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]

"Let's go get you something yummy from Bar. She might be able to tell what you can eat, that seems up her alley."

[first_and_final]

"...So," says Milan, "there's another feature of vampires which Addy seems to have forgotten about and which she had better explain to you before you make any irrevocable decisions about this."

[ertia]

"...Uh? Wait, don't vampires have perfect memories? Are you okay?"

[first_and_final]

"I'm fine," says Milan. "I'm... at a bit of a loss to describe the thing. Addy, this is your fault, you can do the explaining."

[taste_tester]

"It is not my fault that you are a gooey feelings person," Addy asserts. "And we have perfect recall, not context-sensitive guarantees that all relevant information will float to mind at the right moment! Anyway. Those vampires inclined to squishy feelings sometimes fixate them on a single approximately compatible person forever. Conveniently, you never have vampire A pining for vampire B who pines for vampire C, or anything. Congratulations? I think that's the usual response?"

[ertia]

"What."

[first_and_final]

"Addy neglected to mention this and now I apparently have a magical vampire crush on you!" exclaims Milan. "It's very disconcerting! ...Actually not all that surprising in retrospect, but I was sure surprised when it happened!"

[ertia]

"A magical eternal vampire crush on me."

[first_and_final]

"Apparently. And apparently one which will be magically reciprocated if you, too, turn into a vampire."

[ertia]

"That's, um, a thing. Are you going to be sad if I decide this is too much of a thing."

[first_and_final]

"...Not that sad, I don't think," he says after a moment of internal consultation. "Moderately, tolerably sad. Honestly I'd be more frustrated that we got that close to you being able to cheat almost as hard as I can at sorcery and then this weird awkward property of vampirism got in the way. Like, that's terrible."

[ertia]

"Because, like... when I decided to be a sorceress I basically decided I was limiting my social life to my parents and like... business contacts. I like you, and everything, and there's Milliways to make it less of a tradeoff to have other uses of my time, but I hadn't swung all the way into actually thinking about it yet."

[first_and_final]

"Well, it's not like you don't have time to think it over," says Milan.

[ertia]

"I'm not sure I do, how long is Addy available?"

[taste_tester]

"Till I meet someone more interesting you in the bar. But he could turn you too. Doesn't look like he's the least bit inclined to go all newborny and accidentally kill you."

[first_and_final]

"Yeah, even if I were in any way uncertain about my ability to peaceably bite you, I didn't get the impression that literal biting was actually required? So Addy is totally not necessary to this process."

[taste_tester]

"Just have to introduce venom into the system."

[ertia]

"This is very much a, like, quaternary concern, but will I have a scar like that?"

[taste_tester]

"No. Well, probably not. You have fewer weird things going on than he does and it's not normal."

[first_and_final]

"I'm as certain as it gets that the scar is the curse's fault," says Milan. "The curse has strong opinions about scars. It made me inherit some of my dad's."

[ertia]

"Well, they're all gone now." Pause. "What is it like?"

[first_and_final]

"...I'm not sure... how useful a description I can give? It's like having a crush on you, while being a vampire." He waves at his intricately dancing streams of water. "Witness the expanded attentional capacity of vampires."

[ertia]

...Kithabel looks at the expanded attentional capacity of vampires.

"Did you notice it before you found me or only after?"

[first_and_final]

"Only after. In retrospect there might've been something beforehand but when I looked at you is when it became extremely noticeable."

[ertia]

"Is this starting from scratch or did you previously have a normal nonmagical crush on me?"