And when she gets off the bus at work, she has to actively fight the urge to look up.

…She is seriously never going to forgive Meredith. It took her TWO FUCKING YEARS to make 'the amount of hypervigilance that appeases the paranoia' and 'the amount of hypervigilance that is bearable to live with' overlap with each other, AND NOW THE BALANCE IS ALL WRONG AGAIN.

Meredith has RUINED HER LIFE FOREVER

With a great effort, she succeeds in not looking up, and she goes to work.

To all outward appearances, work goes well. No different from any other day.

But partway through her shift, Sanna starts having some terrible thoughts.

What if I can't get in touch with her later for some reason.

Or what if that was some magic-induced dream or hallucination that conveyed real information but isn't ever going to happen for me again.

What if that was my last chance and I blew it.

She spends the rest of her shift kind of freaking out. It's times like this she wishes she had a job that was mentally engaging, to offer some hope of distraction. She's SO glad she gets to leave half an hour early today, she wants to get home as soon as possible so she can freak out in peace.

She clocks out at 4:30 and she gets on the bus and she gets off at her stop (and she DOESN'T LOOK UP) and she goes home and curls up in her hammock and cries.

She knows she's being ridiculous, but that doesn't make her any less scared.

What if? What if Meredith never responds and Sanna never sees her again and the e-mail addresses weren't real and and and

Eventually she stops crying.

The fear wants her to send Meredith an e-mail now, just to find out, just in case. But she's not going to do that.

She's going to… Well, first she's going to unwind a little with some YouTube or vidya or something. And then she's going to type up a transcript of the recording, and then she might e-mail Elias if she's feeling up for it.

She plays some vib-ribbon and some Race the Sun for a bit, not trying all that hard to avoid game over screens, until her mind is empty enough that it's almost like being actually calm; and then she finally buckles down and starts transcribing.

While she's transcribing, here and there she also writes notes about what she remembers thinking and feeling and planning at any given moment in the conversation. And she also writes notes about her short-term plans going forward. It's nice being able to plan things out, and not having to rely completely on her memory to keep track of the plan.

By the time she's done, it's kinda late but it's not bedtime yet.

So now… well… she doesn't really have any reason not to e-mail Elias right away. (Except that it'll be a pain in the ass, which is a terrible reason.) Among other things, if Meredith is secretly plotting something with him, why give them more time? Really, she's already given them way too much time, even before factoring in that they don't sleep.

VPN activated, onion router activated, brand new encrypted e-mail account created, yada yada:

Dear Prof. Spirou,

I hope this e-mail finds you well. I recently spoke with Meredith Baines, who claims to know you. I am very interested in learning certain things about magic, and she told me you are extremely knowledgeable and strongly inclined to share. (She gave me your e-mail address. She seemed to think you would be fine with that; I hope she was right.) I would love to ask you some questions over e-mail. Please let me know if you are amenable.

She decides not to mention that she's given Meredith permission to verify that she's who she says she is. Why prompt him to seek verification, if there's a chance he won't think of that on his own? For all she knows, he might be like 'I'd be simply delighted to tell you all about magic!' and never so much as ask for her name.

…Fuck's sake, she should've given Meredith a pseudonym or codeword or something that they could use for verification, so that if Elias does ask for confirmation then her actual literal government name won't be the only obvious 'pre-shared key' they could use for that. Goddammit.

She could suggest one — like, 'Ask both of us what Meredith's first words to me were' (except not literally that because the answer would reveal that Sanna isn't human) — but again, she doesn't want to prompt him to ask for confirmation if there's a chance he wasn't already going to do that.

…FUCK, she should've told Meredith not to tell Elias that she isn't human! And she just bets that Meredith's best judgement won't tell her that's not a thing to share even if he asks.

She is never verbally speaking to Meredith in the cold for more than a few minutes ever again. If that means giving her access to a building she otherwise wouldn't have had access to, so be it. She can't afford to be stupider during a verbal conversation with fucking Meredith.

Anyway. Is the e-mail fine? …Yeah it's fine. It's good enough. It's whatever.

Send.

And now she waits.

Elias sees the e-mail almost as soon as he receives it. One of his favourite ways to spend his free time is to help revise Wikipedia pages, checking their sources and citation, which means that he’s on his computer and connected to the Internet, although it does take him a moment to pull away from the article he was checking.

