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]

"Aw. That's very nice. Thank you."

She thinks that they are very nice people, and also somewhat wryly thinks, Darn, there goes my dream to join you on a hunt and kill something with my bare hands to drink its blood.

[honey_twining]

Edward doesn't even raise an eyebrow. He's so polite.

[poll_the_stars]

She wasn't actually thinking that at Edward, this seems to just be the ordinary state of her mind. Commentary comes naturally.

Yvette finds a chair and sits. "I actually ate before coming here, though, because uh. It seemed the obvious thing to do," she admits.

[alicornucopia]

"That's all right. We didn't know when you were coming enough to get anything that will spoil, we just wanted to make sure you wouldn't go hungry if you were here for a while," says Esme.

[poll_the_stars]

She nods. "Thanks. It's very kind."

Yep. Her brother was right. They are all very cute. ... But also she's wondering what their anti-vampire arguments are, she doesn't at all doubt that Blair told her everything he knew, but maybe there is something that he overlooked? Are they going to get to that? She'll wait, but it's going to bug her.

[honey_twining]

This, Edward reacts to. "Hospitality aside," he says. "I'm sure Blair has already gone over the obvious discomforts and losses associated with turning. Why aren't those enough?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Because immortality with superpowers?" she says, dry.

...

This is an understatement, she realizes that they might take this answer as shallow or overly flippant or uncaring. She moves to correct it.

"Sorry, I realize that sounded like I was being flippant, I'm not. The single most - non-personal compelling reason not to become a vampire is so that I don't kill someone else. And if that were unable to be - mitigated, at all, if there were no alternatives, I would not be willing to become a vampire at all. But, that can be avoided, and I will sincerely try very hard to do so." Including 'Blair has standing permission to turn me to gravel.' That is on the table, she seems to find the prospect that her brother will turn her to gravel over letting her kill some innocent person very soothing.

"I find mate bonds frankly a bit disturbing, and the prospect of losing the ability to bear children very personally and very viscerally bothers me. I know about the constant throat pain and relegating myself to eating things that - he described it to me - tastes rotten and horrible and like every swallow of blood is vile, while there's something a thousand times better within easy reach if I just let myself have it. I know that there will be a natural inclination to violence buried in my skull and that if I want to not act violent I have to fight it, every minute of every day. I know that breaking things will come so easily to me that I'll have trouble not, and that animals will hate me. I know I'll be isolated from humanity, because I will no longer be human. I know that my peers will be seven vegetarians and then a ton of vampires that casually kill people because they're delicious. I know I'll be under the jurisdiction of a government that is partially run by a witch whose power is to see every moment of my life, every thought I've ever had, and that they can and will kill me if I step out of line," she says, calmly. Blair was very thorough.

"But I'm - forgive me, this is a little hard to explain - I'm not done yet. With life, with the things I want to do, with things I've learned, ways I've grown and changed and made the world a little bit better as best I can. I have not read all of the books in the world, I have not seen all of the interesting places there are to visit, the various diseases of the world are not yet gone. Vampires exist, and they eat people. Things are not okay, I don't want to - proverbially clock out before the job is done. And that would be what death is. That would be what staying human is, when I know that death's what happens to humans, no matter what.

"And I don't expect I'll ever be done. And that's okay, that's not - I'm not damned for that. I don't consider this a fate I am resigned to, I consider it a bright future with a thousand possibilities that could be at my fingertips. I don't expect I'll ever want to stop being alive, I look at the possible things I could do if I had forever, whether they're for myself or for the world at large, and they dwarf whatever I could manage in the span of an ordinary life. Technology gets better every year, I want to see what happens with it, what it does, where it goes, what I can do with it. I want to learn how to play every instrument, learn chemistry and anatomy and engineering and astronomy and whatever other things humanity discovers, because the universe is such a big place and we know only so much. I want the perfect memory and the extra space in my head and the comfortable safety and the time. I won't have to sleep, eating will become bi-weekly instead of thrice-daily, I won't get sick or tired and if I get hurt I can be easily fixed, and I won't die unless someone kills me. I am the only window to the world that I have, why wouldn't I want to keep it in the best condition for as long as possible? I am precious, if I want to do anything else, I need to live. And I have so much I haven't done."

[honey_twining]

"You might find your zest for life isn't as bottomless as you think," Edward says. "Or that your tolerance for the thirst isn't, or that your commitment to vegetarianism won't be as ironclad as you hope."

[poll_the_stars]

"If I find that it's not bottomless, then I suppose I will figure out how to die. Similarly for the thirst, if I find that it's unbearable. If the commitment to vegetarianism isn't as ironclad as I hope, if I consciously decide that killing people's worth it..."

She trails off. She looks at Blair.

Blair will kill me.

[all_too_familiar]

He does not look happy with this prospect, but, yep. He will do that thing. He really really thinks he won't ever need to, though.

But he would.

