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

[alicornucopia]

The magic offers him choices! Would he like his scaly bits to be real, actual silver? Would he like to sing with a choir of a thousand voices? Would he like to swap the locations of his nose and left eye, his right hand and right foot, and his left ear and belly button? Would he like to make any salt he touches turn into sugar, and vice versa? Would he like nothing?

[first_and_final]

...

Okay, he's tempted. He'll take the silver and change it back if he doesn't like it.

[alicornucopia]

The magic provides!

[first_and_final]

Now he has some real actual silver on him!

...

This actually causes it to stop sparkling.

Kithabel, I am conflicted, he says, after exiting the magic and confirming this fact in a giant conjured mirror. The magic changed my scales to genuine silver and I look much more reasonable but I kind of miss my outrageous sparkly glory.

[ertia]

I'm not a good aesthetics consult, I find you mesmerizingly beautiful no matter what, she points out.

[first_and_final]

True. Maybe I'll ask Berete.

He finds Berete.

[makeyourselfuseful]

"...Did you fall in a magic and lose your... sparkle?"

[first_and_final]

"Yes. Yes I did."

[makeyourselfuseful]

"Well, you look slightly less like gem-eyed Aelare's reptilian cupbearer, so good for you."

[first_and_final]

"Is that an actual thing?"

[makeyourselfuseful]

"It's the sort of thing I wouldn't be surprised to find in that sort of folk tale."

[first_and_final]

I think Berete just told me that my outrageous sparkly glory makes me look like the servant-or-possibly-concubine of a local god.

"Anyway, we successfully fixed the magics and now I might fly in and out of one a bunch of times because they're very entertaining."

[ertia]

Kithabel giggles.

[makeyourselfuseful]

"Don't let me stop you," says Berete.

[first_and_final]

So off Milan goes to fly into another magic.

[alicornucopia]

Does he want to taste like peanuts and artichokes? Does he want to be able to enjoy diamonds as though they were delicious candy and also stop having quite so many ribs and vertebrae? Does he want infinite strings of little clay beads to dangle from his ears, to be pulled and trimmed at any length? Does he want his knees backwards? Does he want an elephant's trunk and a lion's tail? Or does he want nothing?

[first_and_final]

... This time he wants nothing! But he's also totally circling back for another try.

[alicornucopia]

How about skin made of paper, layers and layers of it that he could write on and peel off? Would he like to be seven feet tall, most of that ostrich leg? Does he fancy going around with no neck, just his head hovering above his shoulders and thereby slightly increasing his range of motion and eliminating most tension headaches? Does he want to be a rather attractive decorative lamp fueled by milk and capable of minor prophecy about the weather?

[first_and_final]

He would like none of these things, and just for the hell of it he teleports to yet another magic.

[alicornucopia]

This one has a pool of what looks like liquified stained glass and a bat whose wings are made of paper fans and a statue of a mermaid that weeps blood.

Would he like to be a statue of a mermaid that weeps blood, too? Would he like to vanish outright? Would he like sixty-four coins in local currency, assorted, each of which will burn anyone who touches them but him, embedded in his arm but removable therefrom? Would he like to glow blindingly bright and catch fire upon exposure to high winds? Or nothing?

[first_and_final]

Aww, it didn't ask him if he wanted to be liquified stained glass. Not that he wants that either. He flies out of this one and circles back around.

[alicornucopia]

Is he sure he doesn't want to be a statue of a mermaid that weeps - lymph, this time, it is apparently happy to offer him lymph. Would he like to vanish for thirty years and then reappear with pointy teeth, purple eyes, and chickpeas for nipples? Would he like to be obliged to subsist on a diet of nothing but spinach and honey? Would he like to have transparent skin around his joints and for this to reveal complicated and attractive clockwork with gears and springs?

[first_and_final]

...This magic is coming on a little strong with the mermaid statue option. He will try a different one.

[alicornucopia]

Does he want a pony that will loyally follow him everywhere and eat his hair and starve if he makes it stop or ever removes hair from his head in any other way? Does he want his ears to be able to move about on his body of their own accord and prefer to hang out on his thighs? Does he want to be a centipede-taur? Does he want to fit in a teacup and be able to float like a soap bubble and be irresistibly delicious-smelling to cats and things that once were cats?

[first_and_final]

He would not like any of those things, but he sure would like another hilarious list!