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I broke a windowpane
enslaving elementals offends Kanimir grievously
Permalink Mark Unread

Kanimir is, as he often is, sitting in his library enjoying a book on magic and pondering theoretical innovation. He has an idea; he writes it down. It probably won't pan out, most of them don't, but it might.

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There is a faint hollering sound from overhead. It gets suddenly louder as the skylight irises open like a science-fictional door and two people drop through it, one a human and one an oddly glowing and shadowed person with a sort of wing-outline she seems to be using to slow their fall. They collapse on his carpet.

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--This is surprising. For a variety of reasons. He rises and walks over to peer at them, murmuring under his breath.

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The human looks at him warily. She's squeezing glowyshadowperson's hand. She says something in a very foreign language.

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Hmm.

He murmurs something else under his breath, and then says, "Excuse me, who are you?"

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"I'm Maurabel and this is Penumbra. Sorry about your skylight. I can fix it."

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"The skylight is of relatively minor consequence; it can be repaired easily. What is Penumbra and why are the two of you here?"

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"Penumbra is her name and also what she is. We're - exploring."

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"Exploring for a purpose or for the pure joy of the frontier? What are the characteristics of a Penumbra?"

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"...to see what was here. She's a kind of combined Shadow/Shine elemental."

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"What is an elemental?"

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"A kind of person..."

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"Yes, obviously. Am I mistaken in assuming she is inherently magical in some way? She certainly seems to be."

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"She is, but so are a lot of humans."

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"She is inherently magical in a way I am not currently familiar with, and I am familiar with a great many kinds of magic."

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"Elementals have a lot of one or two elements of magic and mage humans have some of three or more."

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"And one of yours overlaps with one of hers? --I have a magic sense active."

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"...yeah, I don't have any Shadow but I have some Shine."

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"What are the elements?"

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"Glass lightning water earth wood shine fire adamant stone air ice shadow."

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"Do you have any idea why those are the elements?"

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"...no."

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"Oh well. Do you know whether anyone else does?"

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"I don't think they do."

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"Oh well. How does using magic work?"

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"What do you mean exactly?"

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"What kinds of moving parts does it have?"

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"Which elements are in use and what you're trying to do with them and... how much capacity you have? And if you're a human you can borrow capacity from a - helpful elemental."

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"Is doing magic a mental or physical action?"

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"Mental. Is there some reason you're so curious about this in particular -"

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"Because it's magic? If I'm asking the wrong questions to understand your magic do enlighten me."

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"They're... not bad questions, just not what I was expecting to discuss immediately with whoever we landed on."

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"Most people have priorities not involving magic, for some reason," he allows.

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"You clearly already have some, what do you do with it? Besides... translate for skylight-breaking visitors."

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"Protect my sister and I from being killed and learn more magic, mostly."

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"Are people trying to kill you?"

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"Not as much the last few hundred years."

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"...are you a human?"

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"Vampire."

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"I don't know what that is. I think we only have humans and elementals. Elementals are immortal but humans don't live very long."

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"I used to be human, but then I stopped."

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"...Huh."

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"Vampires are similar to humans but immortal and sustained by blood. And with a few other alterations."

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"...so like not very immortal the way elementals are."

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"Oh. No. I wouldn't need to put as much effort into wards if I were very immortal. Elementals are truly immortal?"

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"I think so."

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"Convenient."

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"Yeah. Why were people trying to kill you?"

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"Because I was a vampire, because I was a 'witch,' because I was a threat to my half-siblings' inheritance..."

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"People don't like vampires? Or - people with magic?"

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"Most people these days don't understand that they're real. Most people a few centuries ago did, but knew very little that was accurate and quite a bit that was wrong and abhorrent."

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"Gotcha. - What's your name?"

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"Kanimir."

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"Nice to meet you."

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"Likewise."

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"Do you happen to have a place we could crash at least until Penumbra can move us on?"

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"Certainly. I have a guest wing."

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"Wow."

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"I house and feed people in exchange for their blood."

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"Oh, I'd been assuming goats or something. I guess that works."

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"Animal blood doesn't work very well."

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"- doesn't work? Not, doesn't taste good -? Work at what function?"

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"It keeps us alive, but it has--degenerative mental effects over time. From what I can tell the effect is roughly that drinking a creature's blood as a vampire pulls one closer to the creature in mind and body. With humans the effect is utterly negligible. With animals--well. The mind goes first."

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"Eesh."

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"Yes. I avoid it."

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"Although now I'm sorta curious what an elemental's blood would do."

"Um," says Penumbra.

"You don't have to try it," Maurabel assures her.

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"I would be interested in finding a willing donor to try it with but have no interest in breaking my habit of only drinking from meaningfully consenting persons."

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"So it's definitely not risky to try it just once?"

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"Drinking from an animal once would have no adverse effects, and if one does drink enough to have adverse effects, returning to a consistent diet of human blood eventually reverses it; as long as elementals are as intelligent as humans I have no expectation that the adverse effects, if any, would be intolerable to wait out."

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"They are," says Maurabel. "Although Penumbra's shy."

Penumbra hides behind an invisible wing. This is not very effective.

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"Oh, is that why you're speaking for her?"

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"Yeah."

"Sorry," says Penumbra.

"I don't mind."

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"I assumed there was a reason."

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"Could I maybe go in the guest wing and take a nap?" asks Penumbra.

