Don't expect mercy from my government

[poll_the_stars]

One elf is starting to run out of time. The assassins plotting to kill her could show up any day now. She would really rather they didn't.

The irony doesn't escape her. She's still sending messages about her plans to sell off all of her lifespan and die to become a daeva with a lot of OTC currency. If she wanted, she could mint a ton of Ka, then let the assassins kill her. But the idea doesn't appeal. Some form of giving up, of letting them win. She's not often petty, but in this particular instance she thinks she'll indulge herself. Besides, it's not like they're the merciful type. She recalls Aisilian's perfect comprehensioned words. You were in quite a lot of pain...

No. No, she'll - not do that. She'll go spend a little while in Nexus.

She sends Miles a message.

So everything is packed and I have everything I need with me to flee my dimension before I get assassinated. Is now a good time?

Comments

[poll_the_stars]

Giggle. "I will, thanks."

Breakfast concludes, and Inavet excuses herself to go actually ask Nifl about that thing.

[thisvorlunatic]

And Miles excuses himself to have a think over whether he can really afford to go on this trip now.

He thinks he can. He thinks they'll be okay.

So he makes appropriate arrangements for his deadman switches (apparently it is strictly impossible for him to be kidnapped out of the monument while it's active, lucky him), notifies his mother and Illyan in that order, PMs Inavet, gives the kobold goodbye scritches, and heads for the spaceport because if he's going to gate to a depressurized environment he's going to do it from inside a depressurized airlock.

[lurkingkobold]

They will, probably, be okay! The kobold has pretty much gotten the hang of not upsetting the elf, and if the elf decides to eat the kobold - well, Miles being around is probably not going to stop that from happening, if the elf decides she wants to, and at least this way he's out of the line of fire. (The kobold is far too tactful to say this, of course - she's already made her case for not doing this, and her decision on how to handle the fact that he needs her to; there's no point in bringing it up again, when nothing has changed about those.)

A few days pass, mostly uneventfully. The kobold organizes the kitchen, catches up on the forum, and even feels comfortable enough to make brief trips to visit Novelty (to help with an ethical crisis) and Lioncourt (to give her invisibility, once she's concluded that it's safe enough).

On the fourth day of Miles' trip, the forum is quiet, and the kobold, starting to be confident that she can leave the elf alone for a few hours without coming back to anything life-threatening, decides to go for a walk.

[aestrix]

The first half of the walk is uneventful.

The second half, less so.

There is a fast moving magical something heading for the forest.

[lurkingkobold]

Ohgodwhat.

[poll_the_stars]

The fast moving magical something turns out to be a fast moving magical someone. She's permanently hasted, but doesn't usually make this fact apparent. She's making it apparent now. That and her teleportation.

It turns out that when an arcanist mints most of their lifespan, they can tell. It turns out that they can tell by what can only be described as feeling like they have decayed, like a part of them's rotted away, and all that's left is this half-decayed husk you wander around in. And the old body you can't ever get back.

Inavet has just discovered this fact.

She stops her running (pointless, near directionless, she realizes now she was trying to escape the ick that's inside her) to instead throw up. It's not very dignified. After her stomach is purged once, she looks at the remains of her breakfast morosely. Then she throws up again, coughing. Once that's done, she hisses an Elven curse word and wipes at tear-filled eyes. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.

She stumbles away from the vomit to sit down on the nearby rock. She buries her face in her hands and starts carefully picking her way through every curse word she knows. On the seventh, the word's interrupted by an unbidden sob. By the twelfth, she's too busy crying to continue.

Fuck that was awful.

[lurkingkobold]

Oh dear.

...this is not a situation that will be improved by upsetting the elf further. The kobold stays put.

[poll_the_stars]

It might be interesting to note that while Inavet doesn't show other outward signs of aging, her hair is now slightly greyed.

... The elf might be here a while. It seems that once she's started crying she doesn't have reason to stop.

"Shit," she mumbles, sniffling. "Now I have to figure out how I'm going to die."

