He's up at his usual time and walks to class, as usual.

........

"Huh. I didn't recognize you at first."

"What gave me away? Was it the wings?"

"Well, yes that, also the way you were looking at me. It had to be fairly obvious to get through my pre-coffee state."

He grins. "It's not my fault you somehow manage to be absolutely delectable even in your pre-coffee state."

"Heh. Well, I still want to transition to the intra-coffee state and the post-coffee state promptly."

"Lead the way, love."

He talks about ideas for improving magic other than the fairly revolutionary dynamic golem memory along the way.

Here's a coffeeshop. 

Millionaire Sadde offers to pay, naturally.

And Terel quietly mentions that homophobia is an (ignorable) thing, that he's gotten over a while ago, FYI.

"—oh, right. It's a thing where I'm from, too, but I kinda barely paid any attention to it ever? And amongst vankires it just makes no sense given the way mate bonds work."

"It's a little complicated, how it works here? But basically being bi is worse than being either gay or straight, stereotype is that bi equals sleeping around and some other things, a few people will make unflattering assumptions but most won't care."

"Yeah, pretty much same. Didn't help that when I was human I did in fact sleep around. A lot." He shrugs. "I was the stereotype."

"-Well, I guess that's how you're good at it."

Blush. Coffee, yes, that.

He smirks. "Yes, I did pick up a thing or two."

"At any rate, what do you think we should work on next? Doing the memory was tremendously interesting."

"Hmm, as far as computers go, do golems have a distinction between random access memory and static memory—do you do caching...?"

"I'm not sure caching and random access even make sense as concepts for golems? We could probably expand a calculator unit and get something like an ALU that computers use, but if we lean that way might as well jump straight to computers. What about radio, or better engines, or even just pure math?"

"I'm not sure how useful engines and radio are when you already have magic sound, except for the part where they're significantly more replicable and mass producible. And your medicine is probably more advanced, also because magic. Maths should be the same, unless two plus two equals five here in which case I am dragging you back to my world."

"I meant theoretical math stuff. We barely know any calculus, comparatively, I gathered. And call crystals are generally expensive and don't broadcast, so radio for that. Engines are common for things that go faster than a horse. Didn't you see hundreds of them in Windvale?"

"Oh I know a lot of calculus, yeah. And I did see lots of engines but I sort of assumed they were all magical? Or are they the sort of magic that's already public knowledge?"

"Nope, every single one of those engines is of the coal-burning variety."

"—is petroleum not a thing here?"

"Coil's easier to mine, and traditional, petroleum engines are super fussy compared to the boilers and turbines classic, I hear."

"I'm not entirely sure why but at least for things other than producing electricity petroleum derivatives are typically the choice where I'm from."

"Maybe liquid is easier to move around?"

"It definitely is, and also I'd guess once you have the infrastructure to refine and transport oil it might be cheaper?"

Terel can launch right into fascinated questions about Earth's industrial network, then.

And Sadde can answer to the best of his ability (most of which being memorised Wikipedia pages).

...Which isn't really satisfying but sufficient for overviews.

"When I finally go back to my portal to visit home I can get more info, some books—we could do that when we're ready to turn you so you can be under Alec, actually, I didn't think of this before, still not used to his existence."

"Still need to experiment on you with various magical anesthesias."

"Yeah, if any of those work exporting them to the Golden Coven might be the best thing we can do in the next year or so, objectively speaking."

"One can be bought at a convenience store, one needs a doctor's note, one is an expensive amulet, two are kinds of fair folk. Off the top of my head."

"Fair Folk ones are most likely to work, I'd wager."

"Sensible to try the others though."

"Yeah, we'll try all of them—I can do that while you're in class."

So he names every off-the-top-of-his head method and some books that might reveal more.

"And I probably should be getting to class, now that you mention it."

"Yeah; I won't keep you, love."

Off he goes, giving a sarcastic sorta-salute gesture at Sadde.

Really, no kiss?

Well, it might not be impossible if Sadde catches up...

Sadde: will absolutely not do that. He will pine but he will not of his own initiative pursue Terel because that'd be imposing.

Well. Then Terel will go to class.

It's not like Sadde got zero kisses today, maybe he's disinclined to do goodbye kisses? Maybe he just forgot?

In any event it's probably time to track down some of those anesthesia methods.

Yes yes Sadde will do that and try not to read anything into the lack of goodbye kisses because after all it is his brain that is affected by mate magic not Terel's and Terel is in absolutely no way obliged to feel the same way about him and gods will his brain just shut up already let's go after some anesthesia methods.

The local, magical equivalent of Tylenol is easily acquired. The local magical equivalent of Ketamine is not. The amulet-of-painlessness will require some digging too.

But now Sadde has approximately five million Kavased, he can probably dig.

(He could've gone after Terel and asked for a goodbye kiss, couldn't he? But then what if Terel didn't want to be with him in public, maybe that was it? Or what if Terel's having second thoughts? Aaaaaargh.)

Enough digging reveals an amulet of painlessness. Its owner is using it for a chronic condition but is potentially amenable to Sadde renting it for an hour or so some time, for a mildly exorbitant amount.

There were fair folk kinds to look for too, and books.

He actually wants it only for a second, see if it works on his thirst.