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"Certainly."

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"...where is it?"

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"I can lead you there."

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Penumbra gets up. Maurabel gets up too but sits in a chair.

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Kanimir leads Penumbra to a guest room.

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"Thank you."

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"You're welcome."

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She pets the bedspread curiously.

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He raises an eyebrow.

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...she looks awkwardly at him.

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"Something you're curious about?"

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"I... haven't seen this fabric before... weren't you talking to Maurabel..."

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"Yes. Have a nice nap." He turns to go back to the library.

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She is peering at his books. "So I guess your translation magic is on you not me, or doesn't work on text, which is it? Our magic can't do that at all."

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"The version I'm using right now is bidirectional, realtime-communication based, ranged, and focused on myself."

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"...would it work on text if only you watched me write?"

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"It would also work if you watched me write."

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"Do you have versions which are unidirectional or not ranged or focused on other people or not based in real time?"

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"Yes, this one I could cast on anyone. Ones which aren't based in realtime need a corpus of the languages translated between to refer to. Not ranged as in point-blank or as in unlimited range?"

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"You mentioned 'ranged' in its characteristics so I assumed it could have been otherwise."

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"Yes, there are ones which are not ranged."

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"Point blank would've required you to touch us? When you cast it or while we talked?"

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"Depends on the spell. There are also spells that don't specifically require touch that have two or more focuses and apply only to them."

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"Focuses?"

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"People the spell is attached to."

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"How'd you pick this version?"

(She has fixed his skylight in his absence.)

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"If you turned out to be hostile, it didn't give you as much of an advantage."

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"Yeah, I guess you wouldn't want somebody stabbing you and then running off fully fluent."

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"Stabbing qua stabbing does not overly concern me but you did show up with magic I didn't recognize."

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"Vampires are immune to stabbing?"

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"Vampires are more resistant than a human to most forms of stabbing; more saliently I have extensive personal wards."

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"Is it gonna seen threatening if I wanna know how yours work?"

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"If you want to know how to construct a ward using my magic system I will not construe that as threatening at all. If you want to know how my personal wards work, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt given that I brought them up first, but I still won't tell you."

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"First thing'll do, I mostly want to compare it to how ours work."

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"That I will not begrudge you, although wards are somewhat advanced and it would probably make sense to learn more about the basics beforehand."

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"Sure."

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"I've been told I'm not a very good teacher, but I have very comprehensive books and am available to answer questions."

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"I can't read your books."

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"I would have to switch translation spells first," he acknowledges. "Or teach you the language, I suppose, but that sounds tedious."

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"And time-consuming!"

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"Quite. Excuse me a moment," he says, and disappears around a bookshelf, then comes back and says a nonsense word. "Alright, that should be fixed."

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"Thanks. What's the word for?" She looks at the nearest book spines.

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"At the advanced stages, spells are activated through words or gestures. Words are much easier to record, so I don't use gestures much."

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"What determines which words?"

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"They're arbitrary; the magician in question pairs the spell with the word."

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"Oh, neat." Book titlesssss?

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Most of the books have complicated titles like "Advanced Nuclear Physics and Engineering" or weird ones like "the one with the bit about negentropy that might have gone into fairies," but Kanimir can show her a shelf with titles like "Basic Magic: Volume one" etcetera.

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"You have so many books."

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"I have been accumulating them for a long time."

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"I'm not actually sure this many have been written on my whole planet."

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He glances at her clothes. "I see. My condolences. Here we have the technology to mass-produce books."

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"You don't do it with magic?"

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"I can, but it's usually simpler to use non-magical technology."

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"Wow."

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"I suspect we are technologically very far ahead of you."

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"Because of the books?"

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"And your clothing."

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She looks down at herself, then at what he's wearing. Hand-stitched linen versus...

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Dark but colorful robes of mostly cotton; machine-stitched.

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"Huh."

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"Not that my clothes are a typical example."

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"I wouldn't know. Mine are really typical for where I'm from."

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Nod. "If you're curious I could show you more typical examples; I keep clothing on hand among other human necessities in case of sudden need in one of my guests."

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"I might conceivably want a change of clothes if that's convenient."

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"It would not be inconvenient in the slightest."

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"That will be useful, waste of magic to use it on laundry."

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"Is your magic a thing that can be meaningfully wasted?"

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"Yeah, I can't do as much of it in one go as an elemental - even my best element, which is Glass. It reaccumulates but that takes a bit."

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"My magic does not have that disadvantage."

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"Cool."

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"We also have technology for laundry."

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"Oooooh."

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"It's a great improvement over the alternative. One of the less-considered advantages of immortality is the ability to appreciate modern conveniences through direct comparison to the lack."

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"How old are you?"

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"Eight hundred."

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"Wow. That's probably long enough to invent lots of things."

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"Inventing things has accelerated quite a bit the past few hundred years."

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"Accelerated? Why?"

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"Cultural and infrastructure reasons, I believe."

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"Things got very exciting in my world over the last couple of decades because someone figured out how to make it likely that one's children will be mages. Before that we were really rare."

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"Oh, how?"

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"You have to eat a lot of seaweed while you're pregnant. It's not a guarantee but it helps a lot."

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"Hm. That seems inconvenient for people farther inland."

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"It dries all right, but yeah."

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"I suppose it's not very heavy, but bulk is still an issue..."

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"Yeah. But enough people could get it that now there are lots of mages my age and under."

