shitposting rave 5: discount rejects from every genre

-snort- Never had any sanity t'begin with. But I c'n jus' see you, old man. Scruffy ol' hermit livin' in the woods an' scarin' the kids. -makes grabby hands for the bowl again-

 

Yet the problem remains that I do not know how to offer you this evidence. I am deriving nourishment from this birch liqueur, and you do not question it. Allowing me a walk in the woods is much the same. Yet you question that. Were I inclined to actually prove this, how would I go about it?

[They make a show of draining the bowl of its contents before handing Billy the empty one.]
Be a good lad and fill it up.

 

-A mi wanders in, quite unaware of the argument- Miiii -she stretches- I could sleep fur a month.

 

You old arse. -he snaps his fingers and the bowl is full again, but not of the birch liqueur it was before; it's now dark beer, malted from some grain that went extinct a thousand years ago, and the bowl is no longer wooden but carved from a smooth, clear green semiprecious stone. He takes a long drink before passing it back to Grimm with a disarming grin-

 

[Grimm takes it, sniffing it very obviously and crinkling his nose.]
You have terrible taste.
[... he drinks anyway. It's not that bad.]

 

-Billy snorts loudly and adjusts his sprawl so he's leaning comfortably against Grimm-

 

"Experimentation is the usual method. Setting up a situation in which it's not possible for you to derive sustenance from either the life energy released by the death of an animal, the focused energy released by the person killing the animal, or the focused energy of the person who contracted with you in dedicating the kill to you, and seeing whether you get anything from it. This would be difficult to set up, of course. I would have to figure out how to block your ability to draw upon those energies. But if it were possible to do so, it would provide some answers."

Ford thinks for a moment. "You said that it would be stealing for you to draw sustenance from a kill made by another predator for their own reasons, to claim that act of destruction. But what, other than the credit--which no-one else would know about--would you be taking? What harm would befall a hunter, or their kill, or those who ate the meat, if you did it? That also might provide more information."

 

You are a terrible menace.
[They don't quite put their arm around Billy, but they have it close to his back and lean their weight on it. They take another sip and hand the bowl back.]

 

"I know that feeling." Valiska smiles. Sometimes it feels like she doesn't just eat, drink and breathe for three--she sleeps for three, too!

 

For one it would be rude beyond believe which you might think inconsequential but reputation has weight.
Apart from that... even though humans and other material beings are incapable of deriving nourishment from the inherent characters of thier acts they still add into their incorporeal essence. This is why the ribbon can draw on and commune with snakes. They share enough qualities their essences can link. Were I to steal a kill from a snake I would rip destructionness from its essence - and by extension I would harm the ribbon. That is if I managed to steal from a claimed being in the first place. I might manage if the claiming entity was weak or willing. In the latter case an agreement would need to be drawn up, in the former I risk starting a feud. If the being is unclaimed I still harm their essence by ripping chunks out of it. It is not a good way of being.

 

"So if you stole a kill from my wife in the forest, you'd be stealing some of the destructiveness in her essential nature, and that would cause her harm, because it's part of her, and because she's a cat and she needs her destructiveness," Ford says quietly. "Do you see that this implies that you would be feeding upon the destructiveness in her character, and hence not the act of killing itself?"

Ford shrugs. "How that fits into my theories regarding energy transference, I do not yet know, but it does negate your claim that the act alone is your sustenance, and the incorporeal essence of a person is by definition energy rather than matter. I do understand the concepts of rudeness, reputation and honour--but they generally have little to do with science, except in those situations where acts that are deemed dishonourable are so regarded because they disfigure one's soul, or one's character, and even then, that's only acknowledged by the branches of science that take the existence of souls, or of character, as axiomatic."

 

It is not as strictly delineated as you seem to think. There is some expectant realignment in essences when an act is committed to receive the resultant change from an act. When that result never arrives the essence grows uneasy and unbalanced. I believe the humans call it "Waiting for the other shoe to drop". It is less that I cut a piece from an existing picture and more that when you move to place a brush stroke suddenly the paint has vanished.

 

Valiska nods. "So, even though I would know that I had managed to kill a kerrus, and that I, or my hunting party together, had managed to get enough meat to meet our needs, I would feel...unsatisfied, as if I had only dreamed of doing it, or planned to do it, even with a carcass right in front of me to butcher."

 

This is what I am told. It has never happened to me of course.
[They smirk, arrogant and self assured]

 

-mutters something under his breath that could be 'well that's going on the list then'-

 

[They swat him upside the head, not hard, but definitely there.]
Watch it, boy.

 

-Billy snorfles amusement, unbothered by the swat, and buries his nose back in the bowl of beer-

 

[Grimm rolls their eyes and holds out a hand for the bowl again.]

 

"But Ford's right. Were you to do this to me, the act of killing would not be what you'd have taken. The kerrus would still be dead. My family would still derive full sustenance from eating the meat. I would even remember it, I would just not have the satisfaction of knowing I'd taken an animal's life cleanly, in order to feed my people." Valiska tilts her head to one side. "This is interesting. It sounds as though you may also derive some sustenance from memories, as well, for while I'd have the memory, I would not have the most important part of it; it would be like retaining the information from reading something very dry, with no emotional content."

 

This is because I am not a dreameater. Were it the ribbon you might not remember at all. If they remember they can demand that prize that is. Not all rules apply to each of our kind in exactly the same manner.