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

[from_scratch]

"You want to summon me to another room of the house? That might fail even if you normally can do summons, the only precedent is from the mortal world."

[mrsparkle]

"If I fail here is that gonna prevent me from succeeding in the future?"

[from_scratch]

"No. Well, not as far as I know, there's no reason it should."

[mrsparkle]

"Then a negative in this test won't tell us much, but a positive will tell us a lot, so there's no reason we shouldn't try."

[from_scratch]

"Sure." Cam hands him a piece of paper and a marker.

[mrsparkle]

And he zips to another room and copies the circle perfectly.

[from_scratch]

And Cam disappears from his original location and appears in the circle. "Ta-da."

[mrsparkle]

Sadde hugs him. "This is the best magic."

[from_scratch]

"I thought you'd like it."

[mrsparkle]

"I wonder if it works in other universes. ...are you technically summoned? Can summonings happen in sequence, or should I dismiss you?"

[from_scratch]

"...Good question. Try dismissing me. ...If you're psychologically capable of concentrating on wanting me to go away for a minute, which I suppose is an open question."

[mrsparkle]

"...can you qualify the 'wanting you to go away' part?"

[from_scratch]

"I mean, wanting me to be back in the other room should work just as well, but dismissal does involve concentrating on the result, namely, no more summoned demon."

[mrsparkle]

"Okay, I guess I probably can do that."

So he pushes away the part of him that doesn't want to ever let go of Cam and tries to focus on him being in the other room (and then going to that other room to hug him more).

[from_scratch]

Cam stands there patiently waiting, tail swishing idly. A minute is such a long time.

[mrsparkle]

It's a terribly, terribly long time.

Is the minute up yet?

[from_scratch]

Yup, there he goes. Pop.

[mrsparkle]

Vampire superspeed to the boyfriend! He doesn't pounce the boyfriend with the superspeed because that wouldn't be nice; he decelerates and then hugs.

[from_scratch]

Hugs. "So, the real test of whether I count as summoned while that's ongoing would be to leave me summoned for a while, long enough that it would be weird if no humans were summoning random demons, and see if I can feel the pulls."

[mrsparkle]

"How long's that likely to be? Did you get any pulls this last month? And can't I try to summon you twice?"

[from_scratch]

"There's usually several in a week, sometimes a few a day. Sometimes more if there's some coordinated multi-demon effort."

[mrsparkle]

"Not that long, then. Should we try it?"

[from_scratch]

"Sure. You'll need to draw a new circle, that one's used up."

[mrsparkle]

"...I have a few questions about that, but lemme draw a new circle first."

So he goes and does that.

[from_scratch]

Cam appears in it. "Questions?"