[poll_the_stars]

"Though I think he'd slack a bit if he could steer me towards terrible people," she does admit. "Which, honestly, isn't so bad. It's not ideal, I would really prefer not, but."

[honey_twining]

"I can't really recommend it. And if you find that you don't like being a vampire, you will have lost healthy decades of life you could have spent doing all the things you want to do."

[poll_the_stars]

"Like I said, would really prefer not to eat anyone, ever. A few decades," she says, "versus potentially forever. It is admittedly risky if I decide I want to die, but I think the odds are highly in my favor. I value those decades highly and I still think it's worth the risk. This isn't a lottery, this is me, and how I think and how I work."

[honey_twining]

"Witchcraft can run in families. It doesn't always, but it can. If you have a power the Volturi want, they'll pay attention to you. You can't adopt children, not young ones anyway - unless you want to lie to them their whole lives, somehow pretend to be human. If you turn a child that's the death penalty for you and anyone who shelters you, so you'd have to be ready to have the immortality you want so much held in your mouth and not give it to any children you were ever near. You might also have some concern for the state of your soul."

[poll_the_stars]

"I would not want to turn them when they were children," she says primly, "because they would then be children for the rest of eternity and that is a really terrible idea. If I draw the Volturi's attention I will handle that accordingly, but the mere possibility's not enough to scare me off. And..." She peers at Edward, a little confused. "The state of my soul?"

[honey_twining]

"Well," Edward sighs. "Most of us couldn't help it, but the bargain's a little classical, isn't it?"

"Edward believes we've lost our souls," Carlisle murmurs. "I don't think it can be as simple as that, but it might be worth considering if you're giving up more than just your human lifetime."

[poll_the_stars]

"Ah," she says, after a pause. "Yes, I suppose that's worth considering. Hm."

She considers.

She is of the opinion that if a god kept innocent vampires out of eternal paradise, even when they were turned unwillingly, even if they didn't kill anyone, she doesn't want to be in that god's paradise anyway. Also maybe wants to commit some blasphemy. ... Also probably wants to commit some blasphemy. Killing deities is viable, right? Right. Just give her time and maybe a pocketknife, she'll be good to go.

Besides, this is a thing she can't really know or account for, is it? She was never a fan of churches that talked about what God needs you to do in order to be Saved. Because no god has shown up to actively demand anything of anyone in particular, at least as far as she can tell. Just a lot of people with a lot of conflicting stories all saying that their way is the right way. While in the meantime, they commit very real, very living atrocities, and say it is in the name of the soul...

Yeah, no, she can't account for that. She'd go mad. If there is a god, and if he or she is upset with her decisions, he or she will have to understand that she lacked information to work with while trying her sincerest to make the world a better place, and being blamed for making the wrong decision with the weight of eternity while trying to do the right thing is - well. See her thoughts on wanting to commit some blasphemy.

She's not sure how to word this politely.

"The more than just my human lifetime is not actually proven to me. As far as I know, I have just this one life to live, I can't rely on the ideal that I have another in a better place while living this one, or account for the second with proof that I just don't have. Building my life around hearsay is not the way I want to live. And if God does exist, and He has opinions on my conduct, I imagine he will take into account more than just my pedigree when choosing whether I get damnation or not." Or the system is flawed and should cease to be.

Pause.

"Sorry," she says to Edward, she is vaguely aware that he did just get her going, 'Yep, I'd commit some blasphemy.'

[honey_twining]

Edward endures her thought process without further comment, although he doesn't make eye contact.

[poll_the_stars]

She does not want to linger on this topic that causes him distress, she thinks apologetic thoughts in his direction and then attempts to change her thoughts to something that is less, uh, that. She is not interested in attacking his beliefs, just - thinking it through honestly while in her own head. Sorry.

"So, are there any other illegal vampire things that I don't know about? I hadn't known about the children, is there a reason besides it being kind of cruel...?"

[alicornucopia]

"They don't grow up," murmurs Carlisle. "Their memories are as good as any vampires, but they can't improve their impulse control, they never mature. And they are still vampires, and they are - very compelling, very appealing, covens used to die to protect them before the Volturi stamped them out, even as the little ones slaughtered entire villages. For a while the Volturi kept a few, they had the resources to control them - but they never found a way to make them capable of secrecy."

[poll_the_stars]

"Ah. Yes. That's a good reason for immortal children to be outlawed," says Yvette faintly. "Also terrifying."

[alicornucopia]

"I met them. The ones the Volturi were keeping. When I visited the coven, years ago. But even the friendlier among the children, the older ones - the least upset would send them into unrestrained rages. Tantrums with vampire strength behind it."

[poll_the_stars]

Wince.

Those poor children, stuck forever in limbo...

[all_too_familiar]

Right, now his sister is sort of distressed, topic change.

"To go in a completely different direction, I'm curious, do vampires just mate to other vampires? If she kept to places with just humans, would she be fine?"

[alicornucopia]

Carlisle looks at Esme.

"No," he says. "It's no less common for it to happen with humans."