Possibly for queenofheartsrp

[pervy_elf_fancier]

1 - Action

The newest woman in the Gardens isn't outraged or panicking; she's seething as she physically hoists a rabbit away from her corset, her pink gown, and her crown. She flips her white shift over her head without any hesitation and begins dressing herself.

"If my latest kidnapper addresses me as 'the Princess of Aerisland,' then I swear by Hurane and the god of exhausted patience as my witnesses that I shall simply strike him and affect my own rescue," she says as she attempts to tighten her own corset. "At least that way I shall gain some welcome respect from the Fellowship."

2 - Action

The Mother of Monsters latest foray into the Gardens proper has been repulsed, at great cost to the inhabitants of the Garden - yourself included. The vicious claws of the harpies of Arimoi are not diseased or envenomed, thank whatever Gods you favor, but they still cut deep.

The Duchess Elstwhere winces at the results of her cursory examination, then sighs and begins to flex her hands and whisper some appeal to Huraine. Her hands begin to glow with warmth and light and life. "If you will let me tend to your injuries with this Cure Serious Wounds? I will have to touch the wound. It may sting."

3 - one could call her a woman of Action

At some part of the Gardens, there is a bath and there is wine, and her Grace is indulging in both along with you. She drains her cup, and laughs, and rolls her shoulders, simply allowing herself to soak and relieve tension.

"Milady, if you would indulge me, I would like to hear something of your home and your deeds," she says, leaning forward with a subtle kind of smile. "I confess myself curious about you."

Perhaps she is flirting. Perhaps she is not.

Comments

[former_endboss]

"It would depend, of course, on what manner of changes you mean to make. It is quite natural for there to be a few copying errors from time to time. Frequently, these do no harm. Less frequently, they snarl a critical process, and many degenerative illnesses are caused by a shared 'mistake' carried by both parents and passed unknowingly to the child. Rarest of all is the change that quit accidentally offers some advantage. So too, end many early efforts to improve things by editing by alchemy or magic."

Mir scuffed the dirt absently with a shoe, smoothing an area to create something she could draw in. "I was created by the greatest alchemists and minds of my creator's era. None finer existed in their craft, I say this without pride, but to warn you. All three of my sisters were stillborn or sick in their minds. You ask a question burdened with great risk. There is ink in abundance-but I am not even sure that I can teach you to understand what you must understand to know how to pick up the quill."

[pervy_elf_fancier]

"The thin blood of some nobles, and the hereditary madness of Thermidor," the Duchess muses out loud. "You say these are errors in the metaphorical text, compounded over time?"

At 'understanding what you must understand,' the Duchess nods, and sighs. "Falwythwr said something similar about wizardry, that I did not understand what I did not understand."

[former_endboss]

"Yes." Mir nodded and held up her hands. "Most people have two copies of each trait-and a good one may conceal a defect." Curling her finger she showe a 'damaged' copy and then hid it behind her other hand. "One person who bears such a trait in a noble family, through their descendants, may poison bloodlines for centuries to come. The problems you speak of are ones that do not kill in the womb, or subtly increase the chance of cancer devouring from within at extreme old age. But both of those are probably more common types of errors."

Mir frowned slightly and then reached out to touch the duchess' shoulder. "There is much to understand. Should I begin at the beginning?"

[pervy_elf_fancier]

"I have heard many say that is the best place to begin." She hides her smile well, but not well enough. "I am willing to listen."

[former_endboss]

"Do your people have the concept of the 'atom', that is, the fundamental unit that cannot be reduced further? If you take a knife and divide a wheel of cheese, and then again cut into it, even if your knife is infinitely sharp, you will eventually encounter an element that cannot be cut without becoming not-cheese." Mir cocked an eyebrow and then drew a pair of circles in the dirt, one inside the other. "As with cheese, so it is with life, for there is a fundamental and observable element of all natural creatures. Those who discovered it were looking at thinly sliced pieces of plants and saw regular and ordered blocks which reminded them of the cells of monks." A few squiggles, implying a tightly folded sheet of something, filled a great deal of space between the two circles.

"So obviously, these fundamental units of life are called cells. As we are not plants, ours are not so regular, or so square. And they are of many kinds and shapes-some of them have fibers much thinner than a hair running the full length of the spine. Others move themselves through the blood, seeking infection by squeezing through the smallest crack. A muscle fiber is a bundle of cells, long and dense with energy producing parts. And all that lives, begins as a single cell."

[pervy_elf_fancier]

Don't let the giggling and the nickname "Strawberry Shortbus" fool you; if the Duchess has a dump stat, it's not Intelligence nor Wisdom. She thinks on this, eyes closed and musing out loud.

"So there is a smallest thing that can said to live... I wonder what healing magic does to close wounds. If we're speaking of a monk's cell, would it patch the holes in the walls, I wonder? Build more rooms where they were torn away?"

She opens her eyes and looks at you. "And what is a monk's cell without a prayer book. This is where the 'book of life' you speak of is kept? You will forgive me if I stretch these analogies."

[former_endboss]

"Probably building more rooms or filling the space between them if it is an exceptionally clean cut. Which brings us to another point-life grows by increasing the number or the size of the individual units." Mir kept an eye on her curious student, ready for the next question.

In response to the question, Mir reached down with her fingers and drew short lines inside the inner circle. "That's it. It's sealed away within it's own little cell within the cell. That keeps it safe from anything that might damage it, and if the rest of the cell needs instructions they can be copied out." A few dots were poked on the surface of the squiggly thing that took up most of the space inside the dirt drawing. "Truth be told, it can be more like a city than a monk's personal quarters. There are workshops and engines, warehouses and ports. We live in the middle-sized world, unaware of the world of the tiny things within us, and the vastness between the stars." Mir felt almost poetic, considering the connection between stars and cells.

[pervy_elf_fancier]

"Cities with guards, and bandits. Falwythwr spoke of that when she drew ill. She said some of my magics sounded the alarm and armed the Guard."

"So, within that vast small world, cells contain that writing, those instructions. Is that how they know to be hair or nails or skin?"

[former_endboss]

"An apt comparison. And some of these cities are actually the guards of our bodies, defending against infection and parasites-though not always effectively."

"Ahh." Mir sat back and looked up, drumming fingers on her thigh. "That would be the case, would you not expect it to be? Shockingly enough, all the instructions are the same from hair to womb to bone. It is only which ones that are carried out which vary. There is, if I recall my lessons correctly, a sort of cascade of effects, starting when one is little more than the size of the head of a pin. Top and bottom, left and right, these things are decided very early on. And on the left and right, there must be arms and legs, so there are instructions made for such things. Each limb must have it's digits, each digit requires a nail, and so on."

Mir lowered her gaze and gave a cheeky grin. "A careful charting of the growth of the fetus will reveal that masculinity is the derived condition. Of course, here in the gardens, it would seem to be a condition that has been excised completely from the population."