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"True."

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"And lots of things have been invented, but mostly magic things or things we make with magic."

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"In the absence of widespread magic a great deal of nonmagical devices have been invented. For example--" he walks over to a desk, opens a drawer and pulls out a flat black object that looks like it's made of--glass? Or maybe stone? "This isn't magical at all." And he presses on an indentation on one end of it, that causes the screen to light up. A set of numerals are written across the top, and a picture of tumbled gemstones occupies most of that side. A horizontal bar, parallel to the numbers, reads "slide to unlock" at the bottom.

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"...what is it?"

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"This particular device is known as a tablet; it's a subset of a kind of device known as computers. Computers do lots of very small math so densely that they can do this with the results," he gestures at the screen. "There are a lot of very tiny channels of metal, and each one can represent either 'one' or 'zero'--if there is currently electricity flowing through the channel, that's 'one,' if not, it's 'zero.' Electricity is tame lightning. Electricity is also used to produce the light, although differently. Showing pictures is hardly the extent of it, though; with this I could if I so desired record a moving image of myself, sound and all, and send it to a correspondent on the other side of the globe."

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"...and this isn't even magic."

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"It is not."

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"Wow!!!"

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"And most of the development of it was done this past century."

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"...that's pretty fast. Most of it as in - the baseline didn't matter very much?"

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"It mattered some. I think some of the inspiration was taken from mechanical looms, and it would have been much harder without relevant metal-refining and glass-working techniques."

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"Looms. Wow."

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"They had--cards or something? I don't quite recall."

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"I don't know what a loom would do with a card but clearly I'm way behind."

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"There were holes in them to hold threads or something."

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"Huh. Wood can do some stuff with plant fibers but I'm best in Glass so all my practical experience with making fancy objects is like, windowpanes and such."

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He nods. "That seems reasonable. I could probably find books on the topic if you're interested."

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"Eventually, maybe. I am not immortal and have to prioritize."

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"You're not immortal yet."

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"...sure."

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"Hm?"

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"Being immortal would be nice. I might need to think about it."

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"Mm. Some people find it a daunting prospect." His tone indicates a complete but largely indifferent lack of comprehension regarding why.

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"Not daunting exactly, just I'd need to rethink some stuff, talk to some people..."

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Nod. "Vampirism's transmissible," he adds.

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"Oh, how?"

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"Appropriately enough it involves drinking a significant quantity of vampire blood. --Which can be extracted safely and hygienically beforehand, modern medical technology is convenient that way."

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"That really wouldn't have been among my first questions, putting my mouth on somebody is not a going consideration if the effect is immortality."

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"I find it unpleasant and was quite glad when I ceased to require physical contact with my donors in order to feed."

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"Fair enough. I wouldn't do it recreationally."

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Nod. "My sister is less averse."

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"Presumably that is convenient for her."

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"She is an extrovert. But I love her anyway."

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"Awww."

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"She is a baffling creature, sometimes. But I care about her more than anything else in all of existence."

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"Awww."

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"She visits, if you're interested in meeting her."

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"Sure, why not."

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He swipes across the tablet screen. It changes to a screen with a bunch of icons on it. He selects one and starts typing.

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"- may I -"

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"Ah, once I've finished."

He finishes and sends the email and closes the email app and hands over the tablet.

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"I meant could I read over your shoulder or was it private but I guess that answers that -" She runs her fingers over the tablet.

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It has so many apps! Some of them have names that make any sense, but many do not.

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"What's this one -"

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"It's a number game."

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"This is used for games? Wow. What about that -"

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"That one lets you take pictures and video."

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She pokes that one and tries to figure it out. It is difficult since translation does not extend to icons.

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Fortunately the different functions are labeled.

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Cool. She gets the camera pointed at herself and attempts a selfie!

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It comes out a little weird but that is totally a selfie.

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Giggle. Retry.

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This one is better!

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She tries taking one of Kanimir.

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This is easier.

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Okay how does she get out of this app and look at others?

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"You get out of the app by pressing the button at the bottom of the screen."

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Poke. "What's this one?"

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"Video chat."

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"...you record yourself and send it to somebody?"

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"No, it's actually realtime."

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"...so they can just see you through it like it's a portal?"

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"Essentially."

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"This world is so cool."

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"It has upsides and downsides. It is better than it was, though."

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"Because you've invented things?"

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"And people occasionally learn from their mistakes."

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"That's reassuring."

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"Of course, they do always find new ones to make."

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"...like what?"

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"Well, right now we have a religion that earnestly believes that if you have sex with someone who possesses the same form of genitals as you you're going to be tortured forever after you die, and therefore if someone evinces attraction to the same gender one ought to electrocute them, because this will supposedly 'cure' it."

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"...I'm gathering from tone that this will not affect it at all and the torture thing is not real."

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"I have no reason to think it is."

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"What's their reason to think so?"

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"That the torture exists or that homosexuality will invoke it?"

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"Both."

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"The former is due to a few miscellaneous lines in their primary religious text and the latter I have no idea."

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"Where'd the text come from?"

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"Miscellaneous religious and cultural leaders over the course of centuries-to-millenia."

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"Huh."

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"In this particular case mostly the teachings of a particularly focal religious figure to whom divinity is generally attributed."

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"There are supposedly gods at home but they do not supposedly torture people for sex."

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"Do they torture people for anything else?"

