random pointless swirls

[sturdycoldsteel]

The shaper known as Steel is flying down the right side of a road, shoring up the edges of the bluestream that lets her lift herself off the ground as she goes. Sure, she'll be a bit clumsy and weak when she gets to Opri, but she's not planning on doing much more stream-shaping today, so might as well.

She glances at the bluestream (the magical vision blinds her physical vision for a short moment, but not long enough to crash into anything) and determines that this next crossroads is where she needs to turn. She tilts to the right...

...And lands on a patch of orange grass in a forest clearing. This is not the town of Opri. She opens her eyes and ears to the bluestream, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The bluestream here isn't a nice, orderly, useful pattern like on the roads, or the formless fog that it usually decays to after a while. Instead it's a riot of random patterns swirling around, wispy and confused and obviously not designed to do anything useful.

Steel, deaf and blind for a few seconds thanks to her peek at the bluestream, stands very still and is very confused.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"Bye."

[sturdycoldsteel]

So she flies back and goes back to practicing sorcery.

Later, "Promise, is food still dangerous if one person knows the other's name?"

[imeanforever]

"If I fed you, then you couldn't envassal me with food but my name would still work. If I knew your name, then if I also fed you it would mean that you'd still be my vassal if I forgot your name but wouldn't otherwise do anything, and if you fed me it wouldn't envassal me."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"So I can fully believe you about these rules unless you and River are actually close friends running some sort of elaborate con, which is frankly rather absurd why did I even think of it."

[imeanforever]

"I barely know River and don't like her to the extent I know her, and this isn't going to come up in the first place."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Exactly. This place is really pretty compared to home, you know, but as much as I want to go exploring I don't much like the idea of finding more fairies who will all want my name. Would I pass more or less unremarked if I had wings of my own and pretended to fly with them?"

[imeanforever]

"Not necessarily. You're very tall for a fairy and I'm not sure off the top of my head of a kind you could pass for, even with specially-made wings, so you might not look like a mortal but you'd still look interesting."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Could I pretend to be a kind from very far away that they'll never actually hear of?"

[imeanforever]

"I mean, yes, but you'd still be interesting."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Being an interesting fairy seems like a better deal than being a very interesting mortal. I'll do fake wings if my wanderlust beats my caution."

[imeanforever]

"Mm - it means that people won't try to feed you. Well, most of them, it depends. Leaflets like me have a decent shot at vassaling another fairy with food because of how strong the claims on our tree are. But while that would be less likely you'd also look more useful. As a mortal you're a temporary curiosity until you do magic and look really interesting; as a weird foreign fairy you're potentially very valuable and could be kept permanently."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"In other words, 'heads I win, tails you lose.' Lovely. How goes gatecraft?"

[imeanforever]

"I think it'll take me a couple of weeks to know what I'm doing enough to start one, even on flat harmonics. The flat harmonics should let it settle immediately, though."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Back to sitting in my sun-circle and practicing sorcery and resisting the urge to experiment, then."

[imeanforever]

"Sorry."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Oh, don't worry, boredom is extremely preferable to slavery, you seem to agree. Thank you for not being terrible, by the way. I have a question, though. You seem like a moral person, and I sometimes like an external moral enforcer to screen some of my more, hm, creative ideas."

"If some hostile fairy is trying very hard to get my name, would you blame me for stabbing them with a syringe full of orange juice, telling them to never bother me again, and going back the way I came?"

[imeanforever]

"...Not very much. But if you can stab them you could probably also just incapacitate them and run away without doing that."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I'm not sure I can damage someone enough to put them down for the count without putting them in danger of actually dying."

[imeanforever]

"You can if it's a fairy. We're immortal."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"That's a trick, alright. Okay. So I can sling fireballs with relative disregard for the consequences if I'm in a tight spot."

[imeanforever]

"Well, it would still be highly unpleasant to be fireballed, so beware collateral damage."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Of course. Collateral damage is nobody's friend. But if someone's been ordered to try and capture me and they're peaceful people when not under orders, I'm still going to fireball them if I need to do so to escape."

"Can I have some more sorcery books? I've already learned stuff that will completely revolutionize the way we do things back home, and there's lots more. I think I want to try sorcery's kind of transmutation next."

[imeanforever]

Promise hands her another book.

[sturdycoldsteel]

And the pair go back to being studious and occasionally interacting. Two days later, Steel manages to transmute copper to gold and laughs.

She goes and finds Promise. "I just transmuted copper, a relatively common metal, to gold, an extremely rare and valuable one. Problem is, gold is only valuable because it's rare. If I teach sorcery to people back home, someone will think of the same thing, it'll wreck the economy. And yet, I can't stop thinking 'Gold! I'm rich!' It's a bit silly, isn't it?"

[imeanforever]

"A bit," admits Promise.