glowfic | Finders Keepers

"... Not exactly." They are getting into something he considers to be kind of private, but witch powers are very personal, so it makes sense. He won't close up and tell her to bugger off. He thinks back, and disentangles the emotions he had back then. "The exact thoughts I had put into 'the situation' was of more than just the condition of being a vampire, but the condition of being a vampire who could not just see humans as food. On account of my power."

"So what does being a vampire, in general, mean to you?"

"As it is now, or as it was then?"

"Both."

"Then, I was a newborn who was trying to figure out if I was a monster or not. My choices seemed to be 'be a monster that kills innocent people' and 'be a monster that kills monsters,' and I wasn't even guaranteed to consistently be the latter, because my control had proven to not be perfect.

"Now, I'm a vampire who's pretty firmly of the opinion that I'm just - myself. I have a set of abilities that are different than what they were, and a set of downsides that I need to account for, but I'm whatever I choose to be if I work at it long enough. With superpowers."

"Hmm. Well, vampires in general have all gone through a transition period, and will feel some way about that. What happens if you look for people who have opinions about that sort of thing, like you but not the same?"

"Hm."

He looks.

"... I think I just got a vampires only checker," he says, smiling.

"That'll be ten thousand francs," she deadpans. Briefly. Then she smiles.

Snort.

"Do you want to set up a payment plan or should I write a check?"

"Oh, I only take the equivalent in twenty-four carat gold." She reaches out and boops his nose for a power update. "There's a while before my other witch gets home. Want to see what else you can get this thing to do while it's in a cooperative mood?"

Funnily enough, I can actually manage that, he doesn't say, because he is not telling this woman about his sister without his sister's permission.

"Sure. The - me as a comparison point got me thinking, could I use other people as comparison points? 'Find a person who would be helpful to this person in front of me'?"

"Oh, wouldn't that be fun. I haven't wrestled it into finding me witches yet, but if you can find people who I'd find helpful that's what you'd get."

Come on, Blair's power. Witches feel all kinds of ways about their powers, but... "feeling all kinds of ways about being genuinely unique in all the world"? About "being special", for a ludicrously high threshold, she can filter the royalty and narcissists herself...?

Turns out that lots of people feel that they are genuinely unique in all the world. Being special to a ludicrously high threshold is more promising, but there's no way to see if it's working without actually going and checking.

"Sure. You get updates to my power if I make breakthroughs?"

"Yes. Sometimes I can do things the person I copied from can't, but that's always because I have more of some thing the power draws on. Speed, usually."

He nods. It's interesting. No wonder she's being so helpful, if she wants to play with his power properly, she needs his cooperation. Not that she couldn't steal it and go cackling into the night with it, but, still.

Does he actually want to work on this part of his power with her present? Actually want her to get a copy of his power that could possibly be used to find witches?

She doesn't hurt the witches. She might, if she had a reason, but at the moment she doesn't. As far as he can tell, she seems to like the novelty - see a new power, get it as well developed as possible, move on to the next one. Though he could see her showing up to ask to borrow his, as well, if they manage to persuade it to let her find witches.

... Maybe she'd be very casual about hurting witches if it would help them make progress on their power. That's certainly possible. He's not sure what witch powers would require hurting, but considering how psychological witch powers seem to be, it's not impossible for it to occur. This fact is concerning. He doesn't know how to fix it, but it's concerning.

He doesn't think she'd do permanent harm to witches, besides possibly a little bit of trauma. It just doesn't make sense. There are circumstances where it might, but these aren't it. Hell, if anything, she probably wants to befriend as many witches as possible. They mean more resources to draw upon, more trustworthy sources to corroborate for witches she just met that yes, she is nice, and the witch should let her play with their power. Well. 'Nice.' She'll stop being nice when it's convenient to not be nice.

But he gets the impression that violence is not her default, nor is it the first port to turn to in a storm; too prone to chance, too messy. She doesn't have a bunch of scars from vampire bites, and she makes friends with human witches, and she's been downright friendly this entire time.

...

Yeah, okay. Not worth potentially stunting himself forever to keep the power out of her hands. Let's sincerely work on this.

He gets to sincerely working on this!

"... I don't think my power wants to just go with a vague helpful," he says. "It doesn't want to do that with me, let alone other people. I'll have to be specific. Helpful to playing with magic sound about right for finding you witches?"

"It's promising, anyway."

"Mhm."

He tries just throwing that search at his power. 'Find me a person Addy would find helpful to playing with magic.' It doesn't go. Ugh, finicky power. Okay. Personality based, personality based, why does it let him find the exact right things for himself but not for other people?

...

No, he's coming at that wrong. He can't wail at his power and expect it to bend, it doesn't work that way. He's got to be flexible. It will let him find things for himself. What is the obvious way to get other people under the blanket of finding things for him, but letting it play to what they want?

Well now the answer's obvious. He has to be the biggest team player the world has ever seen.

He can't, exactly, make himself be a team player with Addy, but he can do something similar. He wants to be able to find witches. She wants to be able to find witches. They Have A Common Goal. They are Working Together Towards This Common Goal. Her goals are his, he wants it, too. We would like to find Addy people to play with magic with.

He smirks. He holds out his hand to Addy.

Boop!

It updated! ... In a very weird direction, but it did!

It doesn't exactly let the user just look for other people's goals, but it will let them borrow someone else's if they go and rationalize that everyone present has the same goals and are definitely working together towards them.

"I don't know if it'll let you find witches, actually, but it's letting me now, through you."

"Well, maybe I can nudge it."

C'mon. Nudge.

It'll accept this nudge. It actually knows how to search for witches now.

Hooray! Addy notes the locations of many witches so that she can go get them after she puts this power down.

It's not the most accurate tracking power ever, just direction and a very vague sense of distance, but it is definitely better than nothing.

"So, got it working?" guesses Blair.

"Yep! This'll keep me busy for ages. There's a concentration in Italy, I bet I know who those are, but there's others I didn't know about."

"Happy to help." ... He thinks. Maybe.

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