She's met the people in her dorm already but that's not nearly enough. One of the points of even being here at all is networking, right? Right. And the fact that the dom toward whom she's making a beeline right now is cute as a button has nothing to do with it. Nope.
"Excuse me?" she asks, managing to sound very small despite standing up while he's sitting down. "Is this seat taken?"
"Not the way it's shaping up. The memory is still out there, somewhere, but I can't get the... Pointer to it back after letting it go. Maybe... Hmm... If it's like a pointer, I could just save the pointers... Except it's not just a code I can look things up with... I mean, that seems possible to do, but it's not a priority, y'know?"
"You know, I've almost forgotten what I was so upset about five minutes ago. Thank you for some pleasant conversation. Now I want to go find my laptop and program something instead of wanting to not tell anyone to do anything ever again."
"Just don't forget that some people enjoy being told what to do very much. Have fun with your programming."
"Count on it. Maybe if I can find an artist I'll make a game, that'd be fun... Anyway, bye!"
He gathers up the pile of stuff and off he goes, well cheered up. Good job, Sadde.
And she still has some food to finish but after that she can try to work some more on Jackson. Or maybe even run into Wendy, that would be more fun.
Wendy isn't in the dining hall, but she is sitting on one of the benches in the campus square, doing something like hands-free juggling with marbles floating in the air.
(...Marbles about the size of those little vibrator beads from that time with Dominic)
Well that stirs up a memory or two. She walks over to Wendy. "Hello, there."
"Being plain about things, I get a lot of strongly worded advice from my family about what to learn and what to do when I graduate. Thing is, I haven't heard from anyone except them and the internet what kinds of things I should try to do with my magic. I love them, but they aren't the most creative people in the world, and the internet is... The internet. Anyway. Can you talk to me about it? Maybe help me think of other options besides plain old teekay and elementalism?"
"Yeah, of course. Also a good moment for me to make my pitch for age-reversal."
"Well, I sure want that for myself. I'm slightly nervous about- Healing seems like a good way to burn out, you know? I read about it happening to nurses and doctors."
"Yeah, I understand that. I think it might actually be easier on eclipsed, we mostly don't have to worry about being unable to save a patient after a certain point, the magic can in fact take care of anything. I read about this one mage who saved a guy whose heart stopped by supplying oxygen to his brain using magic while she fixed everything else."
Sigh. "But, like- If I know how to de-age people, when I'm not doing that I'm condemning someone to suffer infirmity and die. People aren't selfless, nobody expects them to be selfless, but I read this book where the main character had some fatal disease and coincidentally made friends with a mage and the mage said sorry, I only work from my waiting list and that was just... Heart-wrenching. I think I'd always feel vaguely guilty watching a movie or flirting with someone or sleeping when I could be - at a hospital."
"I don't think I'd see it that way because—well, for one, the only way I'll be able to actually save a maximum number of people in the long term is if I maintain my sanity. If I save a bunch of people in a one-year burst then get burnt out, that's much worse than spacing it out and spreading it throughout several years—centuries even, since I myself would be immortal. Lives saved today trade off with lives saved tomorrow, the trade isn't 'if you don't save Annie she will die when you could have saved her,' the trade is 'I will forgo saving a specific person today so that I can save ten more people next year.'"
"Mm. And like I said, I know that when I think about it. But I don't feel that way... God, I always go into a subby mood for days when I start thinking about this kind of thing."
"Yeah, if you don't think it'd be sustainable at all then you'll probably do more good to the world doing something else."
"Maybe I could do it and I should learn healing. I don't know. Terry's a good friend but he just said to make sure I set rules for myself so I won't burn out. Don't think I can do that consistently. And - that story had a sad ending because the mage had his rules. I've prayed about this but that doesn't usually give you a good answer either."
"I think the story had a sad ending because the mage had the wrong rules. You have to use rules that are good for—you and other people, that will help you too, you're also a person not just a tool to be used and used up."
Sigh. "Yeah, I guess so... I'll think about it. I've been working on expanding my teekay lately anyway. Not sure where to start on healing type things."
"To me it starts from biokinesis, generalised, it was the easiest one to focus on. But anyway, do you wanna talk about other options? I don't wanna just defend my choices here without giving others a fair shake."
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
