there's only so much I can turn into

[mswoods]

The thirteen-year-old girl is coming back home from school, on foot.

There's a cat following her. It's been following her for a while, but from a distance.

She decides to be friendly. She stops and turns around to look at it. It stops as well. "Mow?"

The girl's face- changes. It's still a human face, mostly, but now there's something different about it. More feline than anything. Whiskers grow, her pupils dilate and her eyes get a bit rounder, her bones move under her skin, their shape changing a bit. "Mew," she says, vocal apparatus having changed a bit, apparently.

The cat blinks and approaches cautiously. "Moow...?"

She doesn't giggle, but she feels like giggling. She's talking to a kitty! Well, kinda talking to a kitty, it's not like she can understand kitty-speech. But still! "Maw!"

Comments

[taste_tester]

"Nope. Stays put, we're very psychologically stable beasties. I couldn't've turned you when I found you, turning kids is super illegal, they don't develop and wind up laying waste to villages or what have you. Oh, but those of us who are not me do a mating for life thing, I'm pretty secure in my probable immunity but it's common elsewise."

[mrwoods]

"...if I may ask, if we don't change, why do most vampires kill people casually? That is not a thing most humans would do if given the chance."

[taste_tester]

"They're just that tasty and where required the rationalization engine does the rest. You don't believe me, and you will also not believe me about how much of a bitch turning is, but you'll see. Unless you'd rather just have a tragic accident falling down the stairs."

[mrwoods]

"I would very much not prefer to have a tragic accident, no. And given that my power can produce a steady supply of blood, I'm hoping just that tasty will only indicate that I ought to go to a secluded corner and start bleeding into a cup. Or bucket, as may be the case." He shakes his head. "Okay, so, turning is a bitch, can you be more specific? Do you think maybe if I turned off my nerves that'd help with the pain? ...actually couldn't I just get rid of pain qualia altogether? If I'm going to become that durable afterwards."

His eye does not twitch. It does not. Being in perfect control of his body language is a trivial application of his power.

[taste_tester]

"Maybe! If you can muster that kind of focus during, I mean, you might not be able to."

[mrwoods]

"...okay. I might do it before." He clears his throat. "And the secrecy thing?"

[taste_tester]

"Oh, yeah, if you tell anyone about vampires they get the turning or death option, else the vampire shadow government comes after you and kills you. Or optionally recruits you. Talking it out like this is not customary, usually it's 'good morning you're welcome for the three day hell welcome to vampirism'."

[mrwoods]

Shadow vampire government.

"Any laws other than being a secret?"

Because clearly it's not a sane enough government to have laws about, oh, I don't know, not murdering people.

[taste_tester]

"No immortal children, no newborn armies, and if they - they're called the Volturi - personally show up and tell you to do something you'll do it if you know what's good for you; that's about it."

[mrwoods]

Which just means Sadde will make sure they will never personally show up and tell him to do anything.

Not until he overturns them and takes over, at any rate. Because that is a thing he will do.

"Okay. The mating thing?"

[taste_tester]

"Oh, you people with your squishy feelings will occasionally meet someone else with compatible squishy feelings and then the vampire or vampires of the pair will squishy feelings to end all squishy feelings forever and ever. If somebody present is human they don't tend to stay that way. Can't be losing your eternal mate to ordinary human mortality, to say nothing of how awkward it would be to consummate the relationship and how poorly mated vampires sometimes deal with unreciprocated eternal adoration."

[mrwoods]

"Hm."

Pause for a few seconds, some chewing on lip, some scratching of head.

"Can I email a couple of people to say I'm sick and/or going on a short vacation as may be the case?"

[taste_tester]

"If you don't mind me reading over your shoulder. But you probably shouldn't try to hang out with anybody you like for... say a year, maybe less maybe more, depends how quick you adjust and whether you can turn off your sense of smell."

[mrwoods]

He nods slowly. "Yeah, sure, you can read over my shoulder."

Emails are sent! He has a pretty good computer, for 2004, and pretty good internet, for 2004. That's all done pretty quickly.

"Right, then. Might I want to store buckets worth of blood somewhere before turning?"

[taste_tester]

"Yeah, you'll be hungry. And in case you can't cheat on the pain we will want to be somewhere no one can hear you scream."

[mrwoods]

He nods. "Erm, you got anywhere in mind? I guess I could probably rent some remote cabin in the woods on pretty short notice, thanks for the help with the power by the way, I got pretty rich off it, but anyway that might take a few hours to arrange and then to actually go there, I'm not sure how pressed for time or worried about the possibility that I'll run away screaming you are."

[taste_tester]

"I'm not in a dramatic hurry, but I do need to be recently fed to turn you without killing you, a state I am in right now and will stop being if you take forever about it. A cabin is not necessary, the woods themselves will do. And you're welcome."

[mrwoods]

"...right, then, woods it is. Erm, I have a car, is that fine for you or do you prefer another mode of transportation? I should also obtain containers for lots of blood."

[taste_tester]

"Car is fine."

[mrwoods]

Car it is!

Off they go. They find a suitably remote location, and Sadde produces suitable amounts of blood for his own later consumption.

[taste_tester]

Addy waits patiently.

[mrwoods]

"Okay. I guess I'm as ready as I can be within the constraints. Oh, actually-" He closes his eyes, he doesn't really need to but it helps with concentration. There's some shifting of stuff under his skin, and it barely takes a minute, but when he opens his eyes he pinches his arm and declares that "I cannot feel any pain now."

[taste_tester]

"That'll be one for the recordbooks."

She grabs him and gives him a chomp.

[mrprop]

At first, there is nothing. It's a pretty neat nothing, he doesn't even feel the pain of the chomp. That lasts a couple of hours. He reports this to Addy.

Then there is heat.

As his nerves start returning, he pokes at them from the inside, using his power's awareness. It's quite a curious feeling, and he can actually notice the venom working its way along his body. The way stuff changes, he suspects there's some genetic rewriting going on, which is absolutely fascinating.

As more nerves return, the heat starts becoming really uncomfortable, so he kills the nerves again. Yet they keep returning. He keeps killing them.

They return faster. And faster. He reports this with some alarm, and he reports that he's not quite able to keep up with them anymore. That's disappointing, but so far-



FIRE

He has no idea what has just happened, why there was a sudden return of all his nerves at the same time, but he was not prepared for it. He was not prepared to be seared from the inside, to be blindsided by such pain that he completely loses control of his body. When he opens his eyes again, he's lying on the ground, and he's sure they're lying to him, because they tell him the woods are not on fire, but they are, that's the only possible explanation.

He tries to kill his nerves again, but he can't. Or rather, he can, but they return as soon as he does that anyway.

He reports this to Addy between clenched teeth.

It has been three hours and twenty-seven minutes.

[taste_tester]

"Well, you get a truncated version, that's better than most people get," Addy says soothingly. "It'll all go away when you're done. You won't even be traumatized, it's neat."