View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
...that's not Sadde's apartment. He's pretty certain his apartment should not have all those tables and a counter and—he's pretty certain his apartment shouldn't be a bar. He has perfect memory, he'd know. Which has several implications, but the most interesting one is "Cool there's a bar where my apartment used to be!" so he walks in, walking at human speed towards the bar. He takes a seat, just for appearances' sake, and then there's a napkin: "Welcome to Milliways! I'm the bar, I can take requests and I talk via napkin. Your first drink is free. Female pronouns, please." "...this is the coolest thing. Do you answer questions or just take orders?" "I can answer questions." And of course an entirely predictable string of those succeeds. This is probably the state one will find the oddly pale man for the next while.
The door opens again. A teenage girl peeks in. "What's going on?" she asks, softly.
The vampire's head snaps up from where he's been talking to the bar. He looks at the counter again and says, "I'll be right back," and a napkin appears with "No problem."
He gets off his stool veeeeeery slowly—which is to say, at completely average human speed—and skips over towards the door. "Hi! Welcome to Milliways, the bar at the end of the universe!" And he laughs the musical laughter typical of his species, because that's one of the coolest things ever, even if the fact that apparently not even Bar herself knows which universe annoys him a bit.
"But why is the bar at the end of the universe in my dorm? I confess that is very interesting, though," she says.
Why is his laughter so musical?
She walks in a bit further.
"It's not! It's everywhere and nowhere, apparently. It just randomly replaces doors in a bunch of different universes at pretty arbitrary places and points in time, we may not even be from the same world or year, you and I! When you close the door time pauses in your universe until you leave. Oh, and there's some weird translation magic going on in here, you'll always understand everyone else and vice-versa." He looks pretty giddy about it, beaming widely, and he's—well, gorgeous. Drop-dead gorgeous. Very pale, looks like he needs a nap, but gorgeous and even when he's not laughing his voice sounds like an actor's or something like that.
"That is cool. That is so cool. What kind of things do you know about your universe?" says Flora, interest piqued. She smiles slightly and closes the door. Her hand moves closer to her wand, just in case. He's probably an actor of some sort, the way he looks and sounds, maybe with some kind of magical enhancement, too.
"Com'ere, lemme introduce you to Bar." And he zips towards Bar, this time using his superspeed because he likes being fast and now he won't scare the new person away he doesn't need to pretend. Probably.
She walks over. "You're very fast and very pretty, is that part of the same package?" she inquires. She leans on the bar, glancing at the past napkins.
"Yeah! I'm a vampire, I dunno if you have those where you come from, you might and not know it if we're from the same world 'cause vampires are secret for now, but I won't eat you. Anyway, this is Bar, she talks via napkins and you can chat with her or ask her questions and she'll sell you appropriately-priced stuff according to where you're from except your first drink's free. Actually I haven't asked for mine..." he muses.
"'But I won't eat you' is not very reassuring, you know. ...Can I get a hot chocolate? Haven't had any in ages," she says to Bar. "I like to think I know things, though. If we're in the same universe, either you're going to know about my magic or I about your magic, if none of us know each other's magics, we're probably from different universes," she reasons. "Do you know about Hogwarts and wixen magic?"
"Of course," a napkin appears, and there's a hot chocolate.
"Sorry about not being reassuring," he laughs again. "But Milliways has security measures in place, if I tried to be threatening or hurt you nonconsensually it'd stop me."
"He's telling the truth," a napkin says.
"Anyway, nnoope, never heard of a Hogwarts or wixen magic, I don't think. I mean, we do have a type of magic and people who have that kind of magic are called 'witches' regardless of gender, but I think it's probably not the same thing."
She relaxes a bit and sniffs her hot chocolate. Then she drinks it. "And how do witches work?" she asks. "Are you a witch?"
"Um. Magic? I have no idea. And yeah, I am, I have pretty extensive personal biokinesis. Lookit!" And he sprouts a unicorn horn from his forehead. "Hey Bar, do you have synthetic human blood or something like that?"
"Of course, and I have many drinks that are more nutritive and taste better to your species than even human blood does."
"Oooh! Okay, colour me interested."
"You make it sound like there are other types of witch powers. ... ... Please tell me you aren't using real unicorn horns somehow?"
"Unicorns don't exist where I'm from, and there are several other types of witch powers, they're unique to each person that has them and as far as I know no two people have the same." His horn retracts. "Bar, can you get me a list of your stuff?"
"It's infinite. I could serve you what you're most likely to enjoy drinking."
"...that's a bit worrying."
"I don't actually have access to the contents of your mind, I'm just magic enough that 'produce whatever this person is most likely to enjoy consuming' is a primitive action."
"Okaaaay, then, I'll have that, whatever it is."
And lo: a blue fizzy drink. Sadde eyes it warily, and remembers something: "By the way, my name's Sadde."
"Flora. How do you get witch powers? Is it only hereditary, like on my world? I assume, from fiction, that vampires can make new vampires?"
"I don't know if it's hereditary actually, most of the witches I knew were vampires which are infertile. Well, penis-having vampires can impregnate uterus-having humans, but that used to not be happy for most people involved and the new government is taking care of it. I know the Empress is a witch and so's the princess, so that's some evidence... Anyway, people seem to have or not have magic pretty arbitrarily, and yeah vampires can make new vampires and it's a very unpleasant process." He decides to sip from the fizzy drink and his eyes widen. "Wow this is really good!"
"Unpleasant how? Is there other stuff to being a vampire? Can you like, turn into a bat? What does sunlight do?"
"Well... there isn't much of a tee el dee are, I guess the worst part is the three days of mind-destroying agony and then the fact that people will forever smell like something more delicious than anything you've ever eaten in your life, delicious enough to turn otherwise decent and upstanding people into serial killers. Can't turn into a bat, and sunlight makes us sparkle like diamonds." Sip sip, happy noises.
"Sure!" He finishes drinking. "You take credit card?" he asks Bar.
"I can debit it automatically from your bank account in a way that won't raise any red flags."
"Cool! You're the best bar."
"Thank you."
"Anyway, it needs to be actual sunlight, so we'll need to go outside." And he zaps to the door.
Flora walks after him.
Vampireness doesn't sound very nice, she thinks.
He zips back to her, grinning. "Other advantages include superstrength and speed, enhanced cognition, perfect recall, ridiculously expanded brainspace, enhanced senses including the ability to see in ultraviolet and talk and hear in registers humans can't, also hold multiple conversations at the same time due to the above, agelessness, prettiness, almost complete immortality if no one tears you to pieces and sets you on fire, you never have to sleep, I think that's it."
"Ooh. I love most of that, but I really, really don't need enhanced senses." She thinks of something. "Hm, do vampires have to actually bite the person they're vampiring?"