Well, let him sit down first, and the mildly exorbitant amount goes down to a merely expensive amount.

Sure, merely expensive he can do.

Hand it over, and then Sadde can borrow the thing.

The thing doesn't remove the thirst, it's still there, but it makes it seem significantly less unpleasant. More informative reminder of needing blood than urgent need for it.

Not all the way, of course. Maybe half of the way.

Well half of the way is still much better than the regular turning process, probably. Sadde returns it. Where did this person get it?

He takes it eagerly, already kind of shaking.

Don't tell anyone else about his condition, please. He got it from a friend who knew a guy who knew a guy, and it was very expensive. He treats the whole thing as mildly taboo.

...sure? He won't tell anything about your chronic illness to anyone, don't worry, he'd just really like to get his hands on an amulet like that.

Well, here's the friend's name.

Thank you kindly.

Before he pursues that, what about the other anaesthetic methods?

Books!

There are about a half dozen varieties of Tylenol potion that work in slightly different ways, turns out, and three Ketamine-equivalent potions. There's a dreamless sleep potion too. There's a variation on painlessness amulet meant to protect from overstimulation, also expensive. And there are three relevant fair folk kinds: One can supposedly suspend people in a blank void a lot like Alec but one target only, and they've only been reported in a corner of the world far from here, one can cause insistent synaesthesia (smelling lemons really really intensely instead of pain is probably an improvement), one has a magically numbing touch and scent. That last kind is a human and mer predator.

Hmmm okay he'd like to use his vast resources to get his hand on the Tylenol potions, Ketamine-equivalent potions, dreamless sleep, the variation on the painlessness amulet, and see where he can find that second kind of fair folk.

He won't have managed more than the Tylenol potions and one Ketamine one, and learning that the World Tree has at least one of those, before it's time for Terel's meeting with the grad school people.

He's at the meeting place promptly!

(How do the potions fare?)

The Tylenol equivalents have zero effect on vampires.

The Ketamine-equivalent makes him alarmingly sluggish for a vampire until he purges it, and dulls some pain in the extremities but does nothing for the thirst.

"Let's go show off the shiny report."

They go into the office and announce their appointment and wait to be called.

The appointment is with a very large and regal looking lion. "Welcome. Tell me why you're special enough to skip some, or all, of the undergraduate program."

"Because we have knowledge and techniques that will revolutionise the field of golemcraft as well as create an entirely new field of study. For starters."

He hands over the report, and digs out the prototype, and starts confidently technobabbling.

The lion listens passively, asking occasional interesting questions. ("It does seem rather elaborate, do you plan on commercial applications?" "Not without further work.") If they knew his reputation for tearing apart bad projects this would be impressive.

"For the graduate program we could either continue to pursue improvements to golemcraft, or start developing the entire new field of study Sadde mentioned. I think he's better at explaining it."

"Well the, er, equivalent to golemcraft where I'm from is computer science, which involves zero magic and only physical principles, and which you can use to automate basically any task." And he launches an explanation about how computers work, tailoring it for the lion's questions and interests, depending on whether low-level or high-level or medium-level or all of those is preferred.

Low level.

And only for a few minutes. "I believe this will be quite enough to impress the remainder of the committee." He signs a paper... Somehow... And paws it over to them. "I am satisfied that these ideas are worthy; Go appease the bureaucracy as well."

"Thank you, we will."

Heyoo, paperwork! A lot of it is 'read the rules and sign the paper that says you did'. There's one that allows the university to distribute any official reports they make as they please, and about a dozen forms total. The front desk secretary talks about the program's particulars as they churn through the paperwork.

Terel asks if they can be moved into the grad program this semester. The answer is still no.

Sadde can read papers really fast, as has been demonstrated and indicated before. Shame about the semester thing, though, when does it end?

Julep 36th.

...Terel explains the calendar. Nine months of forty days, of which Julep is the third, with twelve extra days on the year turnover that is a massive holiday time pretty much everywhere. It's currently Julep 2nd.

Oh so just another month? Cool.

"By the way," he asks as they leave the meeting, "what exactly are your years and months and weeks and seasons based on?"

"Something involving the suns? I think they shine for the shortest time on one particular day, and that's midwinter."

...And he's thought about it long enough, he is bisexual and ignoring that would be annoying and pointless, Sadde gets a kiss.

Oh gods yes okay Sadde has completely forgotten what he was talking about.

(Well not really but it's no longer in his mind.)

Well, the kiss is polite PDA level only, seeing as they are on a sidewalk. But yep.

Yes yes sure it's still great and Terel-kissing and mind-melting and he will not be the one pulling away here.

Right, Terel will, and then comment, "It's strange we have the same week and same hours in the day and stuff though. Does the key sort by similarity or something? ...No data."

Nnngh okay no more kissing. "No data," he agrees. "It's strange that you even have years and months and whatever. Like, there's a mechanistic reason why we have those where I'm from, here it's just sorta arbitrary."

"Think someone designed the world, and not as elegantly as you say yours is? That's one of the theories."

"It certainly looks designed. But then again, all magic does, yours is just more obvious about it."

"Well if we find the designer, I'm going to get them to fix rifts, and tile-crumbling, and interrogate them on why humans and mer get sixty to a hundred years while dragons get forever."

