blood sweat tear

[imeanforever]

He's moving her to a different court to see if it'll improve her attitude. She's allowed to fly. It's been a long, long time since she was allowed to -

She is only allowed to fly to her destination, not anywhere else. She notices that she is not where she should be, that she cannot progress to where she was told to go, and she careens out of control when her wings won't flap anymore, and she crashes.

---

with Miles (kappa)

with Minus (kappa)

Comments

[eversomuchfun]

"That a yes?"

[imeanforever]

"I'm trying to figure out what would happen to the court structure if I incapacitated Thorn. I don't know if Blossom could hold it together, how it would fracture if she couldn't, or whether she'd be any better than him if she could."

[eversomuchfun]

He shrugs. "Can't help you there. ...Although if you want to spy on them, this is also doable with magic and the requisite books might even be in this library somewhere."

[imeanforever]

"...Might help. But only so much. I didn't have a privileged view of the social relationships but I saw plenty and I think Blossom's basically brainwashed and don't know how she'd jump without him. Maybe Rainfall - I don't know."

[eversomuchfun]

"So, books on scrying, yes or no?"

[imeanforever]

"Yes."

[eversomuchfun]

He searches for books on scrying.

[imeanforever]

Promise, meanwhile, investigates the other books he pulled.

[pythbox]

Well, would she like to read about vampires? Incubi and succubi? Assorted other varieties of demon? Or perhaps this book on the history and nature of magic mirrors?

[imeanforever]

Her native guide is a vampire; she may as well skim that book.

[pythbox]

...Being a vampire looks really inconvenient!

They catch fire in sunlight. Certain items and substances (crosses, holy water) cause an instinctive aversion and raise painful blisters on contact. They are physically unable to enter a private home without the explicit invitation of a resident. They cannot eat food and must drink blood to survive. The process of turning a person into a vampire replaces their soul with some sort of demonic entity, which is why they are all irretrievably evil.

[imeanforever]

"What's holy water?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Why do you ask?"

[imeanforever]

"Because I don't know what it is. I don't know what souls are either, that was going to be my next question."

[eversomuchfun]

"Holy water is water that has undergone certain rituals conducted by a properly authorized individual. A soul is a metaphysical property of humans and if you take it away, significant pieces of their personality go missing, usually the nice bits."

[imeanforever]

"Why are their - personalities detachable...?"

[eversomuchfun]

"The going theory is that the soul is somehow a prerequisite for having moral feelings, which seems stupid, but I don't have a strong competing hypothesis."

[imeanforever]

"I'm not a human and have moral feelings. Should I worry about my personality detaching?"

[eversomuchfun]

"I'd be surprised if there wasn't some way to tell if you have a soul, but I don't know it offhand and I'm not sure where I'd start looking. At a guess I suspect you're safe, at least from that particular hazard; the commonest way to detach a soul is turning someone into a vampire and that only works on humans and part-humans."

[imeanforever]

"Has it been tried on fairies?"

[eversomuchfun]

"I expect you'd have trouble with the middle bits even if for some insane reason you qualified as human for the purpose."

[imeanforever]

"Middle bits?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Dying. Drink some vampire blood, become drained of all one's own blood, die, wait: this is how one becomes a vampire."

[imeanforever]

"Oh. Yeah, I can't do that part."

[eversomuchfun]

"And if you're not human enough to eat you're definitely not human enough to turn."