Finders Keepers

[all_too_familiar]

Sometimes witches have powers before they turn. But this is rare, uncommon.

More often, a potential witch displays almost nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just, say, a little more skill with people, a little more natural charisma. An extra dose of something that could almost be called luck, if one were paying attention and on the lookout for witches.

There is one such maybe-potential, right over there. He's not from around here, but he is fluent in Italian and French and German and he professes that English is his first language and laughs when people call him a liar because of his perfect accent. He might not be the most powerful, but a polyglot witch could be useful for something. And who knows, maybe there's more to it.

Maybe someone would care to find out.

Comments

[poll_the_stars]

She snorts.

"Let's not. I could kill someone." Pause. "Actually, from what it sounds like, one vampire dealing with a newborn is not enough for safety."

[all_too_familiar]

"Mm. Yeah. I was thinking along those lines already, though we could go find some extremely out of the way place of the world if that falls through. I'll ask vampire friends about it when I go to visit."

[poll_the_stars]

"Okay. ... How soon are you going to go visit?"

[all_too_familiar]

"Vague later, I just got here, and have a shiny new sister. And, I don't know, need anything heavy lifted?"

[poll_the_stars]

"If I find something," she says dryly, "I will let you know."

[all_too_familiar]

So it turns out that Blair actually likes his sister. He is gently re-informed of relevant forgotten history, kept away from the neighbors for fear of being recognized, and is informed that he needs to be very careful about watching when he breathes, because his sister is in fact a nurse. Blood is occasionally involved with this.

Despite this hurdle, he does not eat her, or any of the neighbors, or anyone else. He eats a lot of deer, a bit more often than is really necessary. He is a safe vampire. Well. Okay, maybe not safe, but not randomly murderous. He will choose to be dangerous. In certain conditions. And then when he chooses not to be dangerous he will not be dangerous. This is a good system.

Weeks pass; Yvette foresees leaving England eventually, if not immediately, and has to prepare for the eventuality. This involves selling things that she had but won't need when travelling, saving up money, informing her landlord, so on.

Blair takes the time to introduce himself to the nearby covens - they find him sort of quaint on account of his diet and unobjectionable. He asks that they not eat people in the town Yvette lives in, because he is planning to spirit his sister away (not in England, he clarifies, they won't have to worry about a newborn) to be turned and it would be upsetting to have her be eaten before that. They are a bit nervous about the potential newborn, but if he is not going to turn her in England it's really not their problem, and avoiding one little town is easy enough.

In his admittedly large downtime, he pokes at his power. He gets a better feel for how to find certain types of people, and gets a feel for how long it takes for him to reliably track a person, and what way's best to get a good signature in his little person database. Smell is awful for anything but finding the specifics of where the person is. Sight's better, but not if he just studies physical appearance; he needs to watch for their mannerisms, their quirks, their body language. Listening to them is definitely on the right track, but just stalking them and hearing them speak isn't the best option. His most natural instinct of 'walk up and talk to them' is, by a long shot. Regardless, he definitely needs to pay attention to them as people, not just - targets to be hunted. This is fine by him, actually.

And then he's grown a bit restless and all of Yvette's things that can be taken care of without a date that she sets sail are taken care of, and he bids his sister goodbye and goes back to America to find and talk to the Cullens.

They're no longer in Wisconsin. This isn't a problem, he's a tracker, but it is noteworthy. He follows their signatures to the state of New York, and then to Rochester.

They probably already know he's there before he knocks on their door, but it seems polite.

[alicornucopia]

Esme answers. "Welcome back! How have you been?"

[all_too_familiar]

"Excellent! I visited the Denali and then my sister in England; she was very understanding and did not try to set me on fire even once." He smiles. "And you, Esme?"

[alicornucopia]

"We've been settling in here, and I'm waiting on a shipment of some marble before I can fix up the fireplace but everything else on the house is well underway, and I could recommend you the loveliest books..." She ushers him in. "Carlisle will be home in a few hours, Edward in four or five - he's hunting."

[all_too_familiar]

Blair actually was aware they were both away, but pegged Esme as the one most likely to be at home and therefore the best option for polite entrance. Besides, Esme's adorable, he has no problem talking to her for a few hours. He nods, smiling.

"This house has got such a different style from the last one. I like it though, cute in a different way. More regal, though I don't really know houses. What are your plans for it?"

[alicornucopia]

Esme describes her plans for it. They as she are adorable.

[all_too_familiar]

So adorable! Blair thinks that listening to Esme describing plans for the house is an excellent use of his time. He does so with no regrets. Carlisle and Edward can take their time, Blair adores listening to people talk about things they love.

[honey_twining]

Carlisle and Edward wind up coming home at about the same time; apparently there was good eating nearer by than Esme's estimate. They are also pleased to see Blair. Well, more Carlisle than Edward.