"—I just got this urge to twirl you in the air and kiss you."

"Heh. Go for it. How many twirls do I get if I swear to spread computing to the four corners of the expanding plane by the time I'm sixty?"

"If you do that I might have to take you somewhere private," he says, grabbing Terel by the waist, twirling him twice, and kissing him.

Wheee!

"Then maybe I'd better not just yet. Still have things to do today. Like lunch, and the ever-popular homework and classes. They sure do take up a lot of time once you stop and think about it."

"Sleep does, too," he whines. "I love you."

"Mm. I know I said no more cafeteria food but I actually have a lunch meeting with that golem team. But I think they get the idea that you don't eat now so you could probably follow as long as you don't sit at our table during the actual meeting bit."

"Sure. I, er, will be able to listen in unless I'm several tiles away."

"They don't know that, but we're not going to be discussing anything important and it's polite to pretend not to."

He starts walking towards the cafeteria, hefting that backpack again and offering a hand to hold. Because it is kinda nice to be Openly In A Relationship Of Some Kind With This Cute Guy.

Eeeee handholding. Sadde will have this look on this face like he is the luckiest man alive to have scored Terel. It's all the more effective because of just how sincere it looks.

They're both charmed by the handholding then.

The cafeteria cashier doesn't try to charge Sadde. Terel fetches food.

Leah, that girl who didn't like him the first time he met Terel, is whispering to a friend about Sadde, "No, that's definitely the same person. We're going to say it anyway."

Sadde's only half-paying attention, and mostly wants Terel's attention, so.

He eats quickly, is amused by the some of the things Sadde describes the internet as containing, heads over to his group's table with last week's work on the communal golem project.

The actual meeting part of their meeting goes smoothly. Everyone's satisfied at the step they've taken to the completion of a thoroughly mediocre and minimally creative final product. They agree to assign the next batch of work at the Wednesday meeting. Terel moves to get up.

Leah interrupts, "Wait, Terel. We need to tell you something. Guys, back me up please? I'm concerned for you, Terel. I'm worried about this 'Sadde' character."

"...What do you mean? Sadde's great."

"But how do you know that? They just swoop in, some kind of unfamiliar Fair Folk, claim to have all this knowledge from another world, some bunk story about hopping dimensions and fantastic foreign secrets, and we barely see you for the rest of the week. I honestly thought she - he - whatever - might haul you off into the mountains never to return, like a Ramusal or something. Just one day-"

"Hey wait a sec. First of all, you should have asked me if I believe Sadde. Which I do. I saw the evidence with my own eyes, I could have stepped into another world. And his insights are real so he either really does know all that or is unbelievably smart."

"Okay, but look at it from our perspective. Friends you've had for a year and a half and you just basically ignore all of us, and your classes, for most of a week? I think something's been done to you. You're being led on, or bewitched, we don't want you to get hurt. You need to stay away from Sadde and think critically about whether all this is for the best. We'll help you, Buck said you can stay with him, for your own good." A few people make noises of agreement. Two of them look pretty uncomfortable about it.

He gives a little sigh. "If you're going to be like that, fine. Point the first, you are operating in ignorance of some relevant facts. Chief among which is the evidence of other worlds I mentioned. I have been watching him, I have been thinking about it, and everything I've seen taken as a whole means it's quite unlikely that Sadde is anything other than what he presented himself as to me. "

"It could still be a trick. An elaborate con, he could be playing with you..."

"He would have done several things differently if that were the case, he's explained everything I asked about even when it disadvantaged your hypothetical ruse, he's bought a fair amount of stuff and never mind this isn't your business, and if that were the case there would be very little I could do about it, so I choose to operate on the assumption that it is not."

"But think about your future, he turned you bisexual-"

"Point the second, you are not my mother! Not only are any preferences not really your concern, I'm nineteen, you are not my girlfriend or anything, I have no history of substance abuse or other unwise decisions, I really think I ought to be allowed to decide what's best for me." Leah's starting to look fairly crushed, resorting to pleading looks instead of words. "Point the third, because it bears repeating, I have been thinking about it. Thoroughly. Point the fourth, you don't know what I want! I know what I want! Point the fifth... You know what, nevermind. I'm not going to list all the ways you're wrong here. I will see you all on Wednesday. Maybe."

He stomps over toward Sadde, fuming.

"Are you sure I can't whisk you off somewhere, because that was incredibly hot."

"You actually can, but somewhere I can punch something that won't break and isn't you first because crash it that was frustrating."

"—it would be kinda hot if you punched me but anyway, does a pillow at your place count?"

"I was thinking a target range or something but yeah that's probably overkill. That'd be hot? -Well, let's go."

Scoop up. Zoom.

Sorta-hug. Palm into the building.

"I probably should get better at not caring about what irritating people think."

"I have found that to be a useful skill in life, yes," and oh look Sadde's kissing Terel now and undoing his shirt.

This is sufficiently distracting from irritating thoughts about Leah.

Oh good so he can continue stripping Terel until he's naked.

Terel does manage to get Sadde's shirt, at least, off during this process.

And now there is shirtless-on-naked kissing on Terel's bed and the rest of Sadde's clothes can soon follow.

Aww, no striptease?

