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]

".... I think I have something," observes Yvette. "But I have no idea what it is."

[all_too_familiar]

"Describe the something?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Like a... tiny intangible thing that I can. Stretch out? From myself?" Pause. "Really tiny, though." She holds her fingers apart about an inch. "That tiny."

[honey_twining]

Edward listens in. "It's not familiar, but then no two powers are quite alike anyway."

[poll_the_stars]

"Clearly I should poke a tree with it."

She pokes a tree with a finger, then frowns and tries to poke it with the intangible thing.

[all_too_familiar]

"Well it didn't explode."

[poll_the_stars]

"Always nice," she says dryly. "And I'd be disturbed if my personality based magic power made things I touched explode."

[all_too_familiar]

"But think of the party tricks!"

[honey_twining]

"And it would have been messy with the deer."

[poll_the_stars]

"Like I wasn't messy enough."

She hums thoughtfully. She attempts to do more with the intangible thing, feeling very much like someone flailing about in the dark, if that someone were not a vampire, and were in fact in danger of tripping over a stray shoe and having an unexpected introduction between their face and the ground.

...

It feels very much like pulling something. Or - no, the thing is unchanged. She's not pulling. Copying, maybe? Copying a blueprint of, maybe.

She switches from a tree to the ground, and repeats this thing.

She now has two sort-of-blueprints. One for grass and some dirt, one for tree bark.

"I am definitely copying something but I have no idea what it's for."

[all_too_familiar]

"Describe it?"

[poll_the_stars]

"It's kind of like I am pulling a ghost image of things? And I just store it in my perfect memory. What is this, figuring out the structure of things...?"

That doesn't feel right, though. This feels - active. Sort of. Can she do anything with the copies? ... No, not without the intangible thing, anyway. She picks up a rock and extends the intangible thing into it, and attempts to do something with the copies. ... She pulled for the copies, maybe she can push?

She pushes.

The rock now has a bit of it that is made of bark.





"I have transmutation," she says, softly and slightly triumphant.

[honey_twining]

"I've never heard of a power that did that, before," Edward says. "You like it, I take it."

[poll_the_stars]

"Yes! I haven't even planned out what to do with it yet but I have transmutation ahahahahahahahahaha!"

[all_too_familiar]

"Are the Volturi likely to be interested in transmutation...?" wonders Blair, a hint of concerned.

[honey_twining]

"If it's that small? Probably not. They have enough money to buy any materials they want in any quantity they like, shaped however's convenient. I don't think they're lacking for anything that's genuinely too rare for them to get."

[poll_the_stars]

Yvette thinks she can do way better than what arbitrary money can buy, actually, because there are some things that arbitrary money can't get you, but the ability to transmute stuff into other stuff can. Not that she wants to go tell the Volturi that if they don't want her they're stupid. But she thinks they're stupid if they overlook transmutation. Even very tiny transmutation.

She needs chemistry books. Also a degree in, in - everything, she would like a degree in everything. Biology and geology and chemistry and anatomy and a thousand other things that she could use this fantastic power for. Can she do stuff that belongs to vampires? Let's test it, for science. She pulls her transmutation zone into her pinky finger, copies the material of the nail, and pushes it at the poor abused rock.

... This is harder than transmuting bark. She frowns, and pushes harder.

It goes, but slowly, and then part of the rock is made out of vampire fingernail.

"... I am kind of too excited to think of legitimate ways to exploit this right now, I mostly just want to run around cackling," she observes, looking at the newly transmuted rock. She bounces a bit, grinning.

[honey_twining]

"Well, you have this uninhabited island on which to do that, if you like."

[poll_the_stars]

...

Yeah, okay. She won't resist. She cackles, and zips over and hugs her brother.

"I have transmutation," she stage-whispers.

[all_too_familiar]

"You do!" he laughs, returning the hug.

[poll_the_stars]

"What can I even copy, I need to practice using it, gah I can't think of anything good to use it o-" She pauses. "..... Hey, the main sticking point for the, experiments was keeping them from decaying."

[honey_twining]

"They're already frozen by now," Edward says.

[poll_the_stars]

"True. Mm."

[honey_twining]

"You can still try copying them, but it may be that they're no longer usable."

[poll_the_stars]

"I am aware."



She takes to being a vampire very well. She noticeably has a temper, but she's usually more angered by the urge to rip something's head off than whatever caused her to want to rip something's head off. This translates to occasional growling and stomping off to brood instead of ripping off limbs or attacking anyone. Her power becomes a good port of call when she's upset: even when she's not trying to figure out the lengths of her power, she seems to find it very soothing to push transmutation at objects.

Blair is very good at dealing with her, and avoids her wrath almost entirely. Edward is not so lucky, but Blair thinks helpful instructions at him and this helps. They manage to keep everyone's limbs where they belong, though lots of trees get some very passive aggressive makeovers. (Yvette conscientiously puts them back when she's done, otherwise a human might notice eventually.)

Books are fetched for bored vampires to read, along with interesting materials for Yvette to copy; newspaper, glass, cotton, things that he can easily get without stealing.

(Blair's highly tempted to steal something made of, say, gold, but he gets the impression that his companions would find this objectionable, even if he put it back after Yvette copied it. So he doesn't.)

She plays with her power most of the time. There's a lot of nuance to it, once she gets to playing with it. At first it's simply pushing copies of other materials she's made at the entire transmutation area, but then she figures out how to push the material at part of it, and then claws her way to two different materials at once. Then, she works at fine-detail manipulation. Stretching out the area that she can work with is hard - it does not want to work over a large area. It wants to be a small amorphous blob. She growls at it, and then starts figuring out how to shape the blob. If she keeps it as thin as she can get it she can stretch it out further into something to get at it for transmutation. This is tricky. Also not very fun.

She'd like to have a larger library of potential materials, but for that she needs to get off the island. And to get off the island, she needs to be safe.

... She wonders what the plan is for getting her to not be a murderer. Waft things smelling of humans in front of her, test her control without any actual person in danger?