Hmm… an e-mail from an account he doesn’t know, who claims to have met Meredith. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time the younger vampire refers someone over to him and he doesn’t know which experiments she might be up to currently. Still, he hasn’t stayed so long out of trouble with the covens by sharing information on the magical whenever someone asks him —no matter how tempting it is. He should at least make his reply ambiguous until he has confirmed that it isn’t some paranormal investigator trying to reveal  the supernatural to the world, he personally saw how that didn’t work and witches are very skilled at covering up any attempts to breach the status quo.

Dear Unknown*,

It is always a pleasure to hear from people eager to learn. Are you referring to Meredith Baines, the fantasy author? I did help her with some of her earlier works and she knows well that I am a teacher by nature. However, do you have some way for me to check the veracity of your claims? Some of the things you might ask about will show up in future novels and she wouldn’t want them to become public before that. Am I to understand that I can message her about this situation?

Feel free to suggest whichever method you are comfortable with, I understand that you might not want to share details about your identity with someone you don’t know.

I hope to hear again from you soon,

Elias Spirou

*If there is a name by which you would like to be addressed, please let me know in your reply.

That should work, Meredith having actually published works about magic as if they were fictional always makes for a great cover. She never remembers to tell him when someone might contact him and there has been a time or two when it was actually about her writing. Now he just needs to wait for a reply and maybe contact Meredith about it too.

Whoa what?! She already has a reply?!

She thought she was going to be waiting at least until morning, and possibly be waiting in agony for a day or more!

Okay. Deep breaths.

Click.

…Wwwwhat the fuck does this mean.

He thinks she's asking about fictional magic?!

…Wait, is this like, a cover? In case someone intercepts these e-mails or something?

And he's… telling her… to not share what he tells her?

Damn, it didn't even slightly occur to her to mention that she would of course keep everything to herself! It was so obvious to her that it literally didn't cross her mind.

Okay, how to respond…

Dear Prof. Spirou,

Yes, I am referring to Meredith Baines the fantasy author.

My interest in this subject is purely personal. Whatever you share with me will stay with me. I won't share it with anyone without your permission. (I'm tentatively assuming that I can share with Meredith, but I'll wait on your confirmation.)

Yes, you can contact Meredith about this. At the moment I'd rather not share my name, so I'd appreciate if you didn't ask her for that.

Thank you,

Curious George

(It's as good an alias as any. And it doubles as obfuscating her gender! Of course, if Elias doesn't mention this name when he talks to Meredith, she might just immediately blow it. Hell, she might blow it even if he does mention this name!)

She goes over Elias's e-mail again, to make sure she covered everything.

…Man, Meredith wasn't kidding about him being 'more attuned to human sensibilities'. He sounds so normal! And he understands concepts like privacy! It's so refreshing!

…Ah, right. She adds a post-script:

P.S. To be honest, I'd like to ask you some questions about Meredith herself, too. Would that also be alright? (I sort of have a guess that she wouldn't mind you sharing literally anything you know about her, but you would know better than me.)

Aaaannnd send.

That isn’t the kind of reply one gets from the investigator-type (those are generally very accusatory when they feel like they are being lied to, which they are, but there are at least some reasons for it and no, it’s not for his personal enjoyment). Which means that this is either an actual fan of Meredith’s work or someone who can justifiably be introduced to the reality behind the masquerade. Probably the latter, Meredith isn’t any good at interacting with fans, but best to check. 

Hey, Meredith, have you shared my e-mail recently with someone? If so, can I tell them about the truth? I wouldn’t want to confuse a fan of yours if you happened upon one. Don’t tell me their name, they said they want to keep their privacy.

Ohhh, a message from Elias! (Yes, she was refreshing her inbox way too frequently while waiting for a message from Sanna, can you blame her?) He has either learned something he thinks Meredith will find interesting or, more likely, Sanna has already e-mailed him.

Reading it confirms that it’s the second possibility, which hopefully means that Sanna will contact her soon too!

Elias! Hi, yes, I found someone interesting the other day… ugh, I’d love to tell you more about them. The important (in this context) part is that yes, I revealed our existence to them (I think it was well justified. If any witches bother you about it, redirect them to me).  You can tell them about the supernatural as the reality that it is.

