:Why not most humans?:

Leareth did not think it wise for many people to see the aspects that might let them re-derive parts of the specifications for building me. Also the godconcepts are difficult to understand and would not even be helpful for most people. When I am bigger and grown-up, I will be able to make that judgement on my own, but I do not have the experience yet. 

:I'd like to see:

I should warn you it will be disorienting.

There's the sense of, not just being offered a metaphorical hand, but something much, much bigger than her - opening itself, not engulfing her but showing the place where she can, if she wants, choose to step inside.

It's a little intimidating but - deep breath and a step -

It feels disconcertingly like being turned inside out, in an entirely non-painful way but still. It's like suddenly seeing things from every angle at once, seeing from the outside what she's only ever seen from the inside, before, and also seeing from the inside when she's only ever seen the outsides.

She can tell, distantly, that right now the small young god is perceiving the material plane for several dozen miles around Leareth's facility, the current extent of its local range, and also seeing a dozen other planes and the way they connect, and the structure of physical laws and magic that hold reality on a coherent possible-to-predict path. From this angle the concrete metaphor-mapping of the cityscape is gone; it's raw sensory information, from a dozen senses that humans don't have, sort of but not entirely stitched into a coherent perception, and then the analysis of it, the god sketching out possible plans, nudges, holding a plan in mind and watching its effects ripple out through the future-paths until it's too dizzying and unclear to see any further. 

The god also doesn't know how to interpret much of what it's seeing, yet, but the people in the picture stand out. Glowing brightly, and the small god - loves them, it's not a humanlike kind of love but it is, recognizably, that. 

:Wow -

- wow:

The god just holds her there for a while, very gently and carefully; it would hurt her mind, if she were let loose to bounce around in those currents, but as long as the small god is holding her steady, it's safe. 

Do you have questions? Pause. I might not be able to answer them yet because I am still learning and growing up.

:I have comments - it sort of reminds me of getting Healing-Sight, refining my touchsight once I guessed it had to be there - like how people 'just' move their fingers, but if you look you can see all the muscles are actually in their arm -:

Interesting. A ripple of appreciation-understanding-seeing. That is a good analogy, I will remember it.

:Thanks. How exactly would it hurt me to see it directly - humans can get new senses, with new Gifts, and that's safe -:

It can hurt humans with Gifts if there is too much for their Sight to withstand safely? If a mage touches a very powerful node when they are not an Adept, or if a Thoughtsenser hears a very loud Mindspeech shout. I am putting you in the middle of where my senses go, so it would be like that if I were not also filtering it for you to be less loud. Does that make sense?

:I think so. Too loud or bright. But, hm, in the case of mage-sight it matters if someone's an Adept or not, not like eyesight where no one should look straight at the sun. Is there a way a human could stay a human but be able to see like this?:

The god swims through its world-future-perception, seeking another angle, spinning, refocusing.

Perhaps. It would require something closer to a personal avatar-part, except for translation in the opposite direction.

:Interesting! I don't see an urgent need for that but it would be so cool...:

I will take the value in it being so cool into consideration. A wash of something-like-affection, fondness, a flicker of seeing-understanding-recognition of a part of her humanness that the god is still trying to comprehend.

She giggles.

Is there anything else that you want to see?

:Hm - Shadowgod wasn't able to explain everything about lifebonds, when I asked a few years back. They said they happen without special intervention when compatible souls meet but that there was also something else going on. Do you know what that is?:

The souls of sentient beings have properties, including one that you could think of as 'shape' although it is not really that. Lifebond compatibility comes of two souls being the right shape to fit together. Without any intervention at any step, human souls will not do that. At the step when the souls are not yet people, though, their shape can be made such that they do.

:Huh. Does that have any side effects? Are most people shaped like that - Leareth's would have had to have been changed so long ago -:

Pause. Peering deeper in some direction...

I think that on average it leads people to be more along-some-extreme? Because some of their traits are not random. I do not think Leareth was shaped originally, but it is true that he is very along-some-extreme, as a person in general, and then a Power could shape your soul to fit his.

:Huh! So a version of me who hadn't been - tweaked to fit - would be, uh, less... interesting or intense or something?:

For any specific instance it is hard to know, but in expectation, I think that is correct.

:Can people be arranged to be more interesting and intense via prenatal soul-sculpting without specifically matching them up to a would-be lifebonded?: