delta v over delta t when there is no t

[ertia]

In a bar, there is a girl.

She looks like she has saved up all of her decadent and slothful impulses for a solid decade and is indulging them all at once. She is sprawled on a couch with a book she's only half-reading, and an ice cream sundae, and smiiiiiiling.

Comments

[first_and_final]

"Please just stop," he says firmly.

[ertia]

"Okay, fine."

[first_and_final]

"Thank you."

[ertia]

"Any other questions?"

[first_and_final]

"Oh, lots, I just haven't adjusted to the new mindset yet so they're not coming to me in a convenient order."

[ertia]

"Okay. Well, while you're thinking of them, Bar over there is sapient, friendly, and will give you a free drink."

[first_and_final]

"...How very... friendly of her...?"

[ertia]

"It is!"

[first_and_final]

"I'm going to go around being unnecessarily suspicious of a lot of things, I think."

[ertia]

"Because... you worry they will squish you?"

[first_and_final]

"Not exactly. It's just that at home, many of the possible explanations for a friendly magic bar that gives away free drinks are... unpromising. I'm not even thinking of specific examples when I say that, it's just a feeling I have."

[ertia]

"Well, skip it if you want, I don't think she'll be too offended. I can make beverages too if that's more comfortable. Although I took one from Bar because she could come up with things I'd never heard of to make."

[first_and_final]

He shrugs. "I have time to think it over, I guess."

[ertia]

"Yeah, I'm probably going to be lazing around in here for days. Longer if I accidentally let my sleep schedule slip, so I can get it back on track."

[first_and_final]

"I definitely think I'm going to need a better tutorial on how to go about sorcering before I try to actually enter your world, but I'm not sure what to ask for exactly."

[ertia]

"I could... do something little and walk you through what I'm thinking?"

[first_and_final]

"Sure, that sounds useful."

[ertia]

"Any preferences?"

[first_and_final]

"Not off the top of my head, because one of the things I'm still missing is a functional intuition for which things you can do exactly. I don't have anything that needs healing and I'm actually a little worried that being healed with sufficient comprehensiveness would zero out my accumulated pain totals and then where would I be... I think you said you can conjure food and drink...?"

[ertia]

"Yes. It's not minor; should I just conjure something or conjure something that's imperfect in some way and then fix it?"

[first_and_final]

"Sure, conjure an imperfect thing, why not."

[ertia]

"Heh, this'll actually be a little tricky..."

After a moment's thought she produces a slice of toast that is too toasty on one end.

"Okay, so," she says, brandishing the toast, "here's this toast. Toast is for eating, and it has this feature that makes it less pleasant to eat," tap tap, "because hypothetically I left it in the fireplace too long, and now I have to either eat around that part or toast a new slice. That's inconvenient! It's not the end of the world, sure, but why should anything even be inconvenient? It's not like this toast has its own competing goal to be black on one side or like it is a sacrifice on my part to appease somebody, it's just inconvenient. ...It's sort of hard to walk through all this without actually fixing the toast, wow. Okay, so: I am a person. I am capable of magic. This toast's condition is in my way. I didn't say it could burn, and I do not say it can stay burned, and it's going to - there it goes." The toast is now perfectly golden brown. And buttered. She offers it to Milan.

[first_and_final]

...Milan takes the toast.

"That's... interesting," he says. "And I think I can see a little of what you mean about it being creepy when applied to people, but what, actually, is the thought process for healing?"

[ertia]

"Well, if you're good at it, it gets less like this, I'm told, but sort of a - hang on, you don't want to be healed so I'm not gonna look directly at you while I monologue about it," she turns around. "This is my person, it is wrong that my person should have suffered damage, it must stop at once, how dare harm intrude on the borders of what is mine like that person over there I demand that it stop."

[first_and_final]

"...Huh. That's not how I'd go about it if I were hubristically demanding that the universe conform to my expectations as regards people being harmed," he says. "I wonder if the difference is significant or if my way would work just as well."