Hmm, are the best places to kiss Sadde about the same in this shape (ignoring the obvious differences)?

There can maybe be a striptease later when Sadde needs to have Terel a little bit less badly. Right now he needs to be touching Terel.

(And the answer to the question is: very yes.)

He does some experimenting and exploring with his hands and mouth, anyway, it is a little different -

"You know, I didn't realize debate skills were a fetish."

"Mmm, one, anything you do is a fetish, I was bisexual before but now I'm pretty sure I'm just Terel-sexual, two, anything you do that shows off your brain is incredibly hot, three, you being—all—that way, I don't know—was just—and four, I was quite touched that you defended me like that."

(Speaking of touching...)

"I will defend people who deserve to be defended, you have only yourself to blame."

Ooh, touching.

"It was quite—" and now there's nibbling "—stunning how she said I turned you bi—" earlobe nibbling, to be specific "—with a straight face."

"R- religion makes you do silly, ah, things sometimes I guess."

He pauses and pulls away (his lips, his hands are still busy downstairs). "Really? That was a religion thing?"

"...Probably? I don't know the details, and why are we even talking about this?"

(Click here to skip the explicit content.)

"Good question!" Back to nibbling and handling and soft biting and kissing and Sadde has two hands however shall he make use of this fact.

Terel has gotten used to being... Carried away like this, without much brain left to do much to Sadde. Plenty of pleased muttering and fingernail-clutching though.

Oh good yes this is exactly the goal, here. Sadde has more than enough brain for the both of them, and now he's on top of Terel kissing him and there may be some interesting interaction down there due to the shift in position and anatomy.

Terel: Is suddenly kind of nervous!

"—you alright?"

"Um, remember how I do not fit the bisexual stereotype?"

"Yes?"

"I have never so much as kissed another guy until today and I don't know how this part works unless we don't go past oral."

Today's blush has a different character than a lot of the previous blushes. Something closer to genuine shame.

"Oh, love, it's alright—I can just show you. Do you have—preferences about anything, here? Even without any experience, I mean, anything you'd prefer to try?"

"I - Stick to what usually works pretty well?"

"Certainly," he says, smirking and reaching down to, ahem, position himself better.

Terel allows himself to be repositioned, looking kind of meek.

So Sadde leans forward to kiss Terel, and reaches behind himself to—fit Terel.

...Huh, it is different. He starts moving when the lube appears.

Yep, it is indeed different, and quite interestingly so. Lookit Sadde move, too.

And, of course, make noises, in a different and deeper voice than Terel's used to.

It won't take too long. Terel's endurance hasn't really changed.

It'll build. Sadde goes—or, well, comes—not too long after, and flops on him.

He's indulged his bi-ness and nothing terrible has happened yet, despite the part of him trained on societal expectations thinking it will. He's not always beholden to that part of his brain. Or maybe he's training himself out of it.

This is a thoughtful but happy Terel.

And this is a nibbly dozy Sadde who says "—you know, another advantage of being a vankire is that there's no refractory period to speak of."

"...What's it like?" Hesitant but definitely intrigued, there.

"Well." Sadde pushes against the bed so that Terel can see, incidentally causing Terel to slid off him. "I could go it again, as you might notice. As many times as I wanted."

"I did not mean the lack of refractory period."

He grins. "It's amazing. Everything's prettier—everything's prettier—everything's so pretty a human mind would be overwhelmed—everything is overwhelming, I wouldn't be able to fit a second inside my human mind, everything feels doable, I feel indestructible, all my senses are enhanced, even touch, these were the best orgasms of my life and I don't just mean because I am in eternal love with you, I can think so fast, I can hear everything, I can see ultraviolet—"

He- nods. "The mortal peril thing still stands, and I'm leaning more towards turning without it by the day."

"—that's not what you meant to ask, is it, what's what like?"

"Ah. Receiving."

"Ah. Well, it's—pretty great? And different, I'm not sure I can actually explain what it's like without just showing you, and you have a refractory period." Kiss. "It hurts a bit, too, but it's—the good kind of hurt, or can be, and you learn to enjoy it too with the everything else."

He blushes some more, then chuckles, "Fates, I guess repression has its mark if I'm that curious."

"Did you expect not to be? It is a regular part of sex with guys, although some do have fairly strict preferences about this."

"I honestly don't know what I expected. It's still great either way... Though you switching is kind of making me want to be a girl for an hour or two. I wouldn't stay that way, but I'm curious. Variety, you see."

"Ooh. Is there magic that does that?"

"I wouldn't be that surprised. There are so many kinds of fair folk, and they don't have any of the restrictions that artifact magic tends to."

"My magic is purely personal, unfortunately. But I have to say the thought of girl you is intriguing."

"Something to add to the list to research." Time for more kissing.

Eeee kissing~

After a while of this, "Wait- Gah! I had a class!"

"—oops? I'd kinda assumed you meant to skip it after the thing with Leah, should I zip you there?" He looks down at the stickiness between them. "Perhaps after a quick shower?"

"It's been, what, half an hour? ...No, just skip the rest at this point. Grr. Yes on the shower though, and I want to start diagramming a processor and other computer bits using your backup of half of wikipedia. Make the progress we can before securing silicon."