[all_too_familiar]

Blair is pleased to see them too! He updates them on his life: has not eaten people since learning that he can in fact eat animals. Admittedly it's more out of a practicality of it becoming harder to not eat people than actually valuing the lives of the terrible people he would be eating if he had not gone vegetarian, but he doesn't regret it. He sometimes gets thirsty and starts trying to convince himself that he can just eat another terrible person and it would be okay, but that is a sign that he should go eat another deer, not rethink his life choices.

Then he tells them about his sister, clarifying that he is aware of the Volturi's policy and is keeping the whole thing very quiet and she's not going to mention it to anyone else. Nor is she going to attempt to burn him at the stake, think he's a monster, or planning to pretend that her brother is dead. In fact, after getting the whole story and the benefits and downsides of vampirism she would like to know more about the problem with vampires not being able to have kids, and wondering if a medical solution to that problem (possibly when the patient is still human) is possible. Because she would like to become a vampire, but finds some parts of vampirism... objectionable.

[alicornucopia]

Carlisle is not aware of any way around vampire sterility. It seems absolute; vampire bodies simply don't change in the ways they would need to. And... while they are not planning to sell Blair and his sister out to the Volturi... this was still a very dangerous thing to do. Concern.

[all_too_familiar]

Well, yes. It is. He will accept full responsibility for it and definitely doesn't plan to make a habit of this sort of thing at all, she's a special case. He could not just leave her, could not just - never talk to her, forget all about her, let her die of old age thinking he's dead. And turning her without her permission is - some mix of morally repugnant to the highest degree, unthinkable, and somewhat suicidal, considering this is his sister he's talking about. He knew what he was doing, he's not being reckless.

The bit about vampire bodies not changing does make it seem rather absolute, yes. Hm. Carlisle's the doctor, can he think of any potential alternate solutions to this?

[alicornucopia]

Well, things removed from a vampire do not turn into vampire bits; but medical science does not really know how to make children from removed bits.

[all_too_familiar]

Not yet, no. It might just be impossible. But hey, why not try.

Are there any parts that are essential to the child making process that can be removed, and kept from rotting away? They potentially have eternity, they don't need to know how to make a child from it now, but if they can leave it open for themselves later, well, that's nearly the ideal.

[alicornucopia]

Well, Carlisle knows his anatomy, and there's plenty he could theoretically remove. It would be major abdominal surgery, but nothing compared to turning. And, well, they might preserve in the same way any meat might, freezing - they'd have to get a freezer and hope it lasted as long as it takes medical science to catch up - there's various methods of pickling, although considering how inimical the substances are to human biology in live subjects... then again, cold isn't so good for them either...

[all_too_familiar]

Blair does not think he can help with the best methods of preservation, but he does like this line of thinking. Maybe Carlisle can test preserving various types of, er, meat? To see if there is a way to preserve the - Blair does not know his anatomy - the whatever-it-is-they-would-be-surgically-removing.

...

Maybe Blair can find someone that could help with this line of thinking.

[alicornucopia]

Carlisle is happy to read up to see if there's anything he's overlooked, meanwhile, but they've only advanced so far from where they were in his own youth.

[all_too_familiar]

Yeah. Blair will try to use his power to maybe find a helpful person.




Turns out: his power is pretty terrible at finding him people with specific skill-sets. He finds two people that habitually store fruit preservatives, one that preserves leaves in books, and one taxidermist before he manages to wrestle his power into maybe aiming in a medical direction.

Funerary workers. Hospice workers. A dentist that thinks it is really important to preserve your teeth by brushing them.

Oh, come on. People that like being on the cutting edge of preservation? Is that a character trait?

It is not a character trait.

He can find experts in the medical field, that's not hard, but he's having trouble with specifics beyond that, and this is kind of an inexplicable problem to explain, now isn't it? 'Hey so my sister would like to preserve the ability to have kids for in the future even though she will soon lose the ability to have them herself'? Ugh. He'd get told that she should just have kids now, it is Her Responsibility.

After a lot of searching he returns to Carlisle and pronounces that, well. He didn't find anything of use. Unless Carlisle would like a good dentist.

[alicornucopia]

Carlisle's teeth are fine, thanks.

[all_too_familiar]

Yeah, nothing of use, then.

Well. Did Carlisle make any progress while he was beating his head against the proverbial wall trying to solve this with his power?

(He really needs to see if there's a way to refine his power, it feels very - inexact. Sort of like being out of shape, a concept he vaguely remembers that he loathed while he was human and worked to correct.)

[alicornucopia]

Apparently some theoretical research has been done into freezing organs for transplant, but that doesn't seem like quite what Yvette was looking for.