She doesn’t get why Sanna would want to hide her name but, whatever, as long as it works out in Meredith’s favour they can do it that way.

If Meredith is willing to take responsibility, who is he to resist telling someone about the truths of the universe?

Dear Curious George,

Of course you can share whatever we discuss with Meredith, I doubt there is anything about this topic that I know and she doesn’t. (Even if there was, it wouldn’t be intentional secrecy on my part.)

Meredith has confirmed that I can talk freely with you, so, go ahead with the questions!

Yes, you have understood her personality correctly, she isn’t a secretive person. I will let you know if you still somehow manage to ask something she would rather keep private.

It is my pleasure to share knowledge,

Elias Spirou

Oh good!!! Yay!!!

Dear Prof. Spirou,

Thank you so much!

I'll start with two questions, one about magic and one about Meredith:

• How do compulsions work?
• How would you describe Meredith to an ordinary human who was about to be stuck having a ten-minute one-on-one conversation with her? (Assume that despite being ordinary, the human already knows what Meredith is, and Meredith knows they know this.)

Thank you,

Curious George

(She thought about asking The Question right from the beginning, but on second thought she doesn't want to show her hand. Just because Elias is easier to talk to doesn't mean he's trustworthy. And she mustn't let her excitement get the better of her.)

She's not quite sure how frankly they're supposed to be speaking — he said 'I can talk freely with you', but that might strictly be referring to the amount of information, not the way it's phrased — so she's avoiding the word 'vampire'. She hopes it's nevertheless clear what type of compulsion she's talking about.

Send.

Dear Curious George,

Regarding compulsions, I assume you mean vampiric mind control? Some people use that same word to refer to a vampire’s central motivation or to other types of mind control. If you meant one of those, let me know and I’ll send the relevant explanation. Anyway, compulsions are a form of mind control characteristic of vampires and one of the magic abilities innate to our species. The most apt comparison within popular culture might be hypnosis.

Eye contact is the most common way, of establishing the connection, but not essential (has Meredith shown you what vampire eyes look like? If so, you can probably imagine how they could easily turn hypnotic). From there, verbal orders are the easiest way of controlling the victim, although gestures also work for simple commands.

It is possible to establish passive compulsions with orders meant to be acted upon after the person has been released from active control (this becomes harder the further from the release time the order is set for or if you want to set up a more complex trigger), or, theoretically, that permanently modify their personality. Meredith has tested both of these, results for the second one have been inconclusive, long-lasting unwanted changes without destroying the receiving mind are either impossible or beyond her skills, while wanted changes are harder to evaluate since there is no easy way to test whether the lasting impact is because the compulsion remains in effect or because, after the initial push, the person can easily continue to act in the way they would have preferred.

If you are interested as to how they feel, it is hard for the victims to remember even when explicitly ordered to do so, but common descriptions are along the lines of falling into the sight of the vampire’s eyes or the sound of their voice and into a state of waking sleep, where they feel their body distantly and both their thoughts and emotions are slowed down. Some compare this to fog or clouds of cotton surrounding their brain. It generally feels peaceful, although there might be some initial struggle when the vampire begins to take control and non-human victims are sometimes able to avoid falling under compulsions, depending on their species.

As for Meredith, she is unlikely to talk with an ordinary human. When she does do such, it is usually because she has some sort of experiment planned and the conversation consists on her explaining what she is trying to learn about magic and how. The most important thing to keep in mind is that her vampiric-drive is learning, specifically about magic, and this guides the vast majority of her actions. So, to a human, she will seem single-mindedly focused on a goal. She also isn’t very good at understanding social interactions, many emotions, and politeness, especially when they get in the way of her goals.

Glad to explain,

Elias Spirou

…Ironic that his answer to the first question ended up providing more of what she hoped for from the second question than his actual answer to the second question. Oh well.

Unwilling experiments, uuuuugh… She already knew that Meredith sometimes feeds on people without their consent and then memory-wipes them without their consent; and she's not going to lose sleep over people being compelled into personality changes they already wanted; but Meredith's done experiments that resulted in the test subject's mind being destroyed?!

Sanna puts her head on her desk, and just sits there like that for a little bit.

It's at least good to know that it turns out they're speaking very frankly. She can use words like 'vampire', she doesn't have to talk around anything.