"Thirty-seven minutes," he murmurs, "and I have a basic diagram memorised, I can show you it. But later, shower first." He hops up and offers his hand.

He takes it, shower happens.

And in spite of the absence of a refractory period he will not do anything to lengthen the shower (unless Terel feels tempted).

(He mmmmight want to soap Terel up.)

....You know what, sure.

Eeeeeee Terel~

He's not at 'eeee Sadde' but is definitely heading that way as time passes.

And after shower (and who needs clothes? Sadde certainly doesn't) there's diagramming!

Terel does, in fact, dress first.

Diagramming goes productively until he actually remembers to go to his 4 PM class.

"Have fun in class, love," he tells Terel, and then it's after other methods of painkilling.

A medium-ish bribe and a 'you didn't get this from me' get him the other two ketamine-equivalents. One does nothing, one knocks him out cold for about twenty minutes until he wakes up very thirsty.

Hoooooly shoot thank goodness he's not near anyone and blood blood blood what the heck was that he has several questions but for now he generates blood. This one is a no.

Amulets, can they be made?

...Yes? This is a world-renowned magic university town, after all. Private commissions are quite pricey for the more rare and esoteric stuff, and take a while too, it might be faster and cheaper to hop over to windvale again and trawl the markets and malls.

Hmm, ballpark of the price?

Hundred thousands or thereabouts.

New:

• Painlessness: 200000, 2 weeks on rush order.
• Oversensitivity cure: 250000, 2 weeks on rush order.
• High-powered defensive thing for squishy squishy Terel: 100000, 1 week on rush order.
• High-powered healing thing for squishy squishy Terel: 150000, 1 week on rush order.
• Lifeline amulet pair, if he still wants one: 125000, 4 days on rush order.

Used:

• Painlessness: 150000, hard to find.
• Oversensitivity cure: 175000, hard to find.
• High-powered defensive thing for squishy squishy Terel: 45000.
• High-powered healing thing for squishy squishy Terel: 65000.
• Lifeline amulet pair, if he still wants one: 75000.

Are the used ones as good as the not used ones, as far as effect goes? How hard to find are we talking, here?

You'd definitely have to go to Windvale, or track down that guy's friend of a friend of a friend, is how hard to find.

The used ones are older and so in worse condition, and have no customization on look, trigger conditions, or any fiddly technical details to make tradeoffs on how they'll work.

Yeah it'll probably be Windvale. But not today. Today he's waiting on a call about sourcing more magic materials and his graduate course will only start in several weeks... So he goes to the library to read/memorise more books.

Books are available! 

What passes for science here, Millennia of magic research, and histories from more different civilizations than Earth has ever heard of. Though the histories seem to glance right over the most violent parts.

...more than Earth history textbooks do?

Yep. He can name just half a dozen generals after 30 books.

Aaand are there books about the wars themselves?

It seems like encyclopedias and long blatantly political rants about how this or that ideology causes peace are the best source of information on wars.

But are they good sources of information?

Not particularly, no.

The encyclopedias are dryly informative on when wars happened and how devastating the fallout was. Numbers like 'estimated 650 tiles, 2 million people lost.' The political rants are by and large sufficiently transparent to be obvious attempts to vilify one's political opponents.

Open wars are really uncommon here, compared to pre-industrial Earth.

Uh... huh. Interesting. He'll ask Terel about it later. He can just keep soaking stuff up.

(That's not to say there aren't plenty of wars mentioned - more people, more time, more wars even at a lower rate of war-per-capita).

A librarian notices him running through hundreds of books and reminds him to treat them carefully.

He promises he is not going to ruin any of them and is very very careful.

He can keep reading then. Any books or particular information he'd like to find? Inter-library loan: is a thing.

Well he's most interested in science and magic stuff, but also economics—anything that might be different here, relevant laws, anything nontrivial about the political structures around, and so on.

That's quite a varied plate.

Science is not an ideal to be striven at like back on Earth. It's something for frizzy-haired introverts with piles of books in their office. The economics of the place varies a lot by continent, but overall they're not really progressing toward globalization. The area known as the Reaches is interesting in that it mostly doesn't have politics of any kind yet, it's an 'emerging country' being steadily settled and built up by immigrants, and it looks like it'll turn into a democracy.

There are a few multi-continent empires. Kava is one of them, propped up by its extremely powerful and steady imperial currency. Apparently naval combat is not as universally reviled as land combat - naval wars almost always over the voids between continents are more common and have more detail in the relevant history books than any of the land battles once he starts finding mentions of them.

Huh, that's interesting. Why is science not an ideal to be striven at? And why are naval wars more common and more detailed, what's different?

Why science is not an ideal is not immediately obvious.

Naval wars don't fuck with the tiles, is the most plausible candidate for the difference.

Aha. That makes sense.

He keeps reading.

Terel comes and finds him at the library eventually.

Though he probably finds Terel as soon as he's walking towards the entrance.

Yup, Sadde can recognise Terel's steps.

"Hello, gorgeous."

"Hello, Sadde. Figured since you're spending so much time at the library learning about things maybe I ought to, too."

"Learning about things is fun, and I have nothing better to do while you're not around."

"Well isn't that flattering. Figured I would try to chase down a potion or crystal production line manager later. Contacts like that could be helpful when it comes time to manufacture. Sound like a good idea?"

