shiny new world

[mrsparkle]

Sadde's running.

Not for any particular reason, just because it's faster. He's been meaning to go to one of the capitals for a bit and now, he supposes, is as good a time as any.

And eventually he's not running anymore, because he's close enough to civilisation that someone might spot him. Not that he wouldn't be able to notice them by scent before they saw him, but still. And as he makes his way to the Norway capital at this more leisurely pace, he notices the tiny, shiny key. He walks towards it and picks it up and immediately notices just how magic it is. He can tell by the way the key feels like things, and different things depending on where it is.

He verifies that what the key feels like is consistent in absolute location by waving it around a bit and seeing that the same place always feels the same. "Huh," he murmurs to himself.

He straightens up and thinks. The first obvious thing to try is seeing whether it opens any doors - a universal skeleton key sounds like the kind of thing a magical key could be - but the second obvious thing can be tested right there and then. He pushes the key into thin air with some purpose, as if he wanted to unlock an invisible door, and then turns it, et voilà, the faintest of door-shaped outlines appears before him.

He locks the door, and it disappears. Unlocks it again, and there it is. So he pulls it open and sees-

Comments

[mssparkle]

Eeeee snuggling!

Eventually she settles on a design that has a pair of limbs leaving from between her shoulder blades and separating into four "fingers" that end in blunted claws, with a fifth claw protruding from where the fingers join, and a thin membrane between all of them, basically a completely black version of this.

[from_scratch]

"Okay. You probably want to de-vampire as much as you can, I don't know how these will attach to a sculptureperson."

[mssparkle]

"Alright. I think I could pull off making these on my own but it'd probably take some trial and error to get them fully functional. I'm also already pretty non-vampire due to not wanting to squish you, it won't be too hard..." Pause. "Everything but nerves and blood vessels is human, now."

[from_scratch]

"Your wings will want a blood supply, can you do that?"

[mssparkle]

"I can generate blood, yeah, but I'll turn them vampire soon enough, they'll run on venom then."

[from_scratch]

"Okay, they should be okay for a second or two. I'll make them without nerves in the joints so you can chop 'em off if you want a new kind later, like mine, unless you have objections?"

[mssparkle]

"If they'll be a part of me I can make the nerves disappear at will. Should I get a tail, too?"

[from_scratch]

"It's up to you. I like mine, but not everybody gets one, they're not as useful as being able to fly. You can pick one later if you want. Ready?"

[mssparkle]

"Yeah, sure."

[from_scratch]

Wings!

[mssparkle]

She throws herself on the floor and curls up into a ball and wails.

[from_scratch]

"Sadde - Sadde? - what's wrong -?" Cam asks, scrambling to the floor beside her and hovering his hands over her, not sure whether to touch her or not.

[mssparkle]

She's turned her body human enough that she actually starts crying, and she tries contorting her way towards Cam without actually uncurling. She's not very successful, so she just reaches out for him with her arms, trying to pull him into a hug or, or something. "Didn't- didn't- think," she sobs.

[from_scratch]

Cam scoops her up into his lap and holds her. "Didn't think of what? What's wrong, can I help, I don't know if normal painkillers would work on you, is that even the problem -"

[mssparkle]

She whimpers and moans and sobs a bit. "Pain- I don't- turning, the venom's-!" She scrunches her eyes shut and tries to snuggle up, tries to make herself small, make herself disappear in Cam's arms. "Vampire venom- turning is- three days, pain, burns-" He might get an idea of just how much it hurts from the fact that it's enough to turn someone with a whole vampire's worth of brain into a sobbing incoherent mess.

[from_scratch]

"Do you want me to take the wings off?" he asks desperately.

[mssparkle]

"I- yes," she pleads.

[from_scratch]

Cam interpolates the joints with water, still cradling her.

[mssparkle]

Sadde helps along with biokinesis, and the wings fall off, and she lets out a breath she'd been holding - being partially human is weird - and slowly calms down, enough to explain: "Turning is a very painful process. It lasts three days, the venom reforms our whole body. I- should've expected this to happen, once the venom got into contact with it." She says it all in a small monotone.

[from_scratch]

"But this doesn't happen when you just - squish or desquish yourself..." Hug hug hug.

[mssparkle]

Hug! Cling. "I guess I'm not turning really human? I don't know, I don't actually know what's going on on a biological level, my power's awareness of what's going on is less specific than that. Maybe it's because my blood vessels are already dealing with the venom, maybe I'm just mimicking a human body, I don't know."

[from_scratch]

Pet pet. "Are you going to be okay?"

[mssparkle]

"Yeah, I'm fine now. I might want to try my hand at designing my own pair of wings, though. And if that fails, um, can I ask you to hug me throughout the process?"

[from_scratch]

"Of course. It's three days?"

[mssparkle]

"Turning the whole way, yeah. If it's just the wings, I think a few hours, from the way it started and their size. I can grow a tail myself, though, I've done that before."