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Milliways is sometimes empty.
It never stays that way for long.
various vampires in Milliways
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"I want to hug you."
This is slightly impractical, but I appreciate the sentiment very much.
"So, I have beautiful clothes. Should I just get a sack of coins, or is there something a little more portable? Or do aaberik have high enough denominations it won't be a problem?"
"You can get aaberik in legitimate denominations as high as a thousand, though it'd be really hard to spend those anywhere but for change at a bank or something," says Leekath. "Credit stamps are portable but require wizardry which won't work here. I doubt that the bar can produce a valid writ of transfer from your credit card."
I can exchange twenty thousand dollars for eleven thousand four hundred and nine-tenths aaberik.
"That's a lot, that'll keep you comfortable for months if you move in with people or find a single occupancy - Esmaar is mostly huge families all living together so finding a place to stay might be a problem, rent on a normal house will eat that in one payment."
I can exchange twenty thousand dollars for eleven thousand four hundred and nine-tenths aaberik.
"That's a lot, that'll keep you comfortable for months if you move in with people or find a single occupancy - Esmaar is mostly huge families all living together so finding a place to stay might be a problem, rent on a normal house will eat that in one payment."
"Um... how available are small apartments? And I can take that in coins, then, I'll take very very good care of them."
"There exist little one-bedroom places. I actually live in a tiny house on top of an apartment building but we get charged extra for the view and roof access and metropolitan location. I know there must be cheaper but I'm not sure how easy they'll be to find. If the rest of your paperwork checks out okay you can live in temporary housing until you do track something down, though."
"Oh! Good. If I was immigrating to America from nowhere, it would be... a lot harder than that. You're apparently, uh, filthy socialists. Good."
"We're what?" blinks Leekath.
Sky gets a very slight deer-in-headlights look. "Socialists. It's, uh, it's a joke. Your government takes care of its citizens very well."
"What a weird joke," says Leekath.
"Yes. Yes it is."
"Anyway." Leekath picks up the forms. "Usually, the contents of these would be verified with a wizarding lie detection spell -" As an afterthought, she deactivates the ward stones and puts them away. "I can't cast it here because wizardry only works in Elcenia. I can do lie detection with kamai, though." She pulls her gold wand and makes a little gesture with it; the shields on Sky's mind are no longer helping with anything now they're alone. "This might mean you have to do the whole thing over again on the other side, because kamai isn't formally used for governmental processes like that; but I'm going to do it anyway because it would be a hassle to put you back if you get turned away. All right?"
"Oh! Sure. I don't mind."
"To the very best of your knowledge, are the contents of this form true, transparent, and complete?"
"Yes."
They are, in fact.
They are, in fact.
Good, good. Leekath reads it over to see if there are any hiccups.
Well.
She did kill a guy once. And her vampirism could theoretically present a problem, if she got particularly hungry in a public place. But she's noted that if she's well-fed there's no trouble, and that the manslaughter was completely unintentional and mostly her father's fault, and that she has absolutely no intention of killing anyone else.
She did kill a guy once. And her vampirism could theoretically present a problem, if she got particularly hungry in a public place. But she's noted that if she's well-fed there's no trouble, and that the manslaughter was completely unintentional and mostly her father's fault, and that she has absolutely no intention of killing anyone else.
"I don't know how a decent quality translation spell will render the name of your species, but you probably shouldn't continue to call yourself by the same words I'm using. It will set up the wrong expectations and upset people. We have procedures for feeding my species if we wind up in public housing. I'm not sure how that would be managed for you; can you tell me what you need such that it could actually be provided by a government agency in more detail?"
"Well... if I got a job at a salon or, I don't know, polishing dragons or something, I could do what I've been doing. Otherwise, there's always the 'weekly sex with someone or other' route. I've got enough self-control to keep myself from killing anyone with that, and it's not totally horrible, it's just- not my favorite thing."
"Prostitution is legal in Esmaar but it is very much not customary to hire them for people in public housing. You will definitely have to disclose the risks of having sex with you to anybody you have sex with, anyway. I don't actually know if dragon-polishing is a job or if that would be like, I don't know, brushing other people's teeth... I don't have our copy of Statute Rulings here -"
Bar provides a copy of Statute Rulings.
"Where's that nice chart..." Pause. Leekath turns to 898. "Okay." Peer peer. "I think it is in fact legal for you to not tell anybody what's going on if you get a job at a salon, but that means nobody's going to know how your job interacts directly with your feeding needs and you wouldn't be able to get special consideration against layoffs or anything if that came up..."
Bar provides a copy of Statute Rulings.
"Where's that nice chart..." Pause. Leekath turns to 898. "Okay." Peer peer. "I think it is in fact legal for you to not tell anybody what's going on if you get a job at a salon, but that means nobody's going to know how your job interacts directly with your feeding needs and you wouldn't be able to get special consideration against layoffs or anything if that came up..."
"There's no risks to the salon thing," says Sky indignantly. "It just feels really nice and you're tired for a little bit. And I wasn't talking about prostitution, just- going out and being aggressively pretty at people until one's into it. Though the disclosure might make that harder. It's not risky for that either, I have a ton of practice, but I can see where disclosure would be necessary given the theoretical risk of ripping out their souls."
"Yes, you definitely have to tell people if you're at theoretical risk of ripping out their souls, and - look, my kind of vampires are the sole existing precedent you have to work with for feeding off other people, even if you aren't drinking blood. And we always ask and everybody knows exactly what we're doing. Even making people tired or making them feel nicer than they normally would while receiving salon services is slightly iffy. I think you're within legal parameters about it but that's not saying terribly much."
"Sorry. I'm just- used to working outside the law, in a lot of ways it's more convenient that way. But it's better to be doing it... right, I think."
"Right. If nothing else Esmaar has very good law enforcement. Nothing you put down here would let you get around it, so whatever you're used to, you need to become used to obeying Esmaarlan law if you want to live there."
"Yeah. I think I'll- let it be known, then, I don't know if somebody could detect it or something and I wouldn't want to be caught out about it. And if that makes people too worried to let me at their hair I'll, I don't know, find a boyfriend or something. Or trawl the local college for guys sexually frustrated enough to ignore my draining their spirit energy. That's a classic."