She's curious whether Meredith's ever tested if there's a way to compel someone who is blind and and deaf and doesn't know any tactile communication method like Lorm or Morse code or whatever. She's also curious whether Meredith's ever tried performing a personality change by active rather than passive compulsion. She's also curious whether a person can be compelled to feel certain emotions, to not feel certain emotions, to remember things that didn't happen, to hallucinate, to want something, to not want something, etc.

But, let's not give either of these people any fucking ideas for horrifying future experiments.

Dear Prof. Elias,

Thank you.

Follow-up questions:

• Based on what you said about it being unclear whether permanent personality changes indicate that the passive compulsion remains in effect, am I to understand that passive compulsions can't be "lifted", since in a sense they've already been lifted?
• Can active compulsions be maintained indefinitely? If not, what are the limiting factors on how long they can be maintained?
• Is it generally harder to compel someone the more they don't want to do the thing? Or does that only apply to passive compulsions and/or only apply to personality changes?
• How does compelling someone to forget something work?
• To your knowledge, is Meredith still doing compulsion experiments nowadays? If not, when was the most recent one that you know of, and what was it testing for?
• How did Meredith find out which personality changes were wanted versus unwanted by her test subjects?
• Have you ever tried to coach Meredith on things like emotions and social skills? If so, what did you try and how did that go? If not, what would you try and how do you expect it might go?
• Is there anything Meredith is genuinely scared of?

Thanks,

Curious George

Dear Curious George,

1) Passive compulsions can’t be directly modified or lifted, although a new one might serve to counteract an older one and they can fade in potency overtime, it just isn’t directly measurable.

2) It seems so, although they require active attention from the vampire. They are also harder to maintain while the controlled person is sleeping (it feels ‘slippery’, in Meredith’s words).

3) It applies to passive compulsions (including personality changes), although species that are partially able to escape active compulsion might be motivated into trying harder when given orders they are strongly opposed to —there isn’t much data on this because it is much harder to find people from the right species to test it with. Other than that the effort is pretty much fully when initiating the compulsion.

4) It depends a lot on what is being forgotten. The compulsion itself is already easily forgotten without orders about it and, people asked to examine their memories of the time in which they were under compulsion (and who had been ordered to forget it) could, at most, notice a vague discontinuity like they had spaced out for a moment, unless it had lasted a long time (upwards of  a couple hours) or they had been released into a very different situation. Compelling people to forget short events, especially if recent or unimportant has similar results. Longer events are harder for the person to forget completely but modifying the memories is much more doable. Memories tied to strong emotional reactions or trauma can be forgotten without the reactions to similar events changing (e.g. someone scared of dogs because of a particular incident might still be scared of them despite being unable to recall the incident, this varies from one individual to another).

5) Not that I know of, although she could have come up with a something new to investigate or a new way to approach something, unless you count occasionally checking on people that were involved in experiments about long-acting passive compulsions. The last one I’m aware of was around 20 years ago, it focused on the interaction of compulsions from multiple vampires and whether it was possible to share control on an active compulsion. She offered me her notes on her experiments on compulsion (including that one) in exchange for my participation.

6) Meredith used different subjects for the wanted and unwanted changes. According to her notes, most of those submitted to unwanted changes were fully unwilling subjects, and she found most of the others because they were already looking to change something. She did talk with the willing subjects about the changes she would be trying to do.

7) She hasn’t shown much interest so I have barely talked about that kind of skills with her. It might surprise you, but she has actually improved at it a bit since I first met her, despite not generally seeking advice on the topic. Hmm… it would be a hard topic to approach with any vampire but it might be especially so with Meredith. Having been willingly and knowingly turned with a drive in mind that she has stuck to for centuries, her whole identity revolves very strongly around said drive, to the point of pushing everything that might get in the way to the side. If she actually wanted to learn, I assume it would be possible to make some progress but I wouldn’t know how to approach it without a more concrete set of starting conditions.

8) The closest thing to fear that most vampires feel is the possibility of losing their goal, especially with survival-focused individuals, where it more often mirrors human feelings. Meredith is more capable of feeling ‘fear’ than I am, for example, due to the nature of our respective drives, but it still isn’t an accurate description of her feelings.

Always here to teach,

Elias Spirou