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Linya and Bella are working on wishes, in between light chat about runecasting and their personal lives. It is radiantly obvious to people paying attention that Bella wants to kiss her and Linya is married, although neither statement is made.
Ivans are playing cards.
Mileses, including Solvei, are debating the wisdom of borrowing another strategy game from Bar; Mark, a voice of caution, does not know what will happen if all of them (Solvei, Mial, Miles, Milo, Stalas) all start screaming at each other in twenty directions.
And -
first-and-final
"I figured, or I wouldn't have thought you needed the warning," says Milan. "Since you are all alive and in some cases astonishingly healthy."
"Astonishingly yourself," says Milo, somewhat ungrammatically. "What's with those scars?"
"You first, what's with the radiant glow?"
"Fairy blessing. Perfect health. Which is convenient because I also have a fairy curse, fragile bones, it seems like painful and disabling conditions are a theme with us."
"Hah. Nice, but I wouldn't trade you," says Milan. "My curse is that my pain never fades, but my blessing is that I always have the mental space to cope, and I can turn it up and down to my liking. For example, witness how I am currently neither suffering terrible agony nor talking like a sylph. ...If you don't have sylphs in the science fantasy planes, substitute 'four times as fast as normal'."
"Astonishingly yourself," says Milo, somewhat ungrammatically. "What's with those scars?"
"You first, what's with the radiant glow?"
"Fairy blessing. Perfect health. Which is convenient because I also have a fairy curse, fragile bones, it seems like painful and disabling conditions are a theme with us."
"Hah. Nice, but I wouldn't trade you," says Milan. "My curse is that my pain never fades, but my blessing is that I always have the mental space to cope, and I can turn it up and down to my liking. For example, witness how I am currently neither suffering terrible agony nor talking like a sylph. ...If you don't have sylphs in the science fantasy planes, substitute 'four times as fast as normal'."
thisvorlunatic
"Good God," says Miles. "You can just become intensely manic at will?"
"I'd trade for that," says Mial, deeply impressed. "Not that you'd want what I could get you in return."
"I'd trade for that," says Mial, deeply impressed. "Not that you'd want what I could get you in return."
middlingalong
"I mean, things as they are now he wouldn't have to keep it, but he's a you so I guess he would," says Aurin.
first-and-final
"You assume so very correctly," says Milan.
"So why are some of your scars fading so fast I can actually see it happen, and some of them not going anywhere?" wonders Milo.
"The fading ones are from the skirmish game I just played," Milan explains. "Mocked—that is, illusory—weapons can inflict realistic illusory harms up to and including fake death without doing any lasting damage at all, if you're a normal person. Me, I get scars, but they tend to stick around for a few hours at most. And the pain stays, of course. The pain always stays."
"So why are some of your scars fading so fast I can actually see it happen, and some of them not going anywhere?" wonders Milo.
"The fading ones are from the skirmish game I just played," Milan explains. "Mocked—that is, illusory—weapons can inflict realistic illusory harms up to and including fake death without doing any lasting damage at all, if you're a normal person. Me, I get scars, but they tend to stick around for a few hours at most. And the pain stays, of course. The pain always stays."
thisvorlunatic
"...You're doing this deliberately, aren't you," says Mial. "Playing a game in which people try to fake cut your head off with a fake axe, to raise the ceiling. I don't know whether I'm impressed or appalled."
middlingalong
"So we shouldn't have Mial teleport away and get a light? Lights are not a science thing," says Aurin.
middlingalong
"Healers. They're just born that way, they drink a lot of water and absorb sunshine and if they do this," he cups his hands together, "they get a little ball of light and if anybody who isn't a light touches it they are healed. Doesn't actually fix scars, those they have to dig out first."
first-and-final
Milan blinks. "...I mean, having somebody dig out my scars and apply healing would certainly be an interesting way to bump the ceiling up a little - nice phrasing, unusually short me - but I doubt it would fix anything, and it might just add a bunch more scars."
middlingalong
"You probably couldn't get them to do it if you weren't knocked out or at least dosed on painkilling potions - I don't know if potions count as a science thing."
first-and-final
"Yeah, I'm not keen to try any potion brewed in Science Fantasy Land. And painkillers do shit for me anyway - they work on current pain, not past or future. So if I'm not presently injured they're completely useless, and even when I am, as soon as the painkillers wear off the echoes are just like I'd never taken any."
onceandforall
"You know, I'd never thought of my world as a Science Fantasy Land before but when I go home I'm going to have a new appreciation for gravity and microwaves."
isthisart
"Unfortunately it sounds like you'll be very inhibited in your ability to bring home useful souvenirs. Pens are obviously out of the question, I'm not sure if you even want runecasting books."
first-and-final
"I don't hate my life enough to bring home any useful objects from Science Fantasy Land," says Milan. "The responsible thing to do with a portal to Science Fantasy Land is to run and never look back. But, alas, my family's in another country. So I will just have an amusing chat with you all and then go back to school. Maybe lightly taunt the next interplanar studies student I see."
middlingalong
"What do you study?" asks Ivan. "It seems like it would be hard to study things if nobody can do any science. Maybe 'political science' and so on don't count."
first-and-final
"History and lore, with a minor in martial combat. I wanted to go into thaumatology, but Mother convinced me that I would almost certainly die."
first-and-final
"It's the study of magical theory. You might call it the closest you can get to science and survive. Normal thaumatologists don't tend to die of it, but I would not be a normal thaumatologist. And back before people learned better, when they did attempt an outright scientific study of magic, they died of it very frequently."
onceandforall
"Whether you pass this sentiment on less verbally depends on you and her," adds Bella, winking at Linyabel.
