(online, posted in Seeking at about 2AM on day 1)

[bitofafiction]

Any unattached Weapon who would like a general note of permission and no obligation to fight may apply to Sherlock Holmes. I won't bother you about battles unless you volunteer. You can usually find me hanging around the White dorm playing the violin.

Comments

[bitofafiction]

From me, they took mostly pieces of my childhood. Names, faces. Inconsequential in practical terms. [He shrugs.] That, and the memory of what it is like to play the violin. I can only recapture the sensation while I am playing.

[ergaleomancer]

That's...a bit ridiculous. I suppose if you're sentimental it would be distressing, though... [[That's a bit disjointed there. Discrete enough that a normal person might miss it, but...it seems to take some doing to think about people who might feel differently to herself. She can accept it, but there's no empathy there.]]

[[She shakes her head and sighs.]]

I am loathe to find out what else is missing of mine. Better to find out as I have them returned and let it be a surprise, otherwise I'm liable to worry.

[bitofafiction]

I've identified all but one of mine, and regained six of them.

[understatement of the century] I prefer to know.

[ergaleomancer]

If they're important to me, I'm sure I'll run face first into that 'haze' again. [[She's a bit frightened of it, but trying hard to ignore that. Better to change the subject.]]

So how long have you played the violin? That music was beautiful, if utterly strange.

[bitofafiction]

[slight smile] It's an adaptation of something meant for a very different set of instruments.

I learned to play three years ago.

[ergaleomancer]

I've never heard anything like it, I couldn't even imagine it on other instruments. [[She smiles cheerily, though, curious rather than disapproving.]]

I can play a song on the piano, but generally I listen to music on the family cylinder player at home.

[bitofafiction]

The library might have a recording of the original on hand. I can check, if you'd like.

[ergaleomancer]

Oh, you don't have to. [[But she'd really like it if he would, and she doesn't bother hiding that fact.]]

I wonder if the library would have anything from my home...dimension.

[bitofafiction]

It's likely enough. The selection has always been somewhat eclectic.

[ergaleomancer]

If I could find a copy of The Doctor's Wife as well... I wonder if that play exists in your world? It's one of my favourites.

[bitofafiction]

I've never heard of it, but by and large I don't keep track of theatrical developments. When was it written?

[ergaleomancer]

Eighteen ninety four. Ergaleomancy had just taken off as the premier technological field. But...I could go on for hours about it.

[bitofafiction]

It won't exist in my world, then. We have many varieties of magic, but that is not one of them.

[ergaleomancer]

...Magic? Really?

[bitofafiction]

[wry smile] I didn't quite mean to admit it, but yes.

[ergaleomancer]

So that is to say you believe in magic~.

[bitofafiction]

I have personally observed its effects, yes. I believe in vampires in much the same way that I believe in cockroaches.

[ergaleomancer]

[[Her knee-jerk reaction is to tell him he's being superstitious, that he must have seen something perfectly explainable. Then she remembers that there's alternate realities in play here. Perhaps, where he's from, that really is possible, and that's mind-bending. She swallows the instinct down.]]

[[She also notes that fog creeps into her mind when she thinks too hard about cockroaches.]]

Oh my...that is something significant... Tell me more?

[bitofafiction]

I was attacked by a vampire when I was fifteen. I fought him off. Subsequently I discovered other supernatural phenomena. I can make an exhaustive list of the evidence if you really prefer, but I think the moment when I shined an ultraviolet laser on one of them and watched him catch fire resolved the last of my doubts.

[ergaleomancer]

'Laser'? [[She's listening to all of that, but she's believing it, so she doesn't really need to question any of the rest of it.]]

[bitofafiction]

Ah. Hm. A beam of coherent light.

[ergaleomancer]

That's amazing...how is it made?

[bitofafiction]

I don't know the precise mechanics offhand. A physics or engineering textbook might tell you more.

[ergaleomancer]

...I want to look into this now... [[An amused chuckle. She really likes those subjects.]] Lucky you had one handy, really.

[bitofafiction]

Oh, I didn't, the first time. My—for the sake of argument, brother—made it afterwards, in case I encountered another.