Celebrity

[touchedinthehead]

Aldaras lets the university have hold of the necklace again so they can finish learning everything about it. He'll start molding it when the Dean's learned all of its quirks - trying it now could accidentally make some aspect of it worse. Besides, it takes time, it's not like he can manage any progress in the time that it'll take for the Dean to identify anyway. Best to know where he's going when he starts going there.

News spreads pretty quickly about the knife's new location at the bottom of the ocean. Aldaras and Sintre become celebrities, along with being rich. Sintre is nigh-impossible to find in his hermithood. Aldaras - is not. The necklace is his. The mission to go encase the knife in concrete was organized by him. He's now deemed to be an important person, and as bewildering as that is, he works to roll with it.

He ends up invited to a party. It's the type of party with lots of important, famous people attending. He can bring one guest with him.

Right, he knows who he wants to bring, but first he has to ask her. Time to go find Annie.

Comments

[touchedinthehead]

"Good, I - probably sound broken, don't I? Repeating myself over and over again."

[keep_busy]

"Just a little."

[touchedinthehead]

"I'll try to stop, but I think it's just in my nature to be absolutely sure, twice, that you are not having your opinions and desires ignored or forced aside in this sort of situation."

[keep_busy]

"I noticed."

[touchedinthehead]

"Heh. Good."

[keep_busy]

"Anyway, let me know when there's people for me to talk to. Bye."



There's not a huge wave of interest in touching the necklace; Annie's discomfort with mindreading is on the extreme side. Until there's a bank robbery that is widely suspected to be the work of at least one mind-reader. Then there are people. They talk to Aldaras; they talk to Annie; they rule themselves in or out on the basis of these interviews and do or don't touch the necklace.

There's a second robbery, this one of a museum. There are several items taken, but the most worrying one is a tapestry that sharply improves one's sensory discernment - including, in a few long-ago but well-documented trials, senses granted by other artifacts - at the cost of muteness.

The potential benefits of combining this with the thimble have been speculated on but dismissed for ethical reasons.

Annie is knocking on Aldaras's door the next morning, shaking.

[touchedinthehead]

Predictably, he answers it.

"Annie," he says, softly. "Hi." He'd be more cheerful upon seeing her, but - tapestry. Thimble. Terrible combination.

[keep_busy]

"I think I need the necklace now," she says in a small voice.

[touchedinthehead]

"You've - thought about it, right, this isn't - a spur of the moment kind of thing...?"

[keep_busy]

"I can't even think straight with the - but as much as I could - yeah."

[touchedinthehead]

"Okay," he murmurs, touching her cheek. "I'll go get it."

He goes inside, holding the door open for her. "Any preferences about how I treat you after you're necklaced?"

[keep_busy]

"If I want different things after those are the wants I'm stuck with, right?" she mutters. "No point ignoring them."

[touchedinthehead]

"I - suppose?" he agrees dubiously. He retrieves a strong-box and unlocks it with a key. There's the necklace, right inside. He looks at it, sadly, and holds it up to Annie.

"The - offer to live somewhere in the middle of nowhere is still open. I'll pay for it, even, if you're not sure."

[keep_busy]

"I have no idea what the mindreading range is now." But she's hesitating in case he can talk her out of it.

[touchedinthehead]

"If it's infinite," he points out, "I think the strain would kill him or drive him insane. So it's not that. We'd need to check some history texts and see by what percentage a touched person's senses are changed, and then multiply the ordinary range of the mind reading from there."

[keep_busy]

"I - maybe - I can't think straight, I keep - it's like - ugh," she says, sitting down hard in the nearest chair.

[touchedinthehead]

He sits next to her, putting the necklace down on a table, nearby.

"Okay, idea. I rent a plane and hire a pilot, we go on a trip to someplace uninhabited and go in circles in the air miles above anyone and you think about it then?"

[keep_busy]

She drops her face into her hands and sobs. "That's - I - it's not even like - the necklace is right there -"

[touchedinthehead]

"You can," he says softly. (Please, he almost begs, just touch it, I love you, I hate seeing you like this, please I just want you to be safe.) "I'm - trying to offer other options, because I love you."

[keep_busy]

"Did the Dean say if - if reciprocal necklacing requires looking at the person?"

[touchedinthehead]

"No. He didn't get the chance to study it more in-depth. I - that's an option, too, we can try that if you need your mind guaranteed safe right now."

[keep_busy]

"I could barely even trike here I was so -" She takes her sweater off and wraps it around her head, over her eyes. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I just -" She gropes blindly for the box.

[touchedinthehead]

"It's okay," he assures, gently. He steers the box towards her hand, and - and then she touches the necklace. It feels like nothing at all.

[keep_busy]

She clenches the strand and then lets go.

She flops back in her chair.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath.

And says, "I don't seem to have had to look at you."

[touchedinthehead]

"Oh."

(Don't kiss her, don't kiss her, don't you do it, Aldaras, don't you do it.)