"Very. I looked up some painkillers and had some interesting results." Which he proceeds to list.

"Yikes. Well if anything was going to give you a very bad reaction that would have been Elucidum potion. That stuff is crazy strong."

"Out of these the amulet seems to be the most effective, I think."

"We haven't tried any of the fair folk yet. I really don't think we should discount the predator out of hand, after all you're a human predator too. If they act hostile... Definitely. But automatically no."

"And from what I've seen of your fair folk I'm not entirely sure there are a very many who would win against me."

"Do not try to fight a dragon. Or a kraken. Or a Fate. Please."

"I won't, love—not before I become a Fate myself, anyway, and not without good reason."

"Fates can be more destructive than armies, we really don't want to tick one of those off if we can possibly help it. Unless as you said, we have a chance and a good reason."

"I mean, if the good reason were your safety I'm pretty sure I'd go at it even if I had no chance."

"Let's try not to test that, yeah?"

Sadde's crystal rings. The networked one, not the individual ones he has for Nils and that mermaid.

He picks it up. "Hello."

"Sadde, this is Graz Lakin with Empire Imports, we had a chat on Friday, I just wanted to let you know the status of our quality testing. We have tentatively positive results on all counts. Now, the board wants us to wait and see some more, but I think I can bring them around to the idea that if there's a golden opportunity sitting right in front of you, you'd be a fool not to grab it."

"Why I happen to fully agree with this assessment."

"Right, which is why you and Clara get along so well, I think. Bit reckless, that one. At any rate, the arrangement we're interested in is supplying the tier-2 materials you've already provided at scale for distribution, the market there's big enough that you can't actually saturate it and just make some money. Tier-3 materials are mostly the same but we'll want samples to test on first, again, and it'll take some time to contract with the Tridents for more convoy escorts out of Windvale. Tier-3 is valuable enough to be a big target for professional pirates, you see. There are legal issues with tier-4 materials, the extremely rare stuff, still investigating if that can happen."

"What are the legal issues?"

"Various. Including tax, liability, agricultural, and royal. I can have a packet prepared for your lawyer if you like."

"That sounds lovely."

"Right. Busy day for us, Monday, I have to go soon. Want me to have Clara call you later with more info, or just wait until it's time to work out a bigger order from you?"

"If there's more information worth having, I'd like her to call me with it."

"Great, will do. Have fun with the four mil you already have."

"Will do!" Click.

"So that sounded like good-ish news."

"Yeah, it did. We're gonna be rich and become reigning monarchs of this branch of the Golden Empire and eradicate involuntary death," he singsongs.

"Sounds appealing - does your Empress even know you're here, though?"

"Unless the Imperial Factotum—the vankire who turned me, back during the old administration—happens to think of me while the mindreading Emperor is around, it's unlikely she'll know I exist."

"And you think she'll just let us be the local extension of this empire."

"Yeah. She founded the Empire like last year and doesn't exactly have a lot of staff."

"...So much for the images of history and grandeur I came up with when thinking about an immortal empress."

He giggles. "It's a bit odd to think about it like that, yeah, but before that we had evil despots whose only law was 'eat humans discreetly' and who liked collecting witches in pieces in their basement. The new regime is much better."

"And she's a just revolutionary too. Now I'm picturing someone brandishing a torch and broadsword."

"I don't think there are any broadswords as sharp as a vankire's teeth, and I understand there were matches rather than torches involved."

"I'll just as soon not meet that mind-reading husband though. Precognition being able to see me is already a bit much."

"Our precog has more detailed but less deterministic precognition, back there."

"Good. It's a matter of feeling like I have agency. At most, once or twice by my choice."

"I don't really feel like I don't have agency even with deterministic precognition? I mean, physics is as far as anyone can tell deterministic."

"That sentiment is more to do with things that could be used to control me ahead of time and isn't exactly a reasoned fear."

"Control you how?"

"Read my mind, predict how I'll react to things, use the information to argue in such a way that I will probably accept whatever the thing is."

"That—doesn't sound generally possible unless they're factually correct or just plain lying?"

"That's the verbal spin I put on it to try and justify it anyway, I'm well aware that brains say whatever makes any sense when trying to put a reason on a fear."

Well he thinks he wants to hug Terel.

Sure, hug, even if this isn't a particularly huggable thing? He hugs but is vaguely confused.

"I love you," he explains, "and the thought of potential distress to you is mildly distressing to me and also it's annoying when brains do things we don't want them to do."

"I see. Hugs are an acceptable solution then. And then more learning interesting things."

"Right." Unhug. "Also I was wondering about, er, wars."

He makes a face. "...What about them?"

"Well, that's kinda my question. What about them? All I can find about them are impassioned political speeches and dry citations of numbers."

"Possibly because open, large scale land war is pretty close to the most absolutely evil thing there can possibly be. It ruins everything it touches."

"I—mostly agree, but I mean, seventy years ago my world had a war where people were systematically rounded up into closed chambers and made to breathe toxic gas so they'd die and then be burnt down to ashes and we still have a lot more detail about that than I found in several dozen books about any of your wars, here."

"Can we not- You don't talk about war, maybe that's the thing you're seeing, or not seeing, in those books."

