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Annie is on her trike on her way to school.
This van labeled HAZARDOUS MATERIALS is also on its way to school.
The van hits a patch of black ice. It goes spinning, it turns over, it slices itself open on a wrought-iron fence with spikes, and it disgorges boxes which smash open on the pavement. Some of them skitter clear into the slush.
Some of them - along with most of the van - land on Annie.
There is a whirl of bewildering pain and confusion -
- and she falls to the ground, injured and in more kinds of discomfort beyond that and moaning.
She slowly starts to heal before the eyes of her sole witness.
six artifact pileup annie in thedas
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keep_busy
first-and-final
"Well - good? I think?" Hug. "Should I try to explain more things, should I shut up and hug you, I want to help, what do I do?"
keep_busy
"A-are there more things to explain...? Should I explain more things, frankly in your position I'd barely trust me not to knick-knack, um, me."
first-and-final
"It occurred to me that you could do that, and then you didn't, so I feel comfortable in my continuing assumption that you aren't going to," he says. "I mean, please don't, adding more fundamental wrongs to the universe seems like the opposite of a solution, but it's not something I'm worried about. Do you want to explain any more things, is something weighing on you...?"
keep_busy
"Mostly that thing. I don't think I'm going to slip, I have way more angles to convince the knick-knack that it would be bad than it has angles to convince me it's a great idea that solves everything forever. I just sort of wondered why you weren't worried about it."
first-and-final
"Well... you don't give the impression of being someone who would do that," he says. "Or, to put it another way, I trust you."
keep_busy
Hug. "I need to not fall apart like that if someone's a jerk to me in the street, I don't know how anymore, I used to know how to do things like that," she mumbles. "I can't order my brain around any more, I have to justify everything in terms the knick-knack likes."
first-and-final
"That sounds deeply frustrating to deal with," says Stalas. "It's kind of amazing how together you are, considering. I don't suppose it'll let you cheat by telling it I'd rather it fuck off and leave you alone...?"
keep_busy
"No. I've tried a lot of variations on that. I can kick it around by appealing to all kinds of you-related motivations, since they're all set to infinity and don't have a natural hierarchy unless a lot of them are ganging up on me, but it doesn't admit of actual modification of its basic presence."
first-and-final
"Nor modification of its approach...? Could I contribute to this balance by delivering impassioned speeches, are there sentiments that would make your life easier if I expressed them?"
keep_busy
"Uh, maybe? Your overall projected attitude may already be making it as malleable as it can be. I mean, I don't think I could materialize a complaint on the subject if you were engaging in a campaign of the world's least subtle knick-knack-based manipulation or anything but I suspect I would not generate such a complaint on behalf of someone else who was in my position and being treated the way you're treating me, so. ...I think it counts making you happy and acceding to your expressed wants separately, so depending on how convincing your speeches are it might double up whatever you were speeching about, which would be fine if it were a thing I could actually do that wasn't objectionable in some way but really difficult if it were something I could not in fact follow through on."
first-and-final
"Well, if you would like to solicit an impassioned speech on some subject or other, I am available to generate them."
keep_busy
Hug. Sigh. "You're being so good to me and I probably couldn't materialize half this much grace if somebody had been knick-knacked at me out of nowhere."
first-and-final
Snuggle. "And soon we will be married. Probably in a couple of months. It takes time to plan these things. And then we will save the world from its assorted wrongs and live forever together."
keep_busy
"In my world there's a thing where engaged couples get one ear pierced and then the other when they're married."
first-and-final
"Huh," says Stalas. "In the noble caste we wear each other's house seal, but it's not specified exactly how, and some people don't bother, especially if they're marrying into a different branch of the same house."
first-and-final
"This is a problem that has been encountered before. Nobles who insist on marrying below their station sometimes do the lower-caste thing and wear each other's personal marks - I expect you don't have one of those either, but unlike a house seal you don't need to appeal to any particular authority to get one, it could just be your name in Noregrsk if you like."
keep_busy
"...My last name means 'swan'? Which is a kind of bird if you haven't bothered to learn about birds living underground."