to keep enough money floating around them so they don't throw a fit that involves lightning-bolts, and of course trying to pay for all of this..."

He pauses. "I live a busy life. This is a vacation."

[dark_light]

"...Some dead animal parts actually work, incidentally. Pig heart valves, off the top of my head, I don't know if there are any others."

[prodigal_miser]

"Do they? That's good to know, but I meant, uh... The more ritualistic kind of use. Chop up a rat, put some herbs on it and stuff it in a gaping wound. If that's proper medical practice, and no one told me, then I'll have some apologies to make," he says, dryly.

[dark_light]

"Oh. No, that's completely insane. Do you have germ theory where you're from or are you just operating on the 'this has never been observed to help, you idiots' principle?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Second one. What's the germ theory, and can I use it in a way that helps?"

[dark_light]

"Germ theory has all kinds of useful consequences! If biology and so on works the same for you guys as it does for people here, then: a majority of diseases, including most anything that is contagious - though 'contagious' doesn't include things that just run in families, even if the conditions only show up in adults - are caused by tiny living or not-technically-living things. Tiny tiny, you can't see them without special equipment or possibly magic. You can kill them by making them very hot - which is why fevers exist - and some of them also die if it's very cold - which is why freezing food helps keep it preserved - and you can wash them off of you with pretty much ordinary soap, which is why people who live in unsanitary places get sick more often - and some of them you can also kill or prevent from breeding with medicines or food additives. The tiny things are germs."

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin pays rapt attention. Half-way through her explanation, Vern retrieves a book of his and he starts taking notes.

"I'll have to make soap a bigger priority, then," he says, once she's finished and he's done writing. "I thought general hygiene was nice to have but I was more worried about rotting garbage in streets getting into wells and such."

Vern decides to pipe up. "Most of the things you mentioned are true in our plane. Fevers, freezing food, so on."

"Thank you," says Adarin, smiling.

[dark_light]

"I mean, garbage in the street getting into wells is bad too. Mold can hurt people too pretty straightforwardly, germs can breed in garbage, germs can get carried by bugs and rodents and they can live in water. But somewhat more important than garbage is actually human waste - there's germs in the digestive system that are really important to have where they are which you don't want anywhere else, even in healthy people, and in unhealthy people it's a transmission mechanism for other stuff."

[prodigal_miser]

He takes more notes. While he's paying complete attention and staying focused - Vern is a bundle of nerves and excitement, and is hopping around throughout the attic.

"Alright. I'll keep that in mind, too - thank you. When I'm done spelling your rocks, I don't suppose you'd like to visit my plane? You'd know issues better than I would, though I've been using common sense. Your plane has better technology," he offers.

[dark_light]

"I am very much tempted, provided you can bring me back without further ado and I'm not overwhelmingly likely to be shot full of lightning bolts. It sounds like you have a lot of low-hanging fruit on the improving things angle. I'm not personally in a position to effectively bring you all the useful ramifications of, for example, germ theory - I know the general idea behind inoculation, for instance, but not well enough to set up an immunization clinic. But I would happily cruise around looking for obvious bad ideas."

[prodigal_miser]

"You would be with me and I would make sure that anyone who'd think of shooting you full of lightning bolts would realize how much of a colossally bad idea it is," he says. "I do hate sounding arrogant, but quite frankly I would flatten anyone who tries it. They are all very, very clear on this matter."

"That being said, anything you can do to help would be wonderful. I'll bring you back in one piece without any issue. You might have to stay for a few days, before I can manage it safely, though."

[dark_light]

"A few days' vacation is doable, I can get Metis to give me time off. Your plane-hopping spell won't do anything irksome like leave Path behind, will it?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Not if I tell it not to. I'd have to make some modifications, and maybe stare awkwardly at Path and Vern for a little while, but I have no doubt it's possible."