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]

"Fair enough. I can't really defend it."

[from_scratch]

"If in defiance of your prophetic magic thing we do not so much work out and I don't want to be celibate forever are we going to have a problem."

[mssparkle]

Wince. "If in defiance of my prophetic magic thing we do not so much work out, you having sex with other people will not be my biggest problem."

[from_scratch]

"...Do I need to worry about you flinging yourself into a black hole, what's the deal there."

[mssparkle]

"I won't fling myself into a black hole. I won't be as... enthusiastic about anything, but I'll survive, and I'll probably keep on trying to be helpful and prosocial and all that."

[from_scratch]

"Okay. Geez, this is such a - what's the protocol back in your empire for mating to people who are not vampires?"

[mssparkle]

"Telling them about it, giving them pamphlets, with some luck get the magic princess to impart instant knowledge on them, if it works out they become vampires too and the couple lives happily ever after. Forcibly turning anyone is a crime, for whatever reason, and for as long as one doesn't actually look at a potential mate, there's no mate bond formed, so if the culprit is found before their mate has finished turning they are removed from the premises with more magic so that the victim doesn't get into a relationship they don't want."

[from_scratch]

"That's... good. That implies that forcible turning is a problem that needed a solution."

[mssparkle]

"It very much was, under the previous shadow government the only law was 'uphold the Masquerade,' with a few non-obvious consequences like 'do not turn children,' but forcibly turning someone one had mated to wasn't just common, it was expected."

[from_scratch]

"And if I were not an indestructible magic Hellcreature your opinion on this subject, being that we are presumably outside Imperial jurisdiction, would be..."

[mssparkle]

She looks horrified. "I wouldn't turn you! I mean, it didn't even occur to me until just now that you might be immune to it, but I'm in love with you, I wouldn't just- choose that for you, or force you, or, or something!"

[from_scratch]

"Why was it so common, weren't all these vampires in love?"

[mssparkle]

"Yes but they didn't tend to think of humans as actual people, only as snacks and the occasional source of a person."

[from_scratch]

"Even when they're in love with one."

[mssparkle]

"Ergo source of a person," she says, subdued. "The thing where drinking human blood made them more feral probably helped, but I'm grasping at straws, here, I don't know what was going on in their heads."

[from_scratch]

"And you escaped this by not having to cognitive dissonance yourself into eating them because magic?"

[mssparkle]

"I'm not the first vegetarian vampire. And, I don't know, when I turned I was very adamant about preferring to die than to become a serial murderer. Also most vampires didn't use to get much warning before being turned, but I got some, the person who turned me explained it all to me while I was still human and was very, erm, decent about not eating people and not letting me eat people while she was taking care of me during my newborn year."

[from_scratch]

"Okay. I don't mean to cast aspersions on your moral character or anything, just trying to figure out how many layers of mind-affecting gunk you're under."

[mssparkle]

"...mind-affecting gunk isn't very accurate. My brain works differently, there's a lot more room, but everything occupies a lot more space. I could spend hours staring at a mote of dust in the air, analysing the way light hit it or following it as drafts moved it about, scrutinising its shape, comparing it to the rest of the world, composing still images of it in my memory. A happy surprise is a wave of unending joy, a mild disappointment is crushing despair, hunger is an all-consuming need, the smell of blood is utmost temptation, I can go on being poetic for a bit but I think you get it. And then there are a few extra instincts installed, for how to move my body, how to react to other vampires, how to stalk and hunt."

[from_scratch]

"I wasn't thinking about your very cool-sounding brain architecture but mostly about the mate thing and the whatever it is that makes people go slurp when they have turned into vampires and encounter their fellow bipeds."

[mssparkle]

"I know. The whatever it is that makes people go slurp is that humans smell and taste just that good. The mate thing is... harder to explain, I suppose, it is an extra magical thing that's tacked on, but I think it may be perfectly explainable by love times brain architecture... times a hundred maybe, I think even if a vampire falls in love with a non-mate the feeling's less intense."

[from_scratch]

Cam sighs. "Well. This is weird. But you seem pretty functional except for the inopportune growling and insatiable sex drive."

[mssparkle]

"That was the first time I growled in a year and a half, I can probably refrain from doing it in the future."

[from_scratch]

"It's not the growling itself that disconcerted me - it didn't bother me when it was a 'ooh, we are about to have sex' growl - it's the underlying unsettling fact that you are, through no fault of your own, internally very possessive about a period of time during which - how old are you?"

[mssparkle]

"Twenty-six, yes I know I wasn't alive then," she sighs.