"But—how do you prevent it from happening again, if you don't talk about it? 'Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it,' that not a saying here?"

"No it's not, and what prevents it is probably how pervasive the 'war is evil' thing is? Like, it's even in the national anthem, 'Be not the aggressor nor defend thyself with violence; Peace is the path to prosperity."

"—'nor defend thyself'? Should people just surrender if someone else attacks?"

"The idea is that you should run away, or keep violence from ever starting in the first place. It seems to work pretty well on average, at least in civilized places?"

"Running away is not terribly feasible when you're a country or a kingdom," he points out.

"That's what the Navy is for. And international oversight and mediation groups like ICTFA."

"Okay, I guess. And, ah, why exactly does this cultural taboo exist? Something about destroying tiles?"

"Destruction, death, rifts, and a few other things make tiles - unstable. Causes nasty weather, earthquakes and sinkholes, and yes, the entire tile to fall into the abyss eventually. Horrible, nasty stuff."

"I suppose that would do it. But it still sounds—extreme, to not have records, to be unable to think up precautionary measures and things like that."

"I'm sure someone who knows what they're doing is playing war-games in the King's army. Can we be done talking about this?"

"—yes, I'm sorry."

"It's one of those topics that's hard to talk about without someone getting offended. I'm sure your world has them even if they don't get treated the same."

"Well, yes, but there's the thing where in academic contexts everything is fair game." Pause. "Well, no, some things aren't. Eugenics, for instance. Huh."

"See? Land war is eugenics, here."

"Well I feel like eugenics should also not be taboo? At least in textbooks and academia and stuff. This hits way too close to censorship."

"You do have a point there. As long as whichever book is sufficiently academic and not-actually-advocating-illegal-for-good-reasons-things."

"—which is also a problem with eugenics, back home, it's so taboo that most papers and authors willing to discuss it at all are advocates for the less savoury versions of it."

"And let me guess, anyone who does address it is generally seen as a deluded crackpot unfit for society and the whole subject retreats further into taboos?"

"There's more of an echo chamber effect, but sorta, yes."

"Hmm... I don't have a good solution for that off the top of my head. Might be inevitable given human nature."

"Well, if the topic weren't taboo in the first place, even outside academic contexts, it wouldn't happen, but I'm not sure that's feasible either."

"So here we are, discussing taboo-ness, which we can't really do much with or about. Let's talk about magic instead?"

"Yes, do let's."

So this is what Terel learned in class today, with lots of supporting context from other magic lessons...

Ooh cool and Sadde asks questions and understands everything very quickly.

Productive learning!

Eventually he circles around to engines again. Cars seem to have much better ones than ships here do, if they can't progress on computers until they have silicon and other things might as well try this.

Is it that people don't focus as much on developing good engines here or are they just behind on their equivalent tech tree?

It seems like the relevant kind of engine is low demand enough to be a curiosity, so probably the first thing?

So are there very few airships, or do they all fly by magic, or?

"No, coal engines are a relatively common thing, I'm talking about oil engines, didn't we talk about this the other day?"

"We did, yeah, but I meant that if there are lots of airships why would that kind of engine have low demand?"

"I'm not actually sure what you mean by that? Steam engines are common-ish, the oil engines you talked about I've bravely heard of."

"I mean that given that airships are common, I'd expect there to be market incentives for better engines, and for it to not be niche."

"The world, the laws of economics, and the history of innovation will surely realize it is not making sense to you and retroactively change thanks to your well-reasoned arguments."

He raises an eyebrow. "I don't expect it to, but that's why I'm questioning it, if my well-reasoned arguments don't work there must be a reason why they're failing!"

"I don't know the intricacies of the engine industry, unfortunately."

He shrugs. "Well, we can make money off market inefficiencies there, too."

"Hm, needs more research to tell if there really is a market inefficiency to take advantage of there..."

"Yeah. An alternative possibility I've thought of is that oil is somehow harder to get here than on Earth—which is possible given that I have no idea how oil would even arise here in the first place."

"So much stuff to learn, so much time to do it in given eventually turning."

"Best of both worlds."

"This conversation has inspired me and I am going to go read up on thermodynamics and engine making."

"Care if I join you?"

"Please do, well, if you like."

He grins. And fetches books. Several books. And glances at Terel's pages whenever he turns them, then returns to speed-reading his own books.

This is actually vaguely annoying. How he's so much faster.

He ignores this and studies up on the proud tradition of engine manufacture.

Eventually Terel will learn much faster, too—

"Er, it. Occurred to me that, ah, you will forget a lot of stuff when you turn possibly but not necessarily including everything you study here."

"How... Irritating. Fair warning, Sadde, I think I'm entering a rather bad mood. Probably the tension between wanting to turn and wanting to wait to turn, thanks brain."

"Do you want me to not talk about it or" his voice doesn't even crack even a little bit "go away for a while?"

"I once again futilely wish I could become a half-vankire. At any rate, you don't need to go away but not talking about it and trying not to overtly display vankiric abilities for the rest of the day would help."

"O... kay," he says, sounding uncertain.

He goes back to studying engines, discussing various insights with Sadde - part of why coal engines are popular is because most ship engines are really huge - 

The bad mood does not improve but it doesn't devolve into an outright funk at least.

