cake and ice cream

[self_composed]

Bella finds Milliways next, too, on New Year's Day, and calls in Alice (he's not coming to Goldenworld even if they find a person who can take them there, but he might find someone interesting to talk to in the bar) and also Lazarus. She mentions the door to Libby, too, in case she and/or her wolf want to take an excursion and see if his friends and family back home can be visited.

Comments

[nonbird]

"Will she mind if I sit nearby and stare at her power a lot?" he inquires. "I can be very quiet."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"She'd prefer it if you weren't very quiet, and reported on what you found," Addy laughs. "She's curious."

[nonbird]

"Hopefully she is also very patient," he says, "because getting coherent descriptions out of me can be a bit of a trial."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"She might haul me in," Addy shrugs, "and see if I can help, but I don't imagine that will be a serious problem."

[nonbird]

"I'm not sure you'll be any better at it," he says. "At least I have practice."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Sometimes I am better at things," Addy shrugs. "Especially compared to humans. A number of powers benefit from the brain speed, or the capacity, or the memory payload even. And besides, I can taste at once how they work. I was able to tell your friend something she didn't know." She nods at Chris. "Oh, the wolf village is through a tunnel that way, if that's where you're going," she adds, looking at Orfeo and Chris and wrinkling her nose. "There are signs."

[nonbird]

"My power is still me-shaped even when you're borrowing it," he says. "If you're better at it than me anyway, I think I want to be a vampire."

[dont_look_back]

"I know where the wolf village is, Addy," says Orfeo mildly. He turns to Libby and Chris. "Want to see this one or follow these guys around?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I was better at Elspeth than Elspeth for a while because of memory payload," Addy says, ticking off fingers, "I knew more than the wolf who needs a haircut over there when I borrowed her because I could taste it, I did something with Jasper's power once that he could've done but never imagined, I was better than Pera till she turned because I was faster or I couldn't've caught her, and before Vasanti turned I was better than her because I could pay attention to possessed animals and myself at the same time." Addy shrugs.

[prima_sequentem]

"Village," Libby decides.

[nonbird]

"Can you taste anything about my power that I don't already know?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"What do you already know?" Addy asks, waving in a rather twee manner as wolves and imprint depart.

[nonbird]

"I know my range is like sight range except without caring about obstacles. I know my power is coding the way I see things so that they'll make sense to me. I wasn't quite as sure about that until I saw it on you," he adds. "But it's speaking the same language to you even though you don't know it; it's... well, look at it," he says with a gesture that attempts to encompass the shape of his power on Addy. "It's happy enough to talk to you but it won't go out of its way to be understandable the way it does for me. It's still going out of its way to be understandable to me even though you're the one listening."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Like sight range," Addy says. "Listen to yourself! Why haven't you boosted your sight yet, cheap as a la carte magic is where you're from? And it doesn't have to twist itself around for me to understand it. I learn new magical languages all the time. Or do you think it came pre-installed in my head, the ability to borrow Vasanti and possess a bat and not crash it into walls in pitch darkness?"

[self_composed]

"This is really a fascinating conversation," comments Bella.

[nonbird]

"Why would I want to boost my sight? They're not linked," he says. "Although I didn't actually know that until you drew my attention to it, so thank you for that. You're very helpful in an annoying, antagonistic way."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I do try," says Addy with a sharp grin. "And I know they aren't directly linked. But without your attention on the similarity at all, I couldn't know if they were linked in your head - if you see that far because that's how you think seeing works."

[nonbird]

"It's not even seeing, that's just a convenience," he says. "I'd need a whole new set of terms to—how many languages do you speak?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Most of them," says Addy primly.

[nonbird]

"In that case, when I talk to you about my power I'm going to use my entire vocabulary. Maybe that will help."

[her_imperial_radiance]

Addy spreads her hands invitingly. "Please, do."

[nonbird]

"Well, put me in a room with both our empresses and I'll talk your ear off. Even just from here, the differences between the two powers, discounting the way yours is more vampire-y... actually, that's fascinating, I wish you could've seen Alice before he turned," he sidetracks. "There wasn't really an effect on what his power did, except incidentally when it cuddled up with his mate bond, but do you see the way your Bella is more...?"

He waves his hands and comes up with a description that draws on Hungarian and Japanese, two of the languages he pentagoned, with an occasional aside in Finnish.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Addy replies in a comparable admixture of languages, mostly her native German because why not and it's so good for long compound words too, and talks about what she knows of the history of Golden Bella's power and its functions and what, based on Lazarus's power's information, she thinks is due to what else.

[nonbird]

The German backdrop works just as well for him as English, and she's right about the long compound words, so he switches to match. Individual terms like the colour intensity metaphor for the vampire effect, or the texture metaphor for the witch/ingot distinction, he continues to pin down to specific languages in order to develop a working vocabulary.

Golden Bella's functional extensions to her power are interesting, but not nearly as interesting to him as the more basic differences like the vampirism amplification. In fact, he would kind of like to meet all the witches, vampire and non, to really get a sense of how that distinction portrays itself. Also, aren't mate bonds weird? Golden Bella's has kind of... well, it's not exactly cuddling with her power. They're definitely in close contact and on friendly terms, but there's something kind of uncomfortable about them.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Addy grins broadly, and invites him - and Starry Bella too, of course - on a tour of the whole complex, with visits to each witch's quarters. "A lot of them are mated," she adds.