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Alice eventually goes home for the evening.
Bella goes up and sits in her room.
She has five hexes.
Five.
That's rather a lot of hexes.
She gets out her notebook, with the lists, and she makes some wishes.
And then she goes to bed, grinning.
In the morning it will be time to make plans.
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self_composed
self_composed
"What would I smack myself on the forehead for not thinking of, if I wished without taking however long it would take to come up with it?"
self_composed
"Your signals, and my input stream and how I can manipulate it," Bella says. "And an image compression algorithm of sorts. Should I be able to poke around in your memories? Should I be using something other than a naive magical heuristic for generating the words - like, should the power be consulting you to determine what words you'd attach to a thought if prompted?"
edgeofyourseat
"Yes," he says after thinking about it for a moment, "and... I dunno, actually. They're my thoughts, but you're the one who's reading 'em."
self_composed
"So I need an interface for sorting through memories - browsing some organized representation of the whole shebang? Searching by keythought? Picking them out of an index by date?" She closes her eyes. "Man, wishes do not make everything simple, do they. How about - if you could produce a word for a thought, then that one, otherwise if I could produce a word for it if I was having it, then that, and otherwise, a first pass at a naive magical translation - and otherwise a symbol. And I'll color-code 'em."
self_composed
"So," Bella says, "let me guess - you think in thoughts, and also, you remember in memories?"
self_composed
"It's almost like your brain's fundamental architecture is not as much on board with this project as you are," Bella comments. "I think I'll see what I can do about a mixed strategy - category sorting and search and date organization as much as that's possible, and then if I can't find what I'm looking for I can try another way. And let's represent that thusly -" She expends another square to repeat the "abstract contact", a shade cooler, like she's just come in from the snow and her hands are cold. "Good?"
self_composed
Bella closes her eyes and carries on thinking about how she wants to interface with Alice's mind until she's got a very clear mental picture of what that might look like and how she might poke things when she pokes them. Right before she's about to expend the hex, she remembers to include an option to manage scroll speed and how big everything looks, and then she has to take another couple minutes just to make sure that's the only thing she forgot.
Finally, she says, "Here goes," and makes one extremely complicated wish.
Finally, she says, "Here goes," and makes one extremely complicated wish.
self_composed
"Hex is gone," Bella says, peering at her necklace. "I'm all out of 'em now."
She closes her eyes again, and reads.
She closes her eyes again, and reads.
edgeofyourseat
"Want me to make some more?" he asks, smiling reminiscently.
Bella may choose to smack herself in the forehead for not including any kind of censoring in her scheme, if she likes. Even as a mental thumbnail, his memory of last night's shower is pretty graphic.
He passes by it quickly, though, instead thinking of turning on her stove and whether he could use a triangle (maybe a square) to make it heat up faster. (The coins are represented by a visual of their shape plus the feeling of black glass under his fingers, cross-referenced to the ever-present weight of the necklace.)
Also, he likes the sensation of her reading him. It was nice before, but now that it's connected to the reality, it induces a happy shivery kind of mostly nonsexual pleasure.
Bella may choose to smack herself in the forehead for not including any kind of censoring in her scheme, if she likes. Even as a mental thumbnail, his memory of last night's shower is pretty graphic.
He passes by it quickly, though, instead thinking of turning on her stove and whether he could use a triangle (maybe a square) to make it heat up faster. (The coins are represented by a visual of their shape plus the feeling of black glass under his fingers, cross-referenced to the ever-present weight of the necklace.)
Also, he likes the sensation of her reading him. It was nice before, but now that it's connected to the reality, it induces a happy shivery kind of mostly nonsexual pleasure.
self_composed
"This thing might need a safe-search," Bella remarks. "Of course, then I'd probably get roughly nothing."
edgeofyourseat
...He cracks up.
"Oh man, did you not think of that? You didn't think of that. I love you."
Because the idea of not thinking of that is completely foreign to him.
"Oh man, did you not think of that? You didn't think of that. I love you."
Because the idea of not thinking of that is completely foreign to him.
self_composed
Bella watches the words appear in her vision a little before he speaks them. "Somehow, I failed to think of that," she agrees. "But I suspect I'd get sufficiently incomplete results trying to read your mind without any... let's call it 'mature content'... that it could hardly be called mindreading at all, so I'll see if I can't get used to it."
edgeofyourseat
"Okay," he says, grinning. "Sorry." (Sympathy, and not a second's regret for the contents of his head.) "Anyway, do you want more hexes?"
The stove is right there! He could just... he catches himself before actually trying to triangle it on.
The stove is right there! He could just... he catches himself before actually trying to triangle it on.
self_composed
"Using a triangle to save yourself the trouble of waiting four minutes would be slightly frivolous," Bella remarks. "You could make some more hexes. That's probably a good stress test of my ability to handle what your brain does."
edgeofyourseat
"But" (honey, sweetheart) "Bella, I like being frivolous," he says, leaning over slightly and turning a knob.
self_composed
Bella decides she cannot very well chide him for thinking unapproved endearments. "Well, if you like it," she says, "by all means carry on, I suppose."
edgeofyourseat
Laughing, he expends a triangle. The wish is simple: knowledge of the difference between a cool and a hot stove element (attached: a very relevant memory of yesterday), and the desire that the one he just turned on become the latter instead of the former.
It works.
Alice grins at the result in fond (and decidedly sexual) anticipation. His left hand flexes, remembering burns.
It works.
Alice grins at the result in fond (and decidedly sexual) anticipation. His left hand flexes, remembering burns.
self_composed
Bella watches brightly white affect-background colors trail all these thoughts with vague interest. Hearing him talk about how he likes what he likes is one thing; watching it pace past her vision encoded the way she'd just wished for is another.
She closes her eyes and watches his thoughts.
She closes her eyes and watches his thoughts.
edgeofyourseat
With only one stove element on, he can't lay his arm across two, so he drags it over the one. Slowly. Pentagon, pentagon, pentagon, hex. He puts his other hand up to touch the new coins, feeling the angle of a corner on each; by now that's enough to tell the difference.
It hurts like hell, and it is turning him the fuck on, and the fact that he can tell she's watching gives him a thrill that's part affection, part arousal. (And part that other thing—a feeling of vulnerability; the desire to be vulnerable, to her specifically, because he loves her.)
He lays his hand flat against the element and digs the fingers of his other hand into the deep, fresh burn on his wrist, and although most of his attention is taken up by pain, there's enough left over to feel each new coin as it appears.
It hurts like hell, and it is turning him the fuck on, and the fact that he can tell she's watching gives him a thrill that's part affection, part arousal. (And part that other thing—a feeling of vulnerability; the desire to be vulnerable, to her specifically, because he loves her.)
He lays his hand flat against the element and digs the fingers of his other hand into the deep, fresh burn on his wrist, and although most of his attention is taken up by pain, there's enough left over to feel each new coin as it appears.
self_composed
Bella very carefully does not open the lightning bolt signs that mean "pain" - she doesn't actually know if opening his nocioception would hurt, and would rather test that with something smaller - but she does watch the revolving blobs of color-coded emotion in fascination, and the string of mostly not sentence-ordered words in their colors.