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]

"Does the control mechanism do anything useful like, say, let me forbid adding extraneous Bondmates he doesn't even want, or is it just creepy and horrible."

[first_and_final]

"It won't do a thing about forming more Bonds," says Saravasse. "It is mostly just as you say. I suppose if he does acquire another Bondmate and they try to force him to do things you can play keep-away."

"What a delightful mental image," mutters Milan.

"I also advise consulting a unicorn if you're going to continue doing these sorts of experiments," says Saravasse. "A unicorn might be able to tell you things such as what happens if your Bondmates start playing keep-away with your free will."

"By all means, do send someone to fetch me a unicorn," says Milan.

[ertia]

"Please," agrees Kithabel emphatically. "A unicorn who can tell us such information seems like just the thing."

[first_and_final]

Saravasse turns to the rest of the dragons. "One of you fetch me a unicorn!" she calls.

"Why?"

"Where am I going to find a unicorn?"

"Oh, I'll do it," sighs Atuona, and she takes off.

"Thank you," says Milan.

"I would prefer to avoid you causing some sort of horrible disaster," says Saravasse.

"So would we all, I'm sure."

[ertia]

"I hate horrible disasters."

[first_and_final]

Atuona returns, with a unicorn. Everyone makes way for the unicorn to come to the door.

"Hello," says the unicorn. "The Wild Magic says thank you for all these dragons."

"The Wild Magic is welcome. What's the Wild Magic?"

"It's like gods but better," says the unicorn.

[ertia]

"For those of us who didn't grow up with gods?"

[first_and_final]

"It knows a lot and it wants to help people but it can't do very many things so it needs to get unicorns and Wildmages to get things done for it."

"That's not a lot like gods," says Milan.

"Gods know fewer things than the Wild Magic, but can do more," says the unicorn.

"Okay, fair."

[ertia]

"So can you assuage our various worries about our possible course of action?"

[first_and_final]

"What are your worries?"

"How likely am I to end up with an extra Bondmate I'll regret if I turn into a dragon? How horribly will it turn out if I do and Kithabel has to rescue me from them? What is up with the mental sharing thing? Will I in fact be able to resurrect Kithabel on the spot before succumbing to Bondmate loss myself if she ever dies? Is there anything else we don't know about and should?"

"That is a lot of worries. Just a moment," says the unicorn. He swishes his tail and closes his eyes and thinks hard for a bit, and then he says:

"You only Bond to people you're going to like and get along with and mostly you are only going to like and get along with people who aren't the sort of people who you'd need rescuing from because you are lucky and perceptive. It would be pretty horrible if she had to rescue you but it would probably turn out okay unless there was some other kind of magic involved that the Wild Magic has never heard of. You'd be a really young dragon so you won't do hardly any mental sharing at all. You are very fast and won't have trouble resurrecting your Bonded. You should talk to a unicorn before trying to do most things you might think of to do with this world's magic, but resurrecting dragons is fine and turning people into dragons is fine too. Once somebody is a dragon they can't not be a dragon ever again no matter what, so you should be really sure you want to be a dragon before you try turning into one."

The unicorn pauses for breath, then adds, "You can only be the thing that's like a Dragonbond but has to do with being sparkly while you are the thing that is why you are sparkly, but you're right that anyone who has a sparkly Dragonbond would get a real Dragonbond if someone involved turned into a dragon."

"...Noted," says Milan.

[ertia]

Kithabel giggles at this description of mate bonds. "But he doesn't want to be a dragon forever. I mean, I assume. And we just turned a dragon into a human and back again..."

[first_and_final]

"Sorry," says the unicorn, "there's a difference between being a dragon and being shaped like a dragon. You changed a dragon's shape but you didn't make her not a dragon anymore, she was just a human-shaped dragon for a little while."

"So being human-shaped is, for example, no refuge from accumulating more Dragonbonds?"

"Yes, exactly," says the unicorn. "And it won't make you stop being Bonded to your Bondmates or anything. You can change a dragon's shape but not their dragon-ness."

[ertia]

"The whole 'mesmerizing beauty' thing, if Milan just - turns invisible whenever somebody starts gazing at him too enthusiastically - will that work?"

[first_and_final]

"...It also works if the dragon sees the not dragon and Milan is very good at seeing things," says the unicorn.

"True," says Milan.

[ertia]

"Well, so much for that idea unless we plan on the use of my creepy control powers as a failsafe..."

[first_and_final]

"This is all very weird," says the unicorn.

"Won't catch me arguing with that," says Milan.

"But it's good that you resurrected so many dragons," says the unicorn. "...The Wild Magic says that if you're ever somewhere where there aren't any unicorns and you need to ask a unicorn about something, you can resurrect Tialle. I'm not sure why her specifically. Maybe because she's been dead for a really long time but I happen to know her name to tell you it." He pauses. "And it says it might want to send a unicorn to your world to get some of your magic and bring it back and Dragonbond with it. I didn't even know unicorns could Dragonbond but I guess if we had a kind of magic that worked for it we could."

[ertia]

"So sorcery will work as a Dragonbondable magic?"

[first_and_final]

"Yes," says the unicorn. "If you show a unicorn someone with a kind of magic they can tell you whether it will work for Dragonbonds or not, because the Wild Magic knows."

"How useful."

"...And you can only get a Dragonbond if you do have a kind of magic that works, I forgot to say that part out loud when I was telling you about the sparkly Dragonbonds."

"How is the Wild Magic telling you all this?"

"It's because I'm a unicorn. Don't turn people into unicorns."

[ertia]

"And unicorns will definitely... work... even if we resurrect Tialle in another world or something."

[first_and_final]

"Unicorns extremely work," says the unicorn.

Milan snorts.

[ertia]

"Good for unicorns. Okay, the major problems I'm foreseeing are still extraneous Bondmates... and the possibility that Milan dies and I don't, because I could get him back but resurrection does start you at zero momentum. I'll come back omnipotent regardless if I have a dragon Milan but he won't have that advantage. But this was sort of already a problem and is not a special dragon-related problem."

[first_and_final]

"I can cheat hard enough at acceleration that I won't mind too badly if I have to start over one day," says Milan. "Although - can the Wild Magic tell which of my properties would survive resurrection?"

"The thing that hurts and makes you very fast is really stubborn about staying with you," says the unicorn. "The sparkly magic healing thing that makes you almost impossible to kill in the first place is almost but not quite that stubborn and you might have to become the thing that is why you are sparkly again in order to get it back if you died, but just turning into a dragon won't budge it."

"The thing that is why I am sparkly is called being a vampire," Milan supplies.

[ertia]

"Is the Bondmates thing all vision based? If both parties are turned invisible and then kept separated...?"

[first_and_final]

"You find out you are going to Bond when you look at someone and they are prettier than a unicorn," says the unicorn, who is indeed very but not quite mesmerizingly pretty. "Then if you look in their eyes you Bond. It would work differently for someone who didn't have eyes or couldn't see at all, but if you don't look in someone's eyes and don't spend hours or days staring at them you won't Bond."

"Okay," says Milan.

[ertia]

"So we could potentially avoid it entirely with quickly applied invisibility both ways and then having me run interference."