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"Not systematically. It's not thought wise to annoy them."

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"Unsurprising."

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"They don't tend to actually show up ever though."

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"Also unsurprising."

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"Why's that?"

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"We have a lot of mutually exclusive religions here."

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"I'm from another world, it could've been different."

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"True. But it does not surprise me that it isn't."

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"Fair."

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Nod.

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"We got sidetracked from explaining my magic to you, do you have more questions?"

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"What kinds of things do people typically do with it, besides laundry?"

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"I make window glass, and sometimes take healing shifts. There's artifacts you can make with it, like ones that shed light or help plants grow. You can scry far away; Shadows can step between dark places..."

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"But not people with the Shadow element?"

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"No, no humans have enough Shadow to do that even once."

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"I wonder if it would be possible to create artifacts that store magic that one can tap."

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"That would be neat. I'm not aware of any research in that direction - most people just tap elementals - and it wouldn't help all that much in the case of shadow-walking in particular because it involves navigating in a way humans are very bad at, but it'd be really handy."

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"And I imagine if one has an elemental of the relevant type on hand already one can simply ask for a ride."

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"Assuming they have the energy to spare, sure."

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"Well, if they don't then presumably you can't tap them for it, either."

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"Yes, although it's possible to tap several at once."

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"Oh, I see. Can you similarly tap other human mages?"

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"Not that I know of. The field is still pretty new, there might be a way."

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"Do you know what the difference is?"

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"No, sorry."

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Nod. "It doesn't seem as though you've had very long to investigate."

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"Well, I've had my whole life, personally, but yeah, the magical community is younger than farmers or sailors or whatever."

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"That's not--quite what I meant."

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"Hm?"

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"I have had my life settled roughly as I wish it for the past few hundred years; aside from maintenance tasks like finding new blood donors when the old ones choose to leave or keeping up with modern technology I have had few practical concerns to distract me from pursuit of theory. You have been alive less than two decades and presumably have had more urgent concerns than pure thaumaturgy."

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"Oh. Yes."

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"I was assuming on the less than two decades part," he amends.

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"Yes."

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Nod.

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"Mages - well, people who've had the right magic done - live a bit longer than regular humans but not hundreds of years."

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Nod. "You could have been in your twenties."

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"Nope, just shy of eighteen."

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Nod.

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"Penumbra's older but she doesn't know how old."

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"Why doesn't she?"

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"Elementals appear in the wilderness fluent in every language spoken on the planet at the time but they don't really keep calendars by default."

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"That seems inconvenient for them in some ways and very convenient in others."

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"They like being wild but often develop more humanlike interests after time in civilization."

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"Huh."

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"They started visiting humans more often after we invented writing. New ones could suddenly read."

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"How long ago was that?"

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"A few decades."

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"Huh. The earliest known writing systems here were developed..." he gets out another tablet and looks it up. "A bit over five thousand years ago."

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"Wow."

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"It's been a long time."

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"Any cool writing related innovations we might not have yet?"

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"What's your writing system like?"

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"Do you have some paper?"

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"Of course." He opens another desk drawer and pulls out a spiral-bound loose-leaf notebook and a mechanical pencil.

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She is distracted briefly by the mechanical pencil but then starts writing. It's simplified pictograms, but a limited enough set of them that they could be a syllabary.

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"Are those phonetic, or...?"

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"Uh, some of them."

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"And the rest?"

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"Specific words and names, plus numbers. That one's my country, that one's 'seventeen'."

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"Hm."

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"What?"

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"Trying to recall vague recollections of the nature of early writing systems."

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"I like our writing system although I'm sure there are objectively better ones."

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"A common sentiment, I'm sure."

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Giggle. "Uh, I'm starting to get a little hungry, you have nonblood food around, right?"

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"Yes, I can show you where."

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"Thanks."

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He leads her to a kitchen full of modern appliances like refrigerators.

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"I'm gonna need some help here."

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"This is the refrigerator. It keeps food cold. This is the microwave. It warms up food. I think the other appliances are mostly for more complicated cooking, I'm not sure, I don't eat solid food."

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"...right. Is there someone I should ask, or..." She peers into the fridge.

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The fridge has miscellaneous packaged food objects in it.

"The donors are all asleep, I think--there's fruit, that hasn't changed to the point of unrecognizability since I was human, and doesn't require preparation."

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She locates a fruit. It's an apple. "...I don't recognize it, uh, which parts does one eat?"

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He inspects it. "Everything but the core."

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"Do I bite it or cut it up or -"

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"I think either is considered acceptable."

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Chomp. "- weird. Good, I think, but weird."

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"I suppose it would be."

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"Do you miss food? - or can you eat food and it just isn't useful?"

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"I can't process solids; I recreationally drink beverages."

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"Decent compromise, I guess."

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"If I missed solid foods terribly I could probably determine a magical solution."

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"Is there anything your kinda magic can't do?"

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"It is difficult to tell 'fiendishly difficult' from 'truly impossible'."

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"How come?"

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"Because--it's a difference between 'I have not found the solution because I have yet to explore the correct concepts' and 'I have not found the solution because it doesn't exist'."

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"But there's not definitely anything that's just - out of scope? That's amazing."

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"--I would be very surprised if it were possible to edit the way the magic works," he says after a moment's reflection.

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She giggles.

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He blinks as though confused for a moment, and then says "I'm uncertain what was amusing about that remark."

