rules as written | Glowfic Constellation

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"A reasonable policy." A thought strike her. "How do you interact with time? I'm not going to walk out the door and find one hundred years have passed, am I?" This place seems to follow fairy-tale logic, anyway.

Then, Bella. "You're magic and from another world, I will probably find even the most mundane details of your life interesting. Reading is essentially what I do in my spare time, though I prefer scientific texts to fiction, how about you? And what's a skirmish game?"

subtly_artistic

When you return, barring highly unusual circumstances, you will find that it is still the moment in which you departed.

"I like old fiction - and - wait, did you just contrast science and fiction? Skirmish is a combat game, with mockboxes so nobody actually gets killed, there's interesting tactics if the players are good."

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"How on earth do you manage that?" she says to the bar.

"Skirmish matches sound like the sort of thing my brothers would be interested in," she says to Bella. "I suppose I do look a bit young to be reading books about physics in my spare time, but yes, books about real science as opposed to science fiction. I enjoy science fiction sometimes, but there are too many books out there without sufficient worldbuilding. Even if the universe is fictional, the rules governing it ought to be consistent, don't you agree?"

subtly_artistic

I couldn't begin to explain the mechanism; it isn't me doing it, says the bar.

"...Absolutely nothing you just said makes sense," says Bella.

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Parvati sighs. "I suppose I can't fault you for that," she says to the bar. "If you ever to find out what's causing all of this, and you have a way to contact me, would you be so kind as to let me know? It's not pressing, because this won't affect my day to day life, but I'll probably lose sleep over it."

"I'm sorry," she says to Bella. "I suppose we haven't quite gotten a handle on planar differences yet. Was there a specific thing I said that was especially confusing?"

subtly_artistic

I will bear that in mind if we meet again and I've learned interesting facts about the answers to your questions.

"All of it. Real science. Are you from some kind of - science world?"

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"Much appreciated!" she says to the bar. As a gesture of appreciation, she sort of...pats the bar's counter.

"...yes," she says to Bella. "You aren't trying to tell me there are worlds without science, are you?"

subtly_artistic

"In my world," says Bella, "science fiction is all the science you get to do if you don't want the universe to swat you."

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"What do you mean by 'swat'? And when you say you can't do science, do you mean that you can't invent things? Or that you can't empirically test things? Or that the scientific method doesn't work? Or is it something else entirely?" Parvati suspects that the answer will not be one that she likes.

subtly_artistic

"If you try to pin down the laws of nature by running tests on them over and over to make sure they're the same, especially if you're going to do anything more important than small consumer goods with the results, your best case scenario is that they just stop being the same. You can try stuff, you can get a sense sort of by coincidence over time of how things can be expected to go, but nothing you can count on always like in - science fiction novels."

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"You cannot count on the laws of nature to stay the same," Parvati says, not quite believing it. "You cannot count on the laws of nature to stay the same." Parvati takes a deep breath, then slowly lets it out. "Do you know why?"

subtly_artistic

"There's speculation. The universe is shy. The universe wants to be able to do favors to people it likes and spite people it doesn't like for whatever reasons lead it to do the one or the other. Magic and science are fundamentally incompatible - though it sounds like you prove that's not always the case."

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"Yes, my magic dovetails nicely with scientific investigation," she says. "But...the universe isn't supposed to do favors or be shy. The universe isn't supposed to be sentient. It's the universe. It's supposed to follow the rules." She has to take another deep breath. "I'm sorry. This is quite a lot to take in."

subtly_artistic

"Your world sounds nice," sighs Bella.

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"It is, in fact, quite nice," says Parvati. "I suppose I've never realized just how nice it is, considering. I wish I could offer you the opportunity to come home with me. My family wouldn't mind giving you a place to stay, but there's no one around who could teach you English properly, and I don't know how different our cultures are, and besides, I'm sure there's...something worth going back to in your world. Parents, or something."

subtly_artistic

"I do have parents. I could cheat on the language thing with subtle arts if I had permission but - yeah. Also, I don't know if it's safe for me to try to escape, considering the universe doesn't like it if people cheat it and I don't know if I currently count as out of reach for it."

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"You think your universe could follow you to my universe?" says Parvati. She involuntarily grabs her cat and pulls him close to her, perhaps subconsciously trying to protect him from the mean universe.

subtly_artistic

"I don't know. If I knew that would kind of defeat the - thrust of the problem, wouldn't it?"

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"That's true," says Parvati. "But do you suspect that it's a strong possibility? Or is it just one of any number of random things that could happen?"

subtly_artistic

"I don't know." Pause. "Bar, do you know?"

My strong suspicion is that you are not going to be "swatted" in the environs of Milliways, nor across it while in another world, says Bar. If non-Milliways transit mechanisms are involved and you have the attention of forces which can use them I have no special expertise.

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"So, it's probably not a strong possibility, unless you've attracted the attention of...the universe," says Parvati. "That is good to know. Thank you. I'd...I hope you don't mind, I do like you, but would you mind terribly not putting my world at risk? I won't stop you if you want to visit anyway, of course."

subtly_artistic

"I think I've avoided getting universe attention, but yeah, I will not follow you home."

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