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

[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."

[ertia]

"What's your way?" she asks, turning to look at him again.

[first_and_final]

"I - hm - it's a little difficult to articulate, but it goes something like: this is a problem, and it's been brought to my attention so it's now my problem, and it will now proceed to be fixed because I will accept no less," he says. "Thinking of the person as 'mine' would involve a - level of commitment that I'm not sure is appropriate to the task. I could heal someone who was my friend or my teammate your way, but for a more 'that person over there' sort of situation I'm better off relying on the bottomless depths of my hubristic and meddlesome nature if I possibly can. Thinking of a person as mine is a long-term assumption of responsibility, the way my mind works; thinking of a problem as mine just requires noticing it and giving in to my instinctive response."

[ertia]

"Well, I guess that might work, although it's not how it's usually taught. I find it pretty easy to take temporary mental ownership of a person but if you have trouble putting them down again it'd be worth seeing if your thing works."

[first_and_final]

"My outlook's a bit feudal, comes of where I grew up. I guess we'll see if I can succeed with the alternate method."

[ertia]

"If it works I might try it, although I'm almost to the point where I don't have to go stepwise at all."

[first_and_final]

"Happy to help." Pause. "Because I am hubristic and meddlesome."

[ertia]

She giggles.

[first_and_final]

He grins.

[ertia]

"If you do approach my level we're going to have to talk territory. Unless you're happy enough just playing with pointless things in a corner somewhere."

[first_and_final]

"My end goal is still overthrowing the gods; if I have to spend a while playing with pointless things in a corner somewhere first, so be it. But I'd really rather cooperate, and if cooperating is as intractable as all that, I'll take a neighbouring territory if one is on offer."

[ertia]

"It's not completely intractable. Cooperating sorceren can do bigger projects as long as they can agree on what they're aiming at in sufficient detail. It'd just mean we'd have to find bigger projects to do."

[first_and_final]

"I'm sure we can come up with those."

[ertia]

"Quite likely. And I just recently gave the local rulers of things beads to talk to me from a distance so they can call me up for anything me-sized; if you get significant momentum I can notify them that me-sized has taken a jump."

[first_and_final]

"Well. We'll see how well my fairy blessing helps me along."

[ertia]

"Yep."