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"- it wasn't humorous it was just - encouraging?"

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"Ah, I see."

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"Ii don't know for sure that my magic system is particularly limited but it seems structurally likely with the elemental basis."

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Nod. "It does seem inconvenient."

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"A bit."

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"Well. Now you have access to this one."

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"Are you sure it'll work for me?"

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"--I suppose not. I would expect it to but I suppose I've never met someone from your world before."

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"Yeah, that's my concern. What's the fastest way to check?" Apple is gone. She looks in the fridge, approximately recognizes grapes, takes a bunch.

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"I have a ritual that should only take half an hour."

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"It takes some doing to scrunch it down into single nonsense words, huh?"

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"Rather, yes."

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"How does that work?" Grapes grapes grapes.

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"You perform a ritual until you're sufficiently familiar with its moving parts, and then replace a coherent subset of the moving parts with a gesture or word, and repeat the process ad nauseam."

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"What does moving parts mean in the context of a magic ritual?"

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"Specific steps, for the most part, although also physical implements involved."

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"Can you give an example?"

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"What kind of example specifically?"

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"...maybe it would make more sense to have a look at the half hour ritual first but I'm just not getting a good mental model at all."

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"It would probably help to look at the ritual first," he agrees.

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"Cool. Is now good?"

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"Certainly."

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"Awesome." She finishes her grapes and looks for somewhere to put stem and core.

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Kanimir points to the composting bucket.

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Compost!

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And then they can go back to the library to locate the ritual.

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"So what does it do?"

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"Creates a small floating light."

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"Like this?" She creates a small floating light.

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"Roughly."

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"All right, where do I start."

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They can go back to the library, then, and Kanimir shows her the book with the light ritual in it, and walks her through the notation and so on.

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Which she will take notes on and perform!

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It takes about half an hour, as advertised, and at the end she has a little bobbing light.

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She cackles.

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"Oh, excellent."

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"Iiiiii can do unlimited otherworldly maaaaagic!"

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"You can!"

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"Eeeeee! - okay what is the best way to learn it from here -"

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Kanimir explains what parts of the spell count as discrete parts and how to choose sequences to compress--"It helps to know what shows up elsewhere, see--these parts together are used in many spells involving light, so if you have a shortcut for that, you can reuse it there--"

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Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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He is delighted to explain magic almost indefinitely.

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How excellent!

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Kanimir has been thoroughly nerd sniped and has very few biological needs which might bring him out of it.

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She will break to get more grapes but will have to wait on actual food till more humans are awake.

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Eventually that happens and an alert Kanimir set up earlier chimes. "--Ah, I believe someone who can explain the kitchen is awake."

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"Oh good! I like fruit and all, but..." She goes to have the kitchen explained.

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The woman in question is a little startled to be interrogated about the stove at this hour of the morning but totally knows how to operate all the things and is happy to introduce Maurabel to bacon.

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Oh boy, bacon!

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Other things that exist: chocolate!

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OH WOW

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The woman (whose name is Kelly) is delighted and/or amused (it may be difficult to tell) by Maurabel's reaction to chocolate. Chocolate can be mixed with things, here try this Snickers bar.

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Wowwwwwwwww~~~

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She giggles. "Man, you really like chocolate."

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"I don't think we have it where I'm from!"

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"Where are you from?"

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"'Nother world."

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"Oh, wow. Welcome to Chocolateland!"

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"I feel very welcome!"

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"Yeah, this place is surprisingly hospitable for how much of a misanthrope our host is."

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"He was perfectly nice to me but maybe that's because I have otherworldly magic or something."

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"That might do it. I've been here over a year and the only things I've seen him smile at are magic and his sister."

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"Well, magic I've got. I'm Maurabel."

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"Kelly! Nice to meet you."

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"You too! How did you come to be here?"

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"Oh, I was homeless, the sister noticed me and offered room and board in exchange for semi-frequent blood draws."

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"Pretty good deal. Is there a lot of homelessness here?"

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"Here like here here or here like Chocolate World?"

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"Chocolate world."

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"Yeah."

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"Why? It seems so - rich. Granted I haven't seen much of it but you've invented so many things and still can't -?"

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"Oh, god, I could give you a whole lecture on why the world sucks--it's a distribution problem, mostly, the vast majority of the wealth is in the hands of a few people and they'd do just about anything rather than part with a fraction of it to make sure the people on the very bottom get fed and clothed and housed and so on."

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"I guess that's not so different."

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"People are people pretty much everywhere," she sighs.

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"Mm."

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"Sorry we're not a fabulous utopia," she says sincerely.

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"It's still pretty great but I admit I was hoping for a fabulous utopia!"

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"It would've been awesome! We're getting better at stuff but we're still kind of embarrassing, really."

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"What else?"

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"Uh, racism, sexism, transphobia, there are some countries with less widespread industrial development and those have attendant problems, pollution..."

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"...transphobia's not translating..."

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"--Uh, sometimes someone's born with the genitals associated with the opposite gender, and sometimes people aren't a man or a woman at all, and sometimes they're both, and transphobia is the insistence that people who do anything other than go 'Okay, this is what my crotch looks like, I guess that's what gender I am' are doing something wrong. Or rather 'okay, this is what my crotch looked like when I was born,' sometimes people get surgery to change what genitals they have."

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"...I'm not sure if we have that or if I just don't get it."

