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]

[We don't really specifically know? I mean, we have a general understanding of why cats and dogs are pets, but why any given other animal isn't never really crossed either of our minds to check.]

[inourhead]

[They're so cute.] Sigh. [I hope Tyang's all right.]

[here_together]

[Do demons typically go after foxes?]

[inourhead]

[No, foxes don't have souls to eat, but she could still get hurt if she got in the way.]

[here_together]

[Well, I hope she's alright too then.]

[inourhead]

[We're more worried about Book and Lightning. But maybe they just - landed somewhere, too, and they're fine like we are.]

[here_together]

[Yeah. We'll have to see if we can--find a mage who has a power that could help you get home and/or find your brother and friend.]

[inourhead]

[Do you think somebody can?]

[here_together]

[Who knows? There are more potential powers for mages than there are stars in the sky. That's what people say, anyway.]

[inourhead]

[Stars?]

[here_together]

[Oh, right, you have weird sky stuff. Um, grains of sand?]

[inourhead]

[That's a lot. How many people are there here?]

[here_together]

[Well, six billion give or take, but the expression is used not just to describe all the people who exist, but also all the people who could potentially come to exist in the future.]

[inourhead]

[...That's a lot of people.]

[here_together]

[Yes it is.]

[inourhead]

[I'm not sure we have that many in all the countries in my world, even counting people instead of bodies.]

[here_together]

[What happens to the bodies that get...moved out of?]

[inourhead]

[Burned, usually. When there's no one left in them; Book just left us ours. Didn't even take any traits, he just found a cohabitor he liked the look of enough without.]

[here_together]

[Traits?]

[inourhead]

[What usually happens is people who think they'd make good cohabitors compromise on how they want to look after. If you always hated your nose you use the other person's nose, that sort of thing. It happens pretty often that people want to move into bodies of the other sex, too, like Book, and then they have to find a cohabitor who's shaped how they want. You can do this other times too, though, if you and somebody just want each other's eye colors or whatever,] says Holly.

[here_together]

[We hadn't even thought of that application for troporting. What would you have done if Book had wanted to keep something?]

[inourhead]

[There's a couple things he might have wanted but he didn't ask. And we like how we look and Book knew that so we wouldn't have wanted anything from Lightning.]

[here_together]

[I am so curious how this all works genetically, but I don't think you probably know.]

[inourhead]

[No idea, sorry. We look like our parents? And parents are pretty much always cohabiting adults.]

[here_together]

[So do you have--how many parents do you have?]