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

[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!

[alicornucopia]

Does he want to slowly disintegrate into confetti every time he moves until there is too little of him to do anything and he explodes in a shower of fireworks? Does he want to have the ability to shapeshift into whoever the person nearest him is thinking of, and be unable to turn that off? Does he want his lower jaw to be made of aspic? Does he want to cough up butterflies every time he would otherwise get the hiccups? Does he want to bleed scrambled eggs?

[first_and_final]

He does not want any of these things.

But after briefly contemplating what the experience of the first one would be like...

You know, he says to Kithabel, it occurs to me that a few of the things these magics are offering sound like things someone might want once and then cease to want later.

(He loops back for another round because why not.)

[ertia]

I'll make them cough up a reversal option for previous accepters.

Does he want to undo his silver thing? Does he want three extra sets of genitals, various? Does he want a unicorn horn and a narwhal tusk and a rhinoceros horn, all in clashing rainbow patterns? Does he want to photosynthesize when exposed to bioluminescence and find this extremely painful, if nutritious? Does he want to uncontrollably dance when he hears string instruments? Does he want to fall into a century-long sleep and wake up unharmed except for bear paws on his elbows?

[first_and_final]

Excellent.

He wants nothing, although he seriously considers the photosynthesis thing. But his fairy curse might decide it ought to make him irreversibly bioluminesce or something, and then he'd look even more like the quasi-concubine of the god of utter nonsense.

...And he totally wants another list.

[alicornucopia]

Does he want to be a throw pillow, with pretty tassels and a picture of his face embroidered on one side opposite a cross-stitch of his rear? Does he want to sprout seventeen pairs of wings, some in highly uncomfortable places? Does he want to be able to send his left hand off by itself on adventures with verbal instructions as long as the verbal instructions include that it is to slap someone hard across the face? Does he want to emit dissonant chords in a variety of instrumental sounds at noon and midnight every day, or constantly if he changes time zones quickly?

[first_and_final]

No. None of that. None of those things.

Flying in and out of magics is hilarious.