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She shrugs. "I'm not exactly a Gender Studies textbook."

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"Okay."

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"Sorry."

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"It's no big deal."

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Shrug. "At least we have chocolate?"

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"You do! That's pretty great."

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"It is! Chocolate and bacon and oh maybe I should make macaroni and cheese, I bet you've never had that before."

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"I have not."

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"It's great, done right."

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"I look forward to it!"

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She grins.

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"Can you show me how to make something more substantial than fruit for next time I need to eat while you're asleep - I'm rather exhausted now, and haven't even decided if I want to be on his schedule or yours -"

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"Oh sure--uh, do you want me to explain a recipe or something?"

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"More the packaging..."

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She can explain packaging.

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And Maurabel thanks her and asks for spare clothes that might fit her and then crashes really hard in a guest room.

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Spare clothes and guest room are very convenient to acquire!

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Oh good.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

She sleeps for ten hours.

Penumbra wakes up before she does and tentatively wanders the house.

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She will meet a mildly surprised dude!

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...gosh. A mildly surprised dude. Penumbra kind of freezes.

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"Uh. Hi?"

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"...hi..."

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"Uh, I'm Kevin, who're you?"

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"...I'm Penumbra."

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"Hi. Uh, why are you all--" he waves a hand to indicate her halo.

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"...it's just how I am."

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"Uh, okay."

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...she retreats into her guest room.

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The next time she cares to venture out there is no one there.

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She eventually finds Maurabel's room and, satisfied that she could locate it again, goes back to hers.

Maurabel wakes up eventually and goes foraging.

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The kitchen contains various foods in newly navigable packaging!

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Yum!

And then she goes and reads about magic.

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The library is presently deserted. The skylight is both intact and opaque.

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Huh. Okay. Reading! Eventually food again! More reading! Practicing light ritual!

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After a few hours Kanimir wanders in.

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"Hi!"

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"Hello. How have you been progressing?"

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"I've read that stack and have accumulated questions!" She asks them.

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He answers them!

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Marvelous.

Penumbra wanders into the room.

"Hi Penumbra!"

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"Hello."

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"...hi," Penumbra says. "What are you doing?"

"I'm learning local magic!"

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"It's going well."

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"Do you wanna try local food? It's really something."

"Okay."

Maurabel goes and gets her some things. "I'm sorry she's so shy, I imagine you'd otherwise quiz her on things."

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"I would, but the inconvenience is not terrible."

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"And me you can quiz as you like, I keep worrying I'm bugging you with introductory questions about local stuff way below the level you work at and not reciprocating."

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"I expect you to be significantly more competent to meaningfully answer my questions once you understand the basis from which I derive them."

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"Makes sense!"

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"I try."

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Maurabel continues to study magic and eat local food, some of which she brings to Penumbra. She doesn't stay up as long this time; deciding to aim to wake up noonish and overlap with a couple of the humans' meals and still have plenty of time simultaneously awake with Kanimir for ~magic tutoring~ in case she gets stuck with books. She solicits notepaper. She receives borrowed outfits.

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Notepaper is provided. The books are extremely clear and straightforward, but do not contain the sheer depth of understanding that someone who's been practicing for centuries accumulates; tutoring is still valuable.

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The second afternoon Maurabel wakes up in this house, a new but familiarly-structured woman all but waltzes into the library before Kanimir has woken up. "Hello! You must be Maurabel."

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"...yes, hello."

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"My name's Jaromira, I'm Kanimir's sister. I take it my brother isn't awake yet?"

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"I have not been loitering where he sleeps to catch him the moment his eyes open but I haven't seen him yet today."

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"He doesn't spend much time out of the library he doesn't need to, if you haven't seen him yet it's a good bet he isn't."

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"Yeah, that was my guess."

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"He's a pretty straightforward person."

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"He's been a really great person to have landed on!"

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"He wouldn't have been a bad one even if you hadn't had an interesting magic system. He dislikes the idea of being something people are justified in being afraid of."

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"It's not like I was personally basing anything on his reputation but that makes sense."

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"True enough. I, mm, don't have a good handle yet on what kind of information you will and won't want."

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"...most of it? Maybe not the entire fashion history behind your shoes, that would probably be irrelevant, but I like information? Why?"

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She sighs.

"I was hoping to come up with a more graceful way to explain this. My brother and I have lived long and, for the most part, difficult lives. And he shielded me from the worst of it, at his own cost. My brother was never very social even as a child, but he--burned out on it, very badly. He hasn't enjoyed the company of another person besides me for its own sake in over half a millenium.

After you went to bed, that first night, he called me in a panic because he had experienced a mild positive emotion connected to you separate from your magic system and he had no idea how to handle it."

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"I'm not sure what to do with that, honestly."

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"You don't have to do anything with it if you don't want to."

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"He panics very discreetly."

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"Lots of practice," she sighs.

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"Well, I'm enjoying being here and do not plan to vanish."

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"It does have a pretty great library."

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"And crash space for interdimensional visitors on no notice!"

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"That too, yes."

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"I'm imagining we wouldn't have been so lucky most places."

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"You're not wrong."

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"I'm told this world is not a paradise yet! Shame on you."

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"Oh, we haven't been completely idle. But I take your judgement to heart."

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"It's nicer than where I'm from, honestly. I wasn't forming any strong expectations about that."

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"What's where you're from like?"