[lurkingkobold]

(The kobold was sitting on the rock, but, in her alarm, dived behind it. She's not in any position to see the elf's hair, or anything much really.)

[all_the_worlds_have]

And a door appears.

It has a doorknob shaped like a rose, carved of brilliant pink crystal. It appears to be very thoroughly one-sided.

[poll_the_stars]

Inavet notices this immediately! She blinks at it.

She doesn't even comment upon it, just huffs a little and sniffles, wiping at her eyes.

[all_the_worlds_have]

After a moment, a silver-haired woman emerges from the door. She smiles sadly at Inavet, her fingers gently clasping the rough chunk of quartz on a silver chain that serves her as a necklace.

"... Hello. I'm Eva."

[poll_the_stars]

Eva gets a long, slow blink.

"Hello, Eva," says Inavet hoarsely. "I'm Inavet."

She raises her eyebrows in an expression of, 'Please explain what the hell.'

[all_the_worlds_have]

"... Company records say that you've minted almost nine thousand years of Ka. Considering your current state, I'd guess that that was a lot for you. Are you sure you don't want a refund?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Eight-thousand, five hundred," she corrects absently. "And, no, this is. Uh. Turns out that through one of the types of magic I have, minting one-thousand, seven hundred units of Ka feels really awful. But no, I don't want to do that again, and if I screw up my plans now because I feel briefly ill I'll be cross."

[all_the_worlds_have]

"And your plans now are to...?"

Eva sits down on the grass next to Inavet, not seeming to care about getting grass-stains on her nice pants.

[poll_the_stars]

Inavet attempts to figure out how to delicately phrase this, then deems it not worth the effort involved and decides to be blunt.

"Well, now I need to figure out a reasonable way to kill myself so one of my magic types will activate and grant me very convenient immortality. Also another type of magic powers."

[all_the_worlds_have]

Eva seems to take a moment to consider.

"As reasons for committing suicide go, that's one of the better ones I've heard recently."

She lifts her crystal to one eye and peers at Inavet through it.

"... But then again, it looks like you've still got hundreds of years of life left. Are you really sure that this is what you want to do?"

[poll_the_stars]

She giggles a little inanely at this pronouncement.

"I left myself breathing room and sold it now because I realized that even if I didn't want to figure out a way to quickly off myself, I live a somewhat dangerous life. If left to my own devices, I might get myself killed next month, and if I die I might as well have sold off all of my lifespan first, right?" She makes a face. "But with how this feels I am sincerely considering just not waiting for the rainbow goddess's answer on whether the immortality will stick or not and just." Handwave.

[all_the_worlds_have]

The businesswoman nods.

"Personally, I'd ask your rainbow goddess friend who's good at knowing stuff whether you'll really become immortal before you try and commit suicide. That seems like a sensible precaution."

[poll_the_stars]

"Right, that's what I did," agrees Inavet. "Before I minted it, even. But she hasn't replied for days, and I realized that I can mint most of my lifespan, so that if I get offed I don't lose the Ka, without actually risking my life. I'd also be keeping it in reserve for if I turn out to live through the next several hundred years on my own merits."

[all_the_worlds_have]

"But now you're considering killing yourself anyway because it's so awful to live like this. That doesn't seem like a good idea. I probably wouldn't take a fifty-fifty shot at immortality or death. Death is rather final."

[poll_the_stars]

Giggle.

"A bit, yeah. I wouldn't take a fifty-fifty shot at immortality or death, either. And I mean. There's considering and then there's considering. So I'll likely just throw up again and curl up in my room and probably eat a lot of misery food and suck it up rather than jumping aboard the suicide train."

[all_the_worlds_have]

"I would offer to mint that, if we actually had a sickness coin. But we don't."

She sighs.

"Is there anything else I can do to help?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Thanks for the offer."

She snorts. "I don't know, do you want to help me overthrow my terrible government so innocent people can stop being used as horrible tortured immortality fodder?" Pause. "Well. I suppose some of them aren't innocent, exactly, but - no one deserves that."