poll_the_stars | Is it accurate to call this a road trip?

Inavet does not fidget. There is no fidgeting. She is not a creature that is capable of fidgeting, she trained the habit away five centuries ago when she realized it really ticked her off. She will sit, serenely, maybe read books while waiting, but she doesn't fidget anymore.

But right now, she sort of wishes she did.

How does one mentally prepare to go to another universe?

She has no idea. She hasn't done it before. She realizes, vaguely, that this is kind of a stupid thing to worry about. She knows exactly who she's visiting, has wanted to for a while, and it's a smart tactical decision and helpful and safe and oh goddesses what if everything is weird, what if this becomes the most awkward day of all time, what if she spontaneously combusts upon entering the gate and going to Nexus? That can probably happen. Somehow. She's not really sure how, but if she's learned anything from this past week it is that the multiverse is a strange and terrifying place. And that it is good to be paranoid.

She wastes time on paranoia. She sits. She does not fidget. And she waits for a gate.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

poll_the_stars

"I'm sorry, should I have intervened sooner?"

From:

thisvorlunatic

"Ugh - no, it's hardly your fault," he says, dropping his hands. "I'm the one who started bloody flirting with him. I didn't even know I liked men! And then he came along with his stupid bloody tail! This is going to make some very important research very awkward!"

From:

poll_the_stars

"Flirting with someone once is hardly the end of the world?"

From:

thisvorlunatic

"When you're as deeply unequipped to handle it as I apparently am...!"

From:

poll_the_stars

"You are not deeply unequipped to handle it. It's okay."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"What the hell was that if not an abject failure to handle it?!"

From:

poll_the_stars

"That was being briefly embarrassed and caught off guard. That's not unequipped to handle it, that's being alive. One time I tried asking a girl out by asking if she wanted to go with me to something and ended up implying that she had the face of a horse. It happens."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"...How do you manage that, exactly...?"

From:

poll_the_stars

"I was really embarrassed and failing at compliments and it all sort of went horribly, horribly wrong."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"Okay, that's impressive."

From:

poll_the_stars

"Yeah, I was sort of despairingly impressed with myself at the time. 'How in the world did I manage to screw it up that badly?'"

From:

thisvorlunatic

"A question I have asked myself many a time."

From:

poll_the_stars

"See? It happens. I have way more embarrassing romantic stories than that, you have no idea."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"I, um..."

Oh, why did he have to think about that.

"I concede the point."

From:

poll_the_stars

"Okay, so. Why do you consider flirting with the nice demon man bad?"

From:

thisvorlunatic

"Because I utterly lost my shit the moment it looked like someone might openly acknowledge that I had done so!"

From:

poll_the_stars

"Well you're not losing your shit now, and I am openly acknowledging that you flirted with him. What's changed?"

From:

thisvorlunatic

"He's not here!"

From:

poll_the_stars

Okay, Inavet, that was actually kind of a stupid question, good job.

"I am pretty sure he thought it was cute."

From:

thisvorlunatic

"It's not—it's that I didn't know I liked men and I have not had time to process this new information and I'm not actually sure a male demon from another universe is a better marriage prospect than the Empress of bloody Cetaganda and I am under a lot of stress right now! The fact that he seems to think I'm cute does not really help!"