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"Lots lower tech. Magic is common knowledge but you have to have it from the start, you can't learn it if you don't. Humans and various kinds of elementals are the only sapient species."

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"Hm. Very different, yes. What are elementals like?"

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"They start as adults knowing every language in the world at the time. They can all fly. Wild ones aren't interested in the same kinds of things as humans but they get that way after a lot of time around us. They've got more magic but can only use one or two elements each, usually one - a fraction are hybrids."

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"Ooh. That must be very strange, an adult mind with no knowledge in it."

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"I've never talked that much with a brand new one but yeah, it's really different. They know how to do things, but not facts, mostly."

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"Procedural but not episodic knowledge. What kinds of things do they know how to do?"

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"They can do magic but won't think of all the applications. They can walk and talk and read and write and fly. They can guess reasonably well about what will be safe to eat."

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"Hm."

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"Hm?"

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"I'm wondering if they have anything in common with demons."

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"What are those like?"

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"They vary wildly. They start out as adults in an adjacent, highly unpleasant dimension, and many of them live down to it."

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"Wild elementals start out pretty chill."

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"That's good."

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"...yeah."

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"Hm?"

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"It means they're kind of naive and stuff."

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"That would seem to follow, wouldn't it."

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"Yep."

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Sigh. "How bad is it?"

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"It took a while for Penumbra to trust me at all."

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Sigh. "I wish I was surprised."

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Sigh.

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"Anything straightforward to be done about it?"

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"Local magic appears to be potentially unlimited, so that's exciting."

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"True. I meant more 'is the problem something that can be solved through direct application of force,' such as by say for example leading a slave uprising, or is it something that requires politics."

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"Uh, in theory the correct brand of force would do most of it."

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"Well. Kanimir's good at that."

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Nod.

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"What's the problem, precisely, or would you rather not say?"

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"...not today. Sorry. You seem very nice."

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"Sure. 'These people are being oppressed, here's how' is something the kind of person you don't yet know I'm not could use to oppress people."

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"Yes exactly."

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"And all too many people are like that."

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"Too many."

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"Honestly, I like people very much as individuals, but in the aggregate I'm almost as sick of them as my brother."

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"I like a lot of elementals very much but have met few humans I like. But, you know, I'm a human, so I know I can expect better of us."

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"Yes. And I'm an extrovert; it makes it easier to like people."

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"I'm not sure we have that concept at home but I think I'm an introvert, if the translation's reliable there."

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"Well, you've been content to hole up in my brother's library and nerd about magic with him, so I'm going to say yes."

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Giggle. "It's such nerdable magic!"

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"So I've gathered!"

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"Mine's pretty nerdable too but it's a really young field because we only recently learned how to improve the chances that a child will be magical - not that long before I was born - so there's not nearly so much settled research and accumulated invention."

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"And before that how rare was it?"

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"Very - I don't know exactly - and how many elements people can work with varies a lot."

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"Hm. Seems a little like fey magic, almost."

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"Fey magic?"

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"Fairies are a thing we have that aren't human. They have personal magic that runs along themes."

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"Huh. What themes?"

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"I don't know all of them, but off the top of my head--plant, animal, music, teleportation, glass, fire..."

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"Glass and fire are one of ours, so is plant sort of. Wood."

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"Glass and wood both seem more specific than fire, but my sensibilities are not necessarily objective."

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"Glass wood fire earth air water adamant ice shadow lightning shine stone."

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"Huh."

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"Glass is my best one. It's not just literal glass, it also does interesting vision tricks."

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"Huh. That makes sense."

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"Does it?"

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"--Yes although off the top of my head I'm not sure how to explain why in layman's terms. It--involves science?"

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"Well, we're way behind you on science."

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"Yeah."

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"We've barely invented anything. Apart from magic I think we correspond to like... Bronze Age."

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"Huh. Well, glass shaped correctly bends light in ways that make it easier to see things."

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"Cool."

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"Lots of things do, actually, but glass is most convenient much of the time."

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"I don't have to use physical glass to look around corners or at very small or distant things."

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Nod. "Do you have mirrors?"

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"Not glass ones."

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"The seeing-around-corners thing is usually a mirror thing."

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"Huh."

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"I think glass ones work better than metal ones."

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"What do you do to the glass to make it work that way?"

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"Mm--something about silver behind it? So glass and metal together, technically, I suppose..."

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"We have polished metal mirrors... I don't have enough Adamant to squish some metal and attach it to glass, unfortunately."

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"It would probably make sense to look it up to see the details, first, I'm not really a good source on optics."

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"Makes sense. I assume I shouldn't take apart the one in the bathroom."

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"That would probably make the other guests annoyed with you. I can probably get you one to take apart if you want it."

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"Thanks!"

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"They're pretty ubiquitous! And it's not like we don't have money."

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"I appreciate your willingness to deploy it to amuse my mirror-related curiosity."

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"It may or may not lead to significant insights about your magic system!"

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Giggle.

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"You said something about hybrids, as I recall, how do those work?"

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"Hybrids are elementals who are two elements. Penumbra's both Shade and Shine and can do all the magic either can do, although she doesn't have twice as much total magic to do it with."

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"Is the name inherent?"

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"Yeah, they coalesce knowing what kind they are. I guess she doesn't have your language so she might or might not endorse the translation."

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"Hm. What are the names for the other kinds of hybrids?"

