No One Here Would Understand As Well As Me

[here_together]

It's probably harder for most people to stay off the grid than you would think, but when you have unusual enough (and useful enough) talents, there's always someone willing to help you out, in exchange for something only you can give them. (Incentives. Supply and demand. The carrot is so much more useful than the stick--and so much less likely to get you hurt in return.) And their magic (it has to be their magic, even when they're a her instead of a they, otherwise the investiture would just fall apart) is uncommonly useful.

Right now they (definitely a they, right now) are kicking back and relaxing in a little no-tell motel. There's free wifi, at least, and the employee who discretely got them a room in exchange for clearing up a few issues also snuck them some decently filling snacks, so they're pretty much good to go until they decide to do something else. Or something interesting happens.

Comments

[here_together]

'And people who are born normally just--move into each other? Why?'

[inourhead]

'So they don't have to sleep. Well, our brother moved out because he's a boy.'

[here_together]

'That part makes sense, but why would people not want to sleep?'

[inourhead]

'So the klaonso don't eat their souls.'

[here_together]

'What...what are klaonso?'

[inourhead]

'They're an insubstantial kind of demon. You can't keep them out except with really expensive wards, so those are for children who haven't cohabited yet and everyone else doesn't sleep physically, they just let their cohabitor take over. But we can switch fast and be a little bit awake at the same time.'

[here_together]

'That's terrible. Don't your bodies need to sleep?'

[inourhead]

She pats their backpack. There is a small mouse cage dangling from it. 'That's what mice are for. A lot of ours died on the trip though.'

[here_together]

'How do mice make you not need to sleep?'

[inourhead]

'I put the sleepiness in them instead,' says Holly, who has been mostly dormant for this conversation but emerges to take credit for her magical prowess.

[here_together]

'How do you that? Did you invest to get it? Does everyone's investiture make them not need to physically sleep?'

[inourhead]

'...What are you talking about?'

[here_together]

'You said you put the sleepiness in the mice. What, is that some, I dunno, demon world person power separate from investiture?'

[inourhead]

'It's troportation, anybody can do it.' She touches one of several colorful tags sewn to the inside of her jacket; and tag and jacket swap colors. 'Like that. You can't do that?'

[here_together]

'I've never even heard of anything like that.'

[inourhead]

'Oh. Well, everyone where we're from can do it.'

[here_together]

'You also have demons and a flat probably-not-a-planet. It doesn't surprise either of us that you have magic we don't.'

[inourhead]

'What's yours like?'

[here_together]

'What do you mean? We just have heart investiture.'

[inourhead]

'I don't know what that is.'

[here_together]

'It's when you...take your heart...and invest it in something? Or someone. Do you not do that? I think we've heard that historically there have been societies that considered it taboo...'

[inourhead]

'We don't do that? We keep our heart in our chest?'

[here_together]

'Not the physical organ.'

[inourhead]

'Well, then something's wrong with your mind talky thing because I don't know what else it'd be!'

[here_together]

'Your...{heart}.'

The concept is related to, but not quite the same as, the idea of heart-as-seat-of-emotions. It's nigh-indescribable with words, but clearly a coherent concept--you could walk around all day with yours inside of you and not notice but investiture is like this and having someone else's invested in you feels like that.