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]

"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.)

[whatamithinking]

"You are closer to someone than I am with my sister. Congratulations, I don't see that every day."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I'm not sure if it's a 'congratulations' sort of thing. It just happened." (She was five. She was scared. As imprintings/matings go it wasn't so bad -)

[whatamithinking]

"...Your world is kind of messed up."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Yes, I know."

[whatamithinking]

"The immortality thing seems decent, though."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Yes. I can't turn you into a vampire from here, though, there's a procedure - if you really want it you can come back to my world and hope you get a door out to go home again, though."

[whatamithinking]

"...I think I'll skip it. I think I caught something about genetic changes...?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Yes. Vampires have more chromosomes. The originals remain as-was though."

[whatamithinking]

"Hmm. My telepathy is genetic, and I have it because of genes other than the one that activates it--" '(impression of how the X-Gene works, granting powers according to the information in seemingly useless and unrelated genes)' "--and I really do not even a little want to risk losing it."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"We have a precog, if that's the issue." (Aunt Alice, can't see wolves or hybrids but could see a human and probably an X-Gened one too.) "But I don't mean to be a pushy salesperson, it's just explaining the pros and cons of becoming a vampire is literally my job."

"In addition to 'Princess'," Jake puts in.

[whatamithinking]

"Ooh, a princess."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Well, that's what happens when one's mother usurps the shadow government."