[Open] Love, Blood, and Rhetoric

[hellonspectacles]

Who: Palamedes Sextus and you!
What: Blood science!!
When: Early February
Where: The infirmary, or anywhere you feel like finding Pal
Warnings: As you might have guessed, there's blood.



[I. He Blinded Me With Science]

For months now, anyone who enters the Serena Eterna infirmary would have noticed the set of test tubes and petri dishes lined up in one corner of the room’s counter, and labeled with a large note:

Property of Palamedes Sextus, Room 105. DO NOT TOUCH. I will know if you do.

The test tubes each contain a sample of blood taken from a ship-board volunteer: young and old, human and non-human, alive and dead. The petri dishes are for his various experiments. Once upon a time, his question had been simple, or so he thought: could you tell if someone had died, either on the ship or before arriving, by studying their blood chemistry? But like so many matters about, things have gotten much more complicated since those early days.

And they are about to get more complicated still.

Pal spends most Saturday afternoons in his makeshift lab, and today is no exception. Back in January, he had started an experiment regarding the rate of cell decay. Everyone knew that the food on the ship didn’t rot. Everyone knew that people who died returned to life—usually. But what happened to the living on a cellular level? And could that affect be manipulated to guarantee resurrection upon death?

Humming tunelessly to himself, Palamedes inspects each sample in the petri dish, visions of cell clusters dancing in his head. Each time, he notes the thanergy and thalergy levels. Each time, he counts the number of living blood cells. He double-checks the numbers, triple-checks them, quadruple-checks them.

There’s no getting around it: after a month, absolutely no cell death has occurred.

Pal takes his handkerchief from his pocket and wipes a sheen of blood sweat off his forehead.

“Well, fuck me.”

[II. Wildcard!]

Want to hang with Pal, but don’t have a reason to visit him in the infirmary? I welcome your prompts! Pal is often in the library or drinking tea in Sand Dollars, or curled up in a chair in the lounge. Gimme what you got, or hmu on Plurk

Comments

[maximumcake]

"Yes. And, I mean, it's true that vampires can be dangerous, but they aren't mindless killers. That's what bothers me. Like, yeah, they drink blood. But they don't have to kill people or drain all of their blood or anything like that. In fact, they have rules against killing."

[hellonspectacles]

"Frankly, it seems like killing would be more trouble than it's worth," Palamedes muses. "Like uprooting a tree instead of picking its fruit. No doubt there will be those who will take advantage, but that can be said for every single one of us."

[maximumcake]

"Exactly!" Finally, someone gets this. "My master takes about one or two shots worth from me every week. And I'm no worse for it. Of course, he's an Elder and they don't need as much as younger vampires, but still. There are plenty of people willing to donate some blood. People who like doing it. So, I don't see what everyone gets so upset about."

[hellonspectacles]

"Some people like that sort of thing even when there aren't any vampires involved," Palamedes says wryly.

Beneath this casual observation, though, Pal is a little bit unsettled--it's one thing to think about vampires drinking blood in the abstract, another to hear Max talk about giving one or two shots a week to his so-called master. The concept reminds him just a little too much of the Eighth House practice of soul siphoning.

But Max's point is a logical one. "Blood is a common tool in necromatic practice as well, though I'd have questions for any necromancer who regularly used a non-adept's blood. For our purposes it would be both less useful and, to be honest, ethically dubious." He flashes an apologetic smile. "Different circumstances, obviously."

[maximumcake]

"I know." Said so matter-of-factly. For him, it's just life. Sometimes he forgets how unsettling it might seem to others.

"What's the difference? Adept in what?"

[hellonspectacles]

"Adept at necromancy," Palamedes explains. "Where I come from, necromancers are genetically distinct, and only those born with necromatic aptitude are able to execute the necessary theorems."

[maximumcake]

"Oooh, huh. That's interesting. It's kind of like how Mediums are in my world. You have to be born as one. Are there any downsides to it for you?"