A Good Place to Put Your Feet Up

[whatamithinking]

There is a woman at the bar. She's drinking some sort of coffee beverage, and grading papers.

Comments

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Oh, that's interesting. How do you do that?"

[whatamithinking]

"Telepath. What about you?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Witchcraft."

[whatamithinking]

"Nice. What kind? You get all sorts of magic users calling themselves witches in Milliways."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"In my world some people are born with, develop over time, or acquire after turning into vampires idiosyncratic personality-based powers. Mine is telling the truth."

[whatamithinking]

"I see."

"Does vampires have anything to do with why your mind's so..." she gestures helplessly. "None of the languages I know have words for telepathic sense-impressions."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Um, that depends on what you're sensing. I'm a half-vampire, but you might just be getting a strong magical sense from my witchcraft. Even non-magical people get that. And I'm also carrying extremely detailed life histories of a large number of other people."

[whatamithinking]

"I might not be getting that last thing, I don't typically read minds without permission. And it's...the truthy thing is separate from the thing I'm thinking of. If I were going to try to describe it using synaesthetic terminology I might say big or bright or something."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"That might just be the half-vampire part, then. Near-perfect memories, faster and more parallel cognition. See if it turns off when I tell a lie: the moon is made of green cheese."

Well, something sure happens when she does that.

[whatamithinking]

"...That was weird but it didn't turn off."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Okay, then you're probably detecting the fact that I'm a half vampire and this has brain effects. My witchcraft, on the other hand, pitches a fit if I tell lies. I used to be able to get away with it if I was talking to people who'd never heard me tell the truth, but that's gotten harder over time."

[whatamithinking]

"It's strange that the truth effect is still there when you're asking questions instead of telling people things. So what's up with your friend? I'm getting something latent off him that's a little like being a telepath but not quite..."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Even if I don't say anything, or state anything, there are facts about myself that are communicated through body language, or for that matter choosing to be silent - goes the theory. It's not especially scientific theory, as there's only one of me. Jake's a werewolf, and when he and other wolves in his pack are in wolf shape they're telepathic with one another. Doesn't do anything when he's shaped like so."

[whatamithinking]

"Huh. That would explain it. It's still different from my kind of telepathy, but then, most kinds I've encountered in Milliways are."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"What's yours like, then?"

[whatamithinking]

"D'you want a verbal explanation or sensory summary?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I'd happily take the latter but you should know I'm not good at keeping secrets."

[whatamithinking]

"It's not a secret. There are several telepaths in my world and we all work basically the same way."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Okay then."

[whatamithinking]

It's like...
It's like every other mind in (range) the world is a (bright/solid/Obviously There) point. There are obvious things about each one--Elspeth receives a comparison between hers, Jake's, an averaged "composite human" and a composite of another category of person that presumably exists in Edie's world but which she doesn't happen to name.
Not reading minds isn't effortful, exactly, but it's not a standard default anymore than keeping your eyes closed is. She's in the habit of keeping her metaphorical eyes closed, now, but the sense of not-quite-natural remains.

Minds are easy to reach out and (touch). To read (surface thoughts or projected transmissions or one delicate thing), or to transmit to, or to (wraparound/guard/protect).

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I don't mind if you read my mind. Jake prefers to reserve same for pack and in principle me. That having been said, I contain the unabridged memories of a lot of other people, some of whom are alive to object, and while keeping those genuinely private is a lost cause by now it'd on the whole be better if you didn't look at any memories that aren't mine in the first person."

[whatamithinking]

'Looking only at specific things is not difficult.'

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Cool."

[whatamithinking]

If she has permission, she's going to sift through the top layer of surface thought. "In principle you, meaning you can't but if you could he wouldn't mind?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Right." (He's her wolf, he loves/trusts/needs her with a devotion that is quite beyond reason, this is complicated but for them the complications are long enough ago to have settled into the background, it is quite unlikely that there are any forms of intimacy-with-her that he would not want.)