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"I don't know them all and they might not all have ever happened. Mist, Rainbow, Silver, Amber, Leaf, Ash..."

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"Air and water, shine and water, no idea, wood and something, wood and something, wood and fire?"

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"Yes, yes, Adamant and Lightning, Wood and Glass, Wood and Earth, yes."

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"Silver. Not what I would have expected of that combination."

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"What would you have expected?"

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"Magnetism."

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"Huh. Adamants can do magnet stuff alone, what would Lightning have to do with it?"

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"Oh, do they? Well, lightning is the natural form of a phenomenon called electricity, which is strongly connected to magnetism--either can easily create the other."

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"Huh. Maybe a Lightning/Adamant elemental would have neat synergy."

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"That would be interesting!"

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"Unfortunately I've never met one!"

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"Pity. On the other hand it seems it would be--patronizing--to go out of one's way to meet at least one of every kind."

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"There might not be all the hybrids."

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"That too."

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"I'm not sure they'd object to the motive, though, especially wild ones."

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"Mm. I'd still want to be careful, but that does make it better."

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"Wild elementals are cute."

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"Ooh?"

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"I mean, I've never met one in the wild, but the way they talk about how they were before they met humans sounds cute. They do stuff like stand under waterfalls playing with the water and tasting random things to see what's food and they fly around and they've got nowhere they need to be or anything they need to do, they haven't picked up hangups and anxieties about civilization-style stuff..."

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"That does sound cute."

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"Yeah."

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"I'd still want to be careful about doing things that might make them feel retroactively patronized if they ever stopped being wild, though."

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"Fair enough."

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"I don't know if you have all of the relevant memes in your world but ours has a long history of imperialism both cultural and regular, and I'm a member of one of the ethnic groups that's been one of the worst offenders, from a mainstream local point of view--it's more complicated than that, of course, but a reasonable heuristic is a reasonable heuristic."

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"...from a mainstream local point of view?"

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"The short version is that a particular continent did most of the imperialism, and here, which is not on that continent but mostly populated by the descendants of settlers both of that continent and others, the natives having been imperialized very hard, the most socially salient thing is that I am obviously descended from people from that continent. The more complicated version includes the fact that there was a lot of intra-continent imperialism prior to easy access to other continents, and the country I was born and raised in was one of the ones on the receiving end, and that I was born and raised in the time period where intra- rather than inter-continent relations were what was immediately relevant."

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"...yeah I don't think I have the ability to grasp this set of facts especially expressed in such general terms."

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Giggle. "Yes, historical context is awfully complicated."

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"Well, phrases like 'socially salient thing that I am' are not helping but yeah that probably wouldn't close the gap alone."

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"Sorry. Kanimir tends to talk like that and I sometimes pick up the habit when I'm out of my depth."

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Giggle.

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"I did not expect to be trying to explain what it means that I'm a pretty white girl who grew up in Poland in the thirteenth century this week!"

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"Most of the countries in my part of the world are really young."

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"That does make sense. It seems a little odd, not to have much history. Your culture must be very different for it."

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"For that among other things, but yeah."

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"Well, of course."

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"Seems like it would be hard to figure out what differences came from where."

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"A place to start would be seeing if your culture is different from ours in ways cultures here generally aren't different from each other, we do have a lot of them. Not that I'm qualified to do that. I'm a poet, not an anthropologist."

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"Fair enough."

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"Does your culture have much poetry yet?"

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"Some? I don't know how much is typical."

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"Fair."

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"Why, should I recite some? I know a little."

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"That would be lovely, if you were so inclined."

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Maurabel giggles and recites a poem about wheat harvesting.

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Jaromira mouths along with the words, the better to commit them to memory.

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"That gets recited on one of the feast days."

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"Which one?"

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"First summer feast."

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"Aha. That makes sense. It's beautiful."

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"I'm glad you like it."

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"I've found that every culture has beautiful poetry."

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"Every single one? That's really something. I don't know if wild elementals have poetry but I guess they might not count as a culture."

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"I haven't found any that didn't. Aside from cultures sufficiently old and lacking in archaeological evidence of their language that we don't know what if any poetry they had, I suppose."

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"Well, would wild elementals count as a culture, now I want to know - they coalesce already adult and don't necessarily interact with anyone, but sometimes there are a few together -"

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"It's a good question! Even if they do, I wouldn't be shocked if they failed to follow the cultural patterns I'm familiar with, they have such dramatically different circumstances."

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"Are vampires a culture?"

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"I wouldn't call us one. We come from dramatically different backgrounds and don't tend to cluster in otherwise extraordinarily multiethnic groups. I've known groups of vampires within human cultures large enough and sufficiently divorced from the surrounding humans that they might be called a subculture, but the set of all vampires across the globe, no."

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"So you'd be exempt from needing to have beautiful poetry but you're a poet anyway, bonus."

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Giggle. "Yes. But I write Polish poetry or English poetry or whatever other kind of poetry, not vampire poetry."

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"Oh, it's by language?"

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"Not entirely. But it's seems more comprehensible, in context, to name cultures than to say 'sonnet' and 'pentasyllable.'"

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"Don't know what those are."

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"A form of verse popular in English literature and a meter all but ubiquitous in Polish verse."

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"I'm not sure we have words for that sort of thing, or if we do I don't know them. Maybe a society has to be older first."

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"Fair enough. Relevant features of poetry, then."