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

[pythbox]

I think I should meet you in person, says Liselen to the hermit dragon.

Won't that be interesting, says the hermit dragon.

The Wild Magic is being very confusing but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be recommending you to go help someone take over a world if you were evil. That is not at all the sort of thing it would do.

And how would it know how evil I am or am not?

How should I know? I'm just a unicorn. But if anyone was going to be a not-evil Endarkened, Tialle's Demon sounds like the right one.

[ertia]

What precisely is or was an Endarkened?

[pythbox]

The Endarkened were the children of He-Who-Is, says the hermit dragon.

Which is sort of like being made of the Dark, says Liselen. I think. They were all really evil and then someone did a miracle and killed them and then there weren't any more. Except for this one somehow. But if he wasn't Dark anymore, I guess the miracle would've left him alone...

[ertia]

You guess.

[pythbox]

Send me to go poke Tialle's Demon and I'll know for sure. Unicorns detect the Dark.

And destroy it, the hermit dragon points out.

Yes, well, if I thought you might actually be Dark I wouldn't be suggesting I go visit you because that sounds terrifying!

[ertia]

Kithabel sends Liselen off to visit.

[pythbox]

Liselen visits.

Liselen reports, I poked Tialle's Demon and he isn't Dark, and he hasn't tried to kill me or anything.

[ertia]

Kithabel retrieves the unicorn. Is 'Dark' definitely the right criterion to think in terms of?

[pythbox]

Well, if he'd been Dark that would definitely have been a good reason not to send him to go take over a world... and the Wild Magic did specifically recommend him for the going and taking over a world thing, and I really don't think the Wild Magic would do that if it didn't trust him a whole lot.

[ertia]

Hermit dragon and bondmate thereof, d'you by any chance share Jewel's casual attitude towards being mindread?

[pythbox]

I expect we do, says the hermit dragon.

[ertia]

So it's okay if I just check you out rather than trying to get Liselen to explain what 'Dark' even means or what causes the Wild Magic to trust people et cetera?

[pythbox]

It seems like that would be faster. Go on.

[ertia]

Peep.

[endragoned]

Yep, that sure is one person in two bodies.

Tialle's Demon is approximately twelve thousand years old. The first thousand or so of those years were spent in Shadow Mountain, home of the Endarkened, where he was frequently tortured, usually in an attempt to punish him for not enjoying other people's suffering enough. He really doesn't enjoy other people's suffering. Eventually he escaped and found a dragon, and it turned out that they were extremely fundamentally similar, so much so that the mental sharing inherent in their Bond never ended and they continue to share a consciousness to this day.

Ever since they Bonded, they have been living together on a remote island being quietly lonely and quietly resigned to the inevitability of one day being found and killed either by enough other Endarkened to overpower them or by non-Endarkened who will expect Tialle's Demon to be as cruel and dangerous and terrifying as the rest of his kind.

They are somewhat suspicious of Kithabel, but they are content to wait and see how trustworthy she turns out to be. And if she really does introduce them to another of the same sort-of-person, and if they really can Bond to that person (the last time they spoke to another sapient creature was long before multiple Dragonbonds were a thing), then they will be very happy about that.

The similarities to Jewel are pervasive and obvious. The way Jewel refused to participate in the Hunger Games and the way Tialle's Demon refused to participate in the torture-centric Endarkened culture share a nearly identical underlying attitude.

[ertia]

Yep, says Kithabel, that sure is three of one person, that's weird. Jewel, you may expect to experience permanent mindsharey-whatnot in this particular case if you do the staring-bonding thing.

[no_return]

Jewel shrugs. Okay.

[ertia]

Yeah, I thought you'd say that. Any last minute objections to me fetching the hermit dragon and beloved thereof?

[no_return]

Nope.

[ertia]

Fetch.

[endragoned]

The hermit dragon and his beloved proceed into Milliways.

The hermit dragon's beloved is six and a half feet tall, winged, tailed, bright red, and not wearing pants.

[ertia]

The dragon's beloved is now wearing pants. "Milliways has a rule against nudity," she says.

[endragoned]

"Hm? Oh." He looks down and shrugs.

[no_return]

And Jewel looks into the dragon's brilliant green eyes.



"Wow, okay," he says, laughing. "Omnipotence. Cool."

[ertia]

"...You'll want to set up a thing so you only do stuff when you mean to."