Sadde tries to be as unvampiric as he possibly can without outright reverting his DNA back to his baseline human.

Which helps, and so does having interesting research, and eventually he's still sort of pensive but not stressed-looking and wants to go get dinner and then chew on some homework alone.

So Sadde guesses he'll slip off and perhaps return to the library to continue consuming all the books on everything.

This is a university library. They're open 24/7.

They do eventually get suspicious about whether or not he is, in fact, a student...

He will perfectly truthfully explain his enrolment situation if asked.

Yes, well, unfortunately only students, staff, alumni who are paid up on a library fee, or guests escorted by one of the previous are permitted in the library, they're going to have to ask him to leave.

Oh, okay. He thanks them anyway, and goes...

Somewhere. High above, probably, to mope for a bit.

The birds must recognize him by now. They don't squawk and careen out of his way when he's on the way up anymore.

Terel wakes up still in a bad mood, and hugs Sadde briefly but nothing more than that before marching off to class.

Auuugghhhh.

Didn't he have more things to do to become a full citizen, involving Terel somehow?

Yes... Terel and he need to both be at the ward office and sign some more papers and make oaths in front of a judge. And he won't be a full citizen, per se, but a sponsored fair folk immigrant citizen.

He gets a call from his mermaid friend during the middle of the day, who proceeds to ramble about music at him for a while.

Terel's mood slowly improves through the day, and Sadde gets an I-have-vague-sorry-ish-feelings kiss when he's done with the last class.

Hey, guess who continues to feel like absolute crap regardless? It's Sadde!

"So, at some point we should go to Windvale so I can become a not-quite-citizen, probably," he mentions, somewhat meekly, but otherwise trying not to let on that he feels completely irrationally crushed, because the only thing worse than Terel feeling bad is Terel feeling bad because of him.

"I'm mostly over it. It was a lot of being irrationally jealous and then feeling irrationally pressured by the apparent awesomeness of being a vankire and panicking slightly. I want to turn after this semester is over, if we can secure a promise to let us into the grad program whenever I feel ready."

"—you're mostly over me becoming a citizen?" he asks, one corner of his mouth twitching up a little.

"No, that all was referring to how you are so clearly still upset by my mood, which is kind of a circular problem since you being sad because of me was also making me frustrated and resentful and hopefully saying this shuts off that little negative feedback loop."

"Yeah," he sighs. "I'm sorry. It's—I'm definitely still not used to how intense feelings about you are, even when compared to everything else. Have a harder time getting them under control."

"Well, I think we can do the citizenship at the local ward, if so we can take care of that now...?"

"Sure thing, love," he says, and does not take Terel's hand for not wholly rational reasons.

Well, here they are at the government office, and yes they can finalize the sponsored citizenship here so long as Sadde fetches various pieces of paperwork they have accumulated during this process.

Sure, paperwork is fetch'd.

And things are signed and wait here and appear before the Important Official and Terel officially promises to account for illegal things that Sadde does and here is an official ID card.

Wheee official ID card!

"Is this it, then?"

Sadde will need to report any and all money they are making through the appropriate channels, of course, here is some confusing and poorly organized documentation from the tax office.

Will he need to report money he's already made?

Maaaaybe. Depending on how you interpret this, or this, or this, or that.

Probably safest to hire a certified accountant and err on the side of paying when you might get away with not.

Yeah he thinks he'll want to do that, what does Terel think?

"Yeah, definitely don't risk crossing the king when it comes to taxes."

"Although there is a prophecy about a king getting mad at me, could be this king. Of course, that just means I'm going to make it hard for him to get mad, let him find a very good and convoluted reason instead of something silly like taxes."

"Ugh, prophecy..."

He shrugs. "Yeah, let's not worry. Think there's a good accountant hereabouts?"

"There's a public registry of accredited ones."

"We should go find one, then."

So they do. 

Terel picks out one. Not the best-known, but apparently his lawyer brother insists that they're steady and reliable and don't blink at odd work.

And they're in Suvak?

A branch office is. Suvak's not quite as big as Windvale or, say, Chicago, but it's at least a mid-sized city.

Open now?

Indeed so! Terel follows him there but is largely absorbed in some required reading about wandmaking.

Sadde will just enjoy his presence, then, though largely absorbed in trying to wrestle his brain into a less mopey state.

The tax office is up front that it will take a while, even if the eidetic memory for irrelevant minor details on the two contracts he signed and his deal with Nick helps a fair bit.

'A while' as in a few hours, a few days, a few weeks...?

Hours. Four to six. And it doesn't all need to be today, taxes are actually due at the end of the month. They run once every three months.

So he can do this overnight while Terel's asleep, yes?

...Sure. This isn't the first time they've scheduled night appointments for Fair Folk.

Good, he doesn't need to sleep so this works out fine.

Back to the library?

Library!

...he will still be very unvampiric.

Yay, learning. He does seem to be cheering back up.

...Scratch the library, Terel wants to play a match of Kings, that chess-like game, against Sadde to see how badly he'll lose to that vankire cognition.

"Um."

"I know, it's almost masochism, but what I'm trying to do is force myself right over being bothered by the gap. Progress, already."

"Um."

"Um?"