Let's Do The Space Warp Again

[iamnotpolaris]

'Guided random' selected, parameters recalibrated, universe selection initiated.
What's on the other side now?

Comments

[whatamithinking]

'EMILY!'

[iamnotpolaris]

'Lack of communication is the one way this could crash and burn that you might never forgive yourself for, and I'm not ever letting you do that to yourself.'

[endragoned]

"Aw," he says, sympathetic/endeared.

And since words don't seem to have been doing the job, he sends to Edie's presence at the edge of his mind:

He finds her very charming, and he is very grateful for the chance to travel with her and her companions, and (with an undercurrent of awareness of her assertion that she could destroy his mind if she chose to) if she is fond of him, and would like to express that fondness by making use of him sexually, well, that would be delightful and he would be delighted; but of course if she would like to express her fondness in some other way then that is fine too. (He doesn't get into the details, but there is a definite sense that the scope of things he would welcome as expressions of genuine affection even though he might dislike them in other contexts is very broad.)

[whatamithinking]

'I don't...'
Her idea of sexuality seems to be very different from his. If one of the people involved can be described as making use of the other, something is probably going wrong.
And she's not quite sure what that last part...means...
A few things click together in her brain (use him sexually) (things he would dislike in other contexts) (sexual overtures as a threat, that was a thing in the corner of his sending) (he's been alone on an island since he escaped the terrible people and the nonvirginphobic unicorn wasn't any more comfortable around him than her)
Very carefully she raises her hands to her temples. Very carefully she sinks to the ground and places her head between her knees. Very carefully she takes the incandescent rage coursing through her and does nothing with it, just breathing hard and waiting for it to abate enough that she can be rational again.

[endragoned]

...That is a surprising outcome! He is surprised and concerned.

[whatamithinking]

Eventually she sends to Liselen: 'You said someone sacrificed themself to kill all of the evil Endarkened, right? Is there some charitable organization in their name I could contribute to? Some kind of memorial I could lay flowers at?'

[pythbox]

'Um? There are lots of memorials for Idalia, although it's a little weird because right after she died she was reborn as an elf and lived for another thousand or so years, so all the memorials in the human lands are very confused about what her second life was like and there aren't nearly as many in the elven lands because she was right there not needing memorializing and then when she died again it had already been a long time since the sacrifice.'

[whatamithinking]

'Good for her. I take it reincarnating as an elf isn't something that happens a lot.'

"I'm okay," she says out loud. "I just. Have a temper. And given what I can do it's of the utmost importance that my temper not allowed to have free reign."

[pythbox]

'It pretty much doesn't happen at all! Idalia was special.'

[endragoned]

"Then I am sorry I made you angry," he says, still slightly confused.

[whatamithinking]

"I wasn't angry at you!"

[endragoned]

Yeah, he doesn't get it.

[whatamithinking]

Okay...
The way the Endarkened approached sex was massively screwed up. Most places in most worlds (i.e. everywhere that isn't terrible) don't treat it like that. In most places, rape is considered a special kind of evil, something that can scar people for life, and that apparently happened to him, and this filled her with rage at the other Endarkened.

[endragoned]

...well.

He did notice that he didn't like the way things worked in Shadow Mountain very much, but he doesn't really have any examples of alternative social structures, though he has already realized that most kinds of people must manage to figure out their sexual encounters without threats and power games. His dragon-self is managing just fine with Saravasse, but Saravasse is being very... direct, in a way that he would not feel comfortable emulating without really understanding how to avoid threatening anyone. He does not want to threaten anyone.

[whatamithinking]

...Well, to start with, with Edie at least, he can take it as a given that she knows he doesn't want to threaten her or anyone else, and if she hears something that sounds like a threat what it really means is that Shadow Mountain was particularly terrible.
As for the rest...she's not sure she can condense a lifetime of social conditioning and experience with alternative social structures for him, not without transmitting her entire life experience which might well not overwhelm him considering how much longer his life has been but would contain things that aren't really hers to share.

[endragoned]

It's kind of her to promise the generous interpretation, but it still wouldn't be comfortable to do things that feel like they will be threatening even if she knows better than to take it that way. Oh well. He's sure he'll adapt eventually.

[whatamithinking]

...Eventually, yeah.
She still kind of wants to set something on fire, but it helps that what she wants to set on fire hasn't existed for about two thousand years. It can just go on the pile of things to ponder when she wants to be pissed off, like the fact that the Holocaust was a thing that existed or any form of institutionalized prejudice.

[endragoned]

It is... strange, that she wants to set something on fire over this. Perhaps it's just that she hasn't had ten thousand years to get used to it. Or perhaps it is that he is unaccustomed to being the target of someone else's sympathy.

[whatamithinking]

It's true that she probably won't feel this strongly about it in ten thousand years, if she lives ten thousand years.

...Ten thousand years is a long time. She hadn't really thought about that before now.

And the unicorns still remember Tialle and her demon, wow, unicorns are great at history.

[endragoned]

It is a long time, yes. But Endarkened live until killed, and they are very hard to kill.

[whatamithinking]

In this particular case? Good.

[endragoned]

Aw.

[whatamithinking]

It is really remarkably convenient that most of the known ways to do so depend on evilness. And whatever metaphysical marker of evil he had seems to have gone bye-bye at some point.

[endragoned]

That is so. Although he is not sure unicorns couldn't still kill him if they tried.

[whatamithinking]

Luckily the one they met doesn't seem inclined to try. Also, most other universes do not have unicorns in them.