glowfic | space oddity

Entry tags:

space oddity

One day in fairyland, there is an immensely bright flash of light a about a mile above the ground. Something like a metal house is suddenly flying through as if it came through a portal, faster than all but the fastest fairies.

It's flying, not directly down, but still very much towards the ground. It does not take long for it to stop flying and start carving through earth and trees. Eventually it runs out of momentum near a certain lake. The thing seems to still be in one piece, which is rather miraculous considering the two miles of destroyed trees behind it.

After a few minutes, a mortal covered in unusually bulky clothes emerges from the thing. All that is visible is his face. He starts inspecting the outside of his space oddity.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"The oceans are less populated than the continents, but not overwhelmingly so. Unfortunately, I'm not sure you will be able to tell how populated an area is from the air, and you probably want to be several continents away from the Queen, which means well away from anyplace I could confidently map for you."

"We can have a sealed dome to stop anything food-like getting in. And ways to suddenly evacuate and destroy our things once we leave, if necessary. It'd save so many people to have ten thousand mortals who know how to sorcerously heal aging. There are always risks, the question is whether the risks are worth it."

"It sounds it - the dome would have to prevent a sorcerer from just stepping through, though. I can walk through walls."

"I can do some experiments, see what might interfere with sorcery. This isn't something I'm planning to do tomorrow, after all, I've got about 60 years before I have to find you again or learn to de-age myself. Would you mind trying to be undetectable while near my ship? You're new at this compared to the queen's sorcerors, yes, but any information is better than no information."

"I can go invisible, inaudible, and unsmellable, but not insubstantial, harmonically neutral, or weightless."

"My ship has a large number of ways to detect things. You'll learn about most of them if you read the entire library I gave you. It can detect weight, it can detect any heat you give off, it can detect the patterns of air left when you fly, it can detect subtle changes in the air you breathe out, it can detect you by the fact that there's not as much air in the space you're occupying than around you... And so on and so forth. I want to make a list of what stuff I have that can find a sorcerer when she's trying to hide."

Edited 2015-09-16 19:27 (UTC)

"All right."

And then Promise goes invisible, inaudible, and unsmellable.

Nick makes interested sounds. When she moves he turns to follow. "Hm. I don't have everything I wanted to try me. I can tell you're somewhere here-ish..." He waves at her general area, "But not quite exactly where you are. Would you mind following me to the ship? Just stay here if so." He goes back to the ship.

She follows.

And once they're within a few hundred feet of the ship Nick reports, "Now I can tell where you are. That's interesting. Thank you, by the by, and do you want some of these sensors for yourself?"

She reappears. "Sure."

He pulls something off his belt. "This is the one that could tell the general area where you were. It's hard to explain how it works, but it detects all nearby objects in a small sphere. You use it by holding it and wanting to, it gives you an entirely new sense. The power cell will last, oh, a year. But I'll give you a few of em and maybe you can duplicate it with sorcery. I've got a few more scanners for you, just not with me right now."

Promise take the object and tucks it into her sash.

And Nick goes back into the ship. A few more days pass uneventfully. The card-game-playing mortals invite her to join them for a few of the easier games that don't require talking.

"I can hear again now," she says. "But sure, I'll play."

The mortals all congratulate her. None of them seem to realize she'd done it deliberately. The more complicated games are a lot easier to understand when someone can actually explain the rules to her.

One of them asks, "Capn' said you needed to watch us first, to help us. Do you know how much longer...?"

"Not too much longer. A few more hours."

She nods. They all thank her. One of them wonders aloud, "I still don't get why S... Fuck! I almost forgot. No names."

The others tease his mistake, but the friendly atmosphere is gone now.

"I can deafen myself again if it's hard to watch out for that. I didn't get enough to be a problem."

"Oh, so that's why you were deaf. That's probably for the best... I just know someone's going to forget. Sorry."

"That's actually not why, but yeah." She shuts her eyes; there are two faint pops. There.

They go back to their games. Promise can still join the simpler ones if she wants.

The pace of activity inside the ship picks up. She passes more people working on things on her way in and out every day. Nick explains that it's starting to make preparations to leave.