and every hand shall wield the angels' swords of flame

[impetuous_force]

The lasers hit the market. The first ones are expensive; the USADI buys them all. The next batch is larger, mostly made in China, and cheaper thanks to economies of scale. They take triple-A's, and they're such a hot item that several battery companies compete for inclusion with the weapons.

Bella uses one of the ones that Sherlock gave her and pretends she bought it with the money her father gave her to pick one up. She can always use a little more untracked cash to buy magic things.

Her newt skeleton comes in.

She casts every part of the spell except the final act of will, which she can do any time, anywhere - the spell was effectively on her, to turn her into someone who can at whim destroy the Gem of Amara. She doesn't do it. Sherlock's harmless, and he still - apparently, given that he shows up at school - has the gem.

She can, sort of, trust him. Mint oil and divination lens, useful things.

She's not sure she can forgive him, but she doesn't have to forgive him to not want him to die.

Comments

[eversomuchfun]

"I observe my thoughts about people as they go past. But I don't see how I could observe my reaction to something I've never seen. And I don't care about people often enough to rationally predict the next target. You have hardly anything in common with the previous two."

[impetuous_force]

"That's why I pick apart why I care about people - and see if the patterns apply consistently - and apply my vivid imagination to various counterfactuals. There are occasional discontinuities. I couldn't guess except by reference to other people how something like - say - doing magic might affect me, before I did it. But if I have a sample of something I can take it apart. I guessed right about how much witchcraft practice it would take to develop noticeable dependence, after I'd tried two spells. I'm not doing statistics. I'm doing - clockwork. You don't have to take apart a hundred watches, you have to know what your gears do."

[eversomuchfun]

"You don't share a pattern with Tony and Jarvis. I cared about them because they were my family, which you certainly aren't, and for specific things about each of them that mostly weren't common and aren't true of you as far as I can tell."

[impetuous_force]

"Maybe I can't teach anyone," shrugs Bella, "maybe it's just a Bella thing."

[eversomuchfun]

"I'm not sure I agree with your premise. If I say the data doesn't exist, and you think it should, why must it be my skill or my architecture that's at fault and not my circumstances?"

[impetuous_force]

"I think my ability would remain intact, if perhaps diminished, even in the data-impoverished situation you're describing. Given privacy and paper."

[eversomuchfun]

"And what arcane ritual do you undertake with those materials?"

[impetuous_force]

"I write, with absolute, unflinching, honesty - albeit half in code, for all that I trust my parents to respect my privacy - so my thoughts don't escape. Occasionally there are diagrams."

[eversomuchfun]

"Maybe it is architectural, then. My thoughts are not known for escaping."

[impetuous_force]

"I wouldn't think mine were either if I didn't go around with a metaphorical butterfly net over my head."

[eversomuchfun]

"Conversely, I'm not sure I could write them down if I tried. They don't come in the right format, by and large."

[impetuous_force]

"I occasionally make little doodles and invent words," shrugs Bella.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock also shrugs.

[impetuous_force]

"Maybe it's architectural, or idiosyncratic, or otherwise non-transferable. I don't know. It doesn't sound like you're interested, anyway."

[eversomuchfun]

"I am interested. Observe my interest," he says. "But I do think it's idiosyncratic in some way, because some part of the process is still lost on me."

[impetuous_force]

"It works very well for me. I've never tried adapting it for anyone else; maybe I'd have to know more about you."

[eversomuchfun]

"More such as what?"

[impetuous_force]

"Well, what format do you think in if it's not words?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Observed data, connections between same. Feelings. I do have some thoughts in words, they're just - unbelievably slow, compared to the rest."

[impetuous_force]

"I'm not immediately coming up with a faster encoding mechanism than writing," she says. "I mean, I guess typing could be faster if you had a decent typing speed."

[eversomuchfun]

"I do, but not nearly fast enough."

[impetuous_force]

"What I'd really like would just be directly perfect recall. But I can make paper work."

[eversomuchfun]

"Memory can be trained. Depending on what exactly you want to remember."

[impetuous_force]

"Trained how?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Mine is generally obedient. But I've heard of things like mind palaces, for storing a lot of information where you can get at it whenever you need to."