milliways lurks

[her_imperial_radiance]

Milliways lurks.

Comments

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Manufacturing a medical emergency, or doing something coercive to get their mate turned, or just biting them themselves and turning them without anaesthesia - basically, the object of a rejected vampire mated to a human is to get their mate turned so everything will be nice and symmetrical. If they mate on a hybrid instead and that can't happen, they just go kind of... stalkery."

[prima_sequentem]

"Charming."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"There's an extent to which they can't help it, but they do vary in how bad they get, so we have to hold them responsible anyway," sighs Elspeth.

[prima_sequentem]

"How bad exactly does that tend to be?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"It ranges from disconsolate pining - harmless - to suicide - legal, especially under the circumstances, although we do try to encourage people to wait a year or five in case their mate comes around - to harassment and pestering and trying to find any means they can of bringing pressure to bear - sometimes legal and sometimes not, depending on how overboard they go - to various combinations of forgery, carefully calculated degrees of assault to try to force turning either to save life or reverse disability, kidnapping, that sort of thing - not legal at all."

[prima_sequentem]

"Ouch," says Libby. "Remind me not to visit. 'Kidnapped by lovesick vampire' is not on my list of dream vacations."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"It wouldn't be a random vampire. The relationships usually work out, even when one party stays not-a-vampire, if they give it a chance; they're people who are suited to each other. And we do protect vampires' mates who don't want to. But sure, you don't have to come home with me." She shrugs and downs the rest of her golden bubbly and orders another.

[prima_sequentem]

"Suited by personality, if not by species?" she says dryly.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Well, also by species a little bit, in the sense that vampires don't seem to mate to werewolves and werewolves don't seem to imprint on full vampires," Elspeth says. "At least unless someone changes species after the fact; both phenomena are very durable once established. I'm not otherwise sure what you mean. It's not like interspecies relationships are doomed or always a bad idea or anything except that you should avoid getting attached to someone who hasn't mated-slash-imprinted but still might."

[prima_sequentem]

"I don't know, I just can't imagine half a mate bond being a comfortable start to a relationship. But maybe I'm approaching it too analytically."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Not everybody seems to have mates at all - there are vampires who've been around for thousands of years who don't have them, and there's a witch who copies powers who's repeatedly tried a precognition power that showed its own witch her mate right away, and the copier wasn't shown anyone. So whatever's going on, it's not for everyone," shrugs Elspeth.

[prima_sequentem]

"Fascinating," says Libby.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"It is. We don't know that much about it because R&D can't perform any experiments, only observational studies, but we're paying attention."

[prima_sequentem]

"Paying attention is always a start," Libby says agreeably.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"What do you do, in your vampire-free 2005?" Elspeth asks.

[prima_sequentem]

"I'm a mathematician," she says. "It's more fun than it sounds."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Ooh. The fellow who absorbed the memory payload I have ate some mathematicians but I don't know how within date their educations were and I haven't been keeping up with the field."

[prima_sequentem]

"Are you a math fan, then?"

[her_imperial_radiance]

"I like most subjects. Math's one of them, but it doesn't come up much in my work and it hasn't rotated into the position of my favorite hobby yet. I imagine it will. I'm immortal."

[prima_sequentem]

"That must be very handy," says Libby.

[her_imperial_radiance]

"It is! We like it. It's just about Mama's favorite part of being a vampire, and she's extra immortal - she's been set on fire twice."

[prima_sequentem]

"What's your mother like, anyway? I'm still having trouble picturing this kindhearted world dictator." She waves the relevant pamphlet. "Photographic evidence notwithstanding; I mean in a more abstract way."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"Oh, she's very smart, and kind of paranoid but people did keep trying to kill her for the longest time, and she loves me and my dad to bits, and she's careful about being ethical with all her power - she put my grandpa Carlisle in charge of the ethics of the R&D department and if you knew my grandpa Carlisle you'd know that means she takes not being evil very seriously. She doesn't like being interrupted. She raised me by herself for five years when we thought my dad was dead and she was the most devoted mama anyone could ask for. She's got a lot of... psychological resilience, I guess? Most vampires who thought their mates were dead would just fall completely apart - they'd go for a futile, suicidal attempt at revenge or turn into apathetic zombie-types or go outright insane. Mama managed to function and bring me up to maturity. She cares about knowing where all her mental moving parts are and making sure they don't break or go the wrong way."

[prima_sequentem]

"She sounds like a hell of a mom," says Libby. "I approve. And now I kind of want to meet your grandpa Carlisle."

[her_imperial_radiance]

"He's been here one time," Elspeth says. "He didn't know what to make of it. I don't think he liked it very much. He might have seen a version of somebody he didn't like the look of?" she guesses.