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

[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.

[all_too_familiar]

Well, that depends, can they just freeze the whole reproductive organ-thing (he has not looked up anatomy in the meantime, he sort of regrets this decision) and then use that later?

[alicornucopia]

The odds are good that being an early adopter here would result in irreparable freezing damage to delicate organs, and furthermore any children she wanted to have with them, even if they survived intact, would have to incubate in someone else. Carlisle's willing to try it, but on the whole it doesn't look promising.

[all_too_familiar]

He'll leave the decision to her, but - yeah, not very promising. Is it likely to have any large leaps in science in the next few years?

[alicornucopia]

It is advancing faster than ever before, but nobody looks like they're probably going to have a breakthrough in the next decade.

[all_too_familiar]

That is probably too long for her taste! Just from his guess-backed-up-by-magic. He could be wrong. (He probably isn't.)

Right, next relevant topic: ways to reduce the pain of turning.

[alicornucopia]

Carlisle didn't have the luxury of waiting either time he's turned a person, but in this case he's happy to mix strong painkillers and see if any of them help. A vampire will be at no risk of addiction to drugs that prey on humans, and turning itself is certainly proof against side effects usually mitigated by using only single substances and limiting dosage.

[all_too_familiar]

Well okay then, that sounds promising. He bets she'll give that a go when she decides to turn. (His estimation puts it soonish but not immediately.)

[alicornucopia]

No rush. Carlisle would be the last person to actively encourage someone with the chance to live out a full human life to choose otherwise, Volturi or no.

[all_too_familiar]

Yes, Carlisle is pretty great like that. Blair seriously doubts that she'll change her mind on this subject, but if she does, he will accept that and also leave her to live a full human life.

Well! While he's here, can he help out in any way before he goes to report to his sister? Renovations with the house, maybe?

[alicornucopia]

Esme is happy to have his assistance if he'd like to render it!

[all_too_familiar]

He does! It will be a cute house, he's happy to help with it.



Soon enough, though, be bids the Cullens a fond farewell, and swims across the ocean back to his sister to report on progress.

[poll_the_stars]

His sister is not thrilled, but also not particularly surprised. She requests an address to send Carlisle mail with, gets it, and then Carlisle gets a letter.

She identifies herself as Blair's sister, and mentions that he's spoken a lot about Carlisle and his family and she's heard only good things about them. She dutifully does not mention vampires in it at all, but what she does do is ask if anything helpful could be learned from a willing human subject that would theoretically be losing the option anyway, and therefore can afford to be a test subject. To potentially save someone else from this particular issue.

[alicornucopia]

Carlisle's letter replies that deriving reliably usable information would certainly require test subjects eventually; the actual results might have to wait decades for the technology to catch up, but it's not impossible that careful experiments performed sooner than later could help. But she should certainly consider the possibility of simply - well, it's a letter, euphemism is the order of the day - keeping her options open in the traditional way.

[poll_the_stars]

She assures him that she has certainly considered this possibility and is not in any way taking the decision lightly, but she does sincerely think this is the best way to go after all of the information provided. Careful experiments to the benefit of human knowledge is just a nice bonus.

Though, of course, she would need to know the specifics of the experiments in question before actually agreeing to them. Does he have an idea of what those experiments would involve, if he's willing to actually perform them?

(She assures him that she'll understand if the answer is 'no.')

[alicornucopia]

Well, some diagnostics could be performed without, but ultimately assessing the viability of reproductive tissue involves attempts at using it to reproduce, so that would have to wait until she wanted a child and had a father picked out.

[poll_the_stars]

She understands and will keep this in mind, and then asks if the diagnostics on their own would still potentially be useful, should she decide to not attempt to use reproductive tissue in this way.