My bunny slippers just ran for cover

[will_you_still]

Morgan doesn't strictly need to sleep. Even if she didn't want to put up with the annoyance of constantly having a caffeine buzz and having to ask for coffee on almost every summon, there are naps. Naps can keep a daeva going for quite a long time.

But there's something unutterably pleasant about curling up in a proper bed in pajamas and just sleeping. And then waking up and getting breakfast in those pajamas. So she does that, because immortality's a long unpleasant time if you don't enjoy the little things every now and then. Like adorable bunny slippers and soft pajamas and sleeping in.

She's midway through a fruity salad thing that counts as the standard fairy breakfast when she feels the summon. Showing up to a summon in pajamas? Eh. If they're proper summoners she bets they've seen worse, and she doesn't particularly care if they think she's unprofessional.

She puts her spoon down and accepts the summon.

Comments

[will_you_still]

She shrugs. "We'll see, I suppose. Either way, I'll be helping with Endbringer prep work. Along with lots of other things." Morgan smiles wryly. "Any requests?"

[acanofworms]

"Don't become a villain?"

[will_you_still]

Snort.

"I will not become a villain. ... Might try to redeem a few, though."

[acanofworms]

Blink. "I wish you the best of luck in that. Boosting our numbers while reducing theirs is always a good thing, even if they can sometimes be a PR nightmare."

[will_you_still]

"Is PR that big of a deal here? Obviously it matters, but I'm wondering how much it matters."

[acanofworms]

"Frankly, quite a bit. One of the Protectorate's main objectives is making the existence of parahumans something good for the people. Countries without organized or centralized parahuman presence tend to devolve into feudal parahuman overlords with a population that fears and hates powers. We need to provide an image of parahumans as a force for good, to give young triggers something to aspire for, and good PR is paramount."

[will_you_still]

She considers, and nods.

"That makes sense." But she thinks it's not the approach she wants to take. She'd rather make it clear that she has a safe understanding environment for traumatized superpowered individuals. The good PR can come from doing large scale helpful things instead of fighting people. "I'd rather not let anything devolve into - well, that."

[acanofworms]

Legend nods. "We all would, and all help is welcome."

[will_you_still]

Morgan smiles a bit.

"So! Know a good lawyer? I don't want to start my career by accidentally doing something illegal."

[acanofworms]

"I'll find you someone's contact once we arrive."

[will_you_still]

"I appreciate it."

[acanofworms]

And soon enough: they have arrived!

[will_you_still]

Morgan is shocked! Shocked!

Except no not really, can they get to getting a marker and a private, flat horizontal space for drawing circles?

[acanofworms]

Yes, they can, and they do.

Instructions?

[will_you_still]

Morgan will be the one drawing the circle; she's seen a proper summoning circle for an angel in English and Mandarin - translating it into a fairy language is pretty straightforward, if she picks the right fairy language. And she does, because she knows six and can pick and choose. Maybe Legend could copy this summoning circle, but he won't be able to reverse engineer it.

As she's drawing, "There is an element of summoning I forgot to mention, that may or may not apply here." Draw draw. "My Earth has an afterlife. Non-summoners go to a place that's rather boring upon death and cannot be summoned, but get comfortable immortality and can easily interact with all other deceased non-summoners. Summoners become daeva. This is almost completely an upgrade, but it does almost universally mean separation from loved ones in the afterlife, unless aforementioned loved ones are the exact same type of daeva that you are."

[acanofworms]

"...that's an interesting world you come from," Legend says, watching the process.

[will_you_still]

She has drawn most of a circle and is writing in strange symbols around it! (This is in a fairy language with its own alphabet.) Write write write.

"Yep. You can still write letters, though; I have several penpals. But this is often not really enough when it comes to loved ones, so if you want to opt out of potentially becoming a summoner, I won't make faces at you."

[acanofworms]

"I'm not worried about my afterlife," Legend says smoothly. "What must I do?"

[will_you_still]

"See that gap in the main circle?" There is such a gap. "That's for you. All you have to do is connect the lines once I'm done writing." Which she is now done with! She's removed the binding because she's pretty sure that it's just a tactical nightmare in this situation. There could be a number of reasons why the Simurgh would put them in a situation where a summoned angel might need to kill Legend. And she actually does know her friend, he will not knock out Legend and go on a marvelous adventure to turn people into furniture, unlike some angels.

"Okay, we're skipping on a thing called a binding because I know my friend and I don't know enough about bindings to make one that isn't terrible. A binding prevents daeva from doing certain things, like making a black hole to destroy the planet, or killing their summoner, so on. But, again, I have known this guy for a while. A little over a century. He is quite trustworthy." Pause. "Dismissing a summon means thinking about dismissing them for about a minute, so if he, against all odds, starts causing trouble, I get you away from him and you think very hard about making him go away. But that shouldn't happen at all." She motions to the circle. "Well, anyway. Circle's all yours."

[acanofworms]

"Which kind of daeva did you say your friend was again?" asks Legend a bit warily.

[will_you_still]

"The kind that changes things."

[acanofworms]

"I would like you to explain to me the reasoning behind not using one of those bindings you mentioned, though I am thankful you told me they exist at all."

[will_you_still]

"You're welcome." She sort of declines to keep standing, so she sits. Floating. In mid-air. Because there's no chair. "Right, so, I am not a summoner, and have never been one. So I don't actually know the whole - logic behind making bindings. I could not make a solid one; only copy bindings that I've seen and remember clearly. I could make a reasonably solid non-terrible fairy binding, but the bindings for the different daeva require different things. And the two for changing-daeva that I've seen and remember anything of were not the kindest bindings ever. One didn't let the daeva change any matter connected to a human - which would prevent healing of any sort - and the other was highly restrictive about things the daeva could do. It's why I remembered it at all, the daeva I worked with bitched about it being terrible, so of course I looked at it.

"I could prevent him from, say, killing you, but that's not the danger of a daeva. The danger of a daeva is if one you summoned put you in a coma, then took you to - I don't know, the Moon, and then put you on an IV drip for the rest of your life while they go do whatever they want. And I can't prevent that at all. ... I mean I could switch this up to a fairy summoning, but another my-set-of-powers won't scale as well as having multiple types of daeva. And summoning a fairy wouldn't erase the danger of summoning other daeva, and all of the fairies I know don't like to work long-term and expect to go home in an hour or two, and we haven't proven that daeva can be unsummoned here, and I really do trust my friend."

[acanofworms]

"I believe you trust your friend," he says, trying to be delicate. "I also know you spent a few minutes around the Simurgh. How sure are you you trusted them before being in contact with her?"

[will_you_still]

Pause. That's a pretty good request.

She reviews her mental state and checks to see if anything at all has changed in her opinion of him.

"... Quite sure," she pronounces, after a moment of thought. "I consistently recommended him to summoners when they wanted a daeva of his type, we have been long time penpals, and he's accepted shitty pay before to do good work when it would have been in his best interest to refuse the job."