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

[taste_tester]

"I think you could find vampires if you could get it to do intersections," she concludes. "I can't make it do something like that until you've managed it. What happens if you try?"

[all_too_familiar]

"It switches to an entirely new search, though I can get a bit of mileage out of being very specific. I'd like intersections, though."

[taste_tester]

"What are some things it finds most easily?"

[all_too_familiar]

"Major personality traits, hobbies. It seems to like doing things that people care about, and only shows me people with certain jobs if they actually care about the job."

[taste_tester]

Addy tries to find mated vampires.

[all_too_familiar]

Bingo. Vampires only.

But then, that's not all vampires, is it.

[taste_tester]

No, it's not... but trying to get complete exhaustive assessments out of this power seems like it's not playing to its strengths.

Capacity to be a mated vampire?

[all_too_familiar]

Well that seems similar to a 'search all,' catching humans and vampires both, though Addy herself is not included.

[taste_tester]

It didn't reject the search entirely, though. Come on, picky picky, proximal capacity to be a mated vampire. It's okay if it excludes Addy. She knows where she is.

[all_too_familiar]

That one just gets rejected.

[taste_tester]

"Your witchcraft is an obstinate little beastie," she says. "You might've had better results if I'd got to you earlier on in its development..."

Fear of/respect for the Volturi, how about that?

[all_too_familiar]

"I'm a fairly young vampire, just over two years old. How early's best?"

It'll do fear/respect of a government entity, but doesn't seem to understand the Volturi as a concept.

[taste_tester]

"Earlier the better. Although working with newborns isn't anybody's idea of a fun time."

He's got to have already tried this, but: what does she get if she filters for extreme, desperate, high-intensity passion for comestibles?

[all_too_familiar]

...

That's interesting. The search goes through, but it definitely doesn't get all vampires, and it picks up humans, too. Addy and Blair are not on the vampire list.

[taste_tester]

"Oh, this silly thing grades on a curve," Addy says.

[all_too_familiar]

Blair blinks.

"... That explains some things."

[taste_tester]

"Yes. Can you get it to stop? Or at least pick whether you're looking through the remedial or the honors?"

[all_too_familiar]

"I can try, but I'm not sure how to do that, though. Tips, witch teacher?"

[taste_tester]

"Well, that depends on how you work, how you think about it, why you have this power instead of someone else or something else. Hmm, I have a process usually but maybe your silly power will let me take a shortcut." She circles him, quizzing her copy about this fellow's style.

[all_too_familiar]

He cares about people a lot, this fellow. Not exactly in the sense that he would like to save everyone, but in the sense that he doesn't do things for a vague concept of morality, but for the specific people that are benefited by it. He doesn't avoid stealing because stealing is wrong; he avoids stealing because specific people would be hurt by the stealing itself, and he cares about them.

He's highly adaptable and loves exploring, but not for the sights. It's for the people that he meets, and for what he learns about the world. He likes seeing things big-picture style as much as possible, and he likes being as equipped as possible to handle whatever the world throws at him. This mostly seems to be in the sense that he should improve, not that he should get cool toys. He should know as much about a situation as possible, understand as many languages as possible, and be able to handle a given situation physically and mentally, and know who to go to for help. This means well-used witch powers and the ability to fight, but also self control, an open mind, and a good idea of what the world's actually like instead of just vague concepts of it.

Once she looks, it's pretty obvious why the power grades on a curve; he's of the opinion that context is highly important when judging people. Writing off an entire culture for being lesser in comparison to another culture is - not exactly incorrect, but short-sighted, and to properly judge something one has to judge it by the circumstances that surround the something too. So his power is being 'helpful' and accounting for the context on its own, at least for vampires and humans.

Also, he prefers black and dark red as colors, has a strong preference for hand-made objects over factory-made objects, eats animals instead of people because he hates the idea of not having perfect self control, and likes playing chess.

[taste_tester]

"So," she says, "why do you want your power to find you vampires?"

[all_too_familiar]

"... Because it's important to know where the people that can kill me are?" he says dryly.

[taste_tester]

"So you need to find people who are a certain way relative to you," she says. "Not relative to their - category. Have you ever got your power to do anything like that before?"

[all_too_familiar]

"... Sort of. It's managed to find me two people that were helpful to me specifically, first try. Not relative to their category. The organ freezing one was for someone else."

[taste_tester]

"Sort of? Am I one of these people?"