This post has the following content warnings:
Tanthe meets Aire in a "bar"
Next Post »
+ Show First Post
Total: 312
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

"Right, yes." She smiles self-consciously. "Sorry, I got distracted. If... if you're really okay with it?"

Permalink

"I am. I'd be very surprised if anything went wrong."

Permalink

"...okay. Okay. Um. Right now?"

Permalink

"Yes, right now. It's okay, you can ramp up the pressure slowly and I'll tell you in advance if it looks like you might break through."

Permalink

 

"Okay."

She takes a deep breath, and starts very small and goes very slow. At first there isn't noticeable pressure at all, and then there's just a whisper of it, and then it starts moving through the normal range of what one might expect from an average telepath probing one's shields, and then it passes straight through that range and out the other side, and at no point during this process does Tanthe begin to show signs of strain, just concentration. But, on the other hand, the range of what one might expect from an average telepath probing one's shields isn't enough to put Aire at risk.

Tanthe sure does keep going, though. She starts looking like she's doing something effortful and not just focus-intensive after she's reached something like twice the pressure Christa could possibly have managed. And she can keep going from there, though not trivially, if Aire doesn't tell her to stop.

Permalink

She can keep out twice Christa's pressure easily enough. She doesn't tell her to stop.

Permalink

Three Christas, and four Christas, and she's still going strong. Five Christas and she's starting to flag a little.

"...that's stronger than I knew shields could be," she says, pausing there for a moment. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Permalink

“I’m sure. I can tell you’re pushing, but you’re not at risk of breaking through just yet.”

Permalink

"...okay."

She keeps going. Five Christas, then six, and most of the way to seven she releases the pressure entirely, shaking her head. "That's as much as I can manage without hurting myself. Definitely a lot more than I expect I could do by accident."

Permalink

“Oh, good! I was a bit worried there when you just kept going, eventually that would have been too much. I don’t know for certain how many people’s shields would be able to resist that, but certainly some. For all their strength my shields aren’t so strong that its impossible to outmatch them, and I still had some buffer there. You might end up restricted to anomalies like me or people with more esoteric methods of keeping you out, but you'll have some options.”

 

Permalink

"...wow," she says, quietly, almost more to herself than Aire.

But the relief of a person whose problems have all been solved is notably absent from her countenance.

Permalink

Aire tilts her head, confused. Why doesn’t she seem more relieved?

More problems, then. Doesn’t want to get married, is now missing an excuse not to? No, that doesn’t seem right. Well, she can always just ask.

“I can’t help but notice that you don’t seem particularly relieved by this information. I don’t want to pry too much, so if you’re not comfortable just let me know, but I do find myself feeling rather invested in this now that I’ve helped once. Perhaps whatever your other problem is will also happen to be unexpectedly solvable.”

Permalink

"...all right, you caught me," she says, with an awkward laugh. "My psychic problems were very real but I was also using them as an excuse to avoid mentioning my other, more awkward, less tractable problems."

Permalink

“Ah, I see. If I mysteriously happen to have a viable solution to those will it turn out you have an even more dire, even more awkward third set of problems?”

Permalink

"No, at that point I will have run out."

Permalink

"Oh, good. I'm glad you're a person rather than an ambulatory nesting doll composed entirely of additional problems. Well, I can't promise a solution, but I can promise that my sense of what exactly is too awkward to talk about is probably rather a lot more lenient than you're used to."

Permalink

...she giggles softly at the joke.

"On the other hand," she says, "my sense of what's too awkward to talk about..." She shrugs. Awkwardly.

Permalink

 

She leans forward a little and rests her hands on the back of one of Tanthe’s, incidentally giving Tanthe a bit of a better view of Aire's chest.

“If you’re dead set on not talking about it I can stop pushing. But, well, I did have an unexpected solution to the last problem. And I think a little awkwardness might be worth it if it happens to be the case that I have the solution to the next one.”

 

 

 

Permalink

(She glances at Aire's chest, flushes slightly, and closes her eyes. She doesn't pull her hand away, though.)

"...I did... sort of hope... that I'd find someone here who could help me. But—it's so hard to figure out—what to say, how to explain—"

Permalink

“Well, you could try telling it like a story? How did you learn there was a problem? Although given the awkwardness perhaps that’s a nonstarter.”

Tanthe closing her eyes like that is odd. She clearly liked looking, so it’s not that. And it’s not that she’s embarrassed, she’s got her eyes closed, that makes her downward glance really obvious. What’s going on here?

Permalink

"Well, you see," she says, with a self-conscious giggle, opening her eyes only to shyly look away. "I learned there was a problem when I was thirteen and laid a copper egg."

Permalink

“Well, that’s certainly odd. I've heard of people laying eggs before, but never copper ones.”

 

Permalink

"All the women in my father's family lay golden eggs every month, except when we lay silver or copper instead. Only I didn't know that at the time, because..." she hesitates, sighs, shakes her head. "Look, you're not—I don't know, secretly working for the Red Queen or anything, are you?"

(She smiles very self-consciously at the ridiculousness of the question.)

Permalink

She laughs.

"No, I'm not even sort of secretly working for the Red Queen."

Permalink

"Oh good. Sorry, I just..."

She hesitantly glances around the bar.

"...is there somewhere more private we can talk? And, I know this is silly, but can you promise me you won't—I don't know, try to kidnap me or sell me or otherwise exploit me economically for my shiny valuable eggs? I really don't want that to happen."

Total: 312
Posts Per Page: