[ Gestural cues are not strictly necessary. She could take what she needs at a distance, if she cared to, but that would only ever give her a partial understanding of her subjects. The interviews, the request for permission, these all have purpose. So does raising her hand to hold flat, without touching, over one of Vi's hands.
The first thing she does is locate and block a miniscule patch of nerves near the surface of the girl's ring finger, small enough to be subperceptual. From this site, she bores a channel to the capilliaries, neatly unstitched at the cellular level. A drop of blood forms on the pad of Vi's finger and elongates, like fiber being pulled into thread around an invisible spindle, and it coalesces in a growing globule in the air between them.
Woe finesses the sample. She coaxes a hairline slit into bone and sifts out a scraping of marrow stem cells to assist in maintenance, a momentary gap she keeps sterile before she just as precisely seals it. When the promised amount has been taken out, she closes the channel in the flesh the same way, reactivating nerves and regenerating the minor damages. In a fit of generosity, she adds a pulse of thalergic life energy that will help replace this quantity, and more: Vi will feel a pleasant flush of good health in the next few days, as if always well-rested and nourished. ]
There. Not so bad, was it?
[ There's still no scorn, even if there is also no comfort. They are the tones of a clinician. Woe sinks her hand into her pocket and produces a tiny glass vial she scoops the floating blood into, capping it with a porous organic membrane before it disappears back into her cloak's shadow. ]
no subject
[ Gestural cues are not strictly necessary. She could take what she needs at a distance, if she cared to, but that would only ever give her a partial understanding of her subjects. The interviews, the request for permission, these all have purpose. So does raising her hand to hold flat, without touching, over one of Vi's hands.
The first thing she does is locate and block a miniscule patch of nerves near the surface of the girl's ring finger, small enough to be subperceptual. From this site, she bores a channel to the capilliaries, neatly unstitched at the cellular level. A drop of blood forms on the pad of Vi's finger and elongates, like fiber being pulled into thread around an invisible spindle, and it coalesces in a growing globule in the air between them.
Woe finesses the sample. She coaxes a hairline slit into bone and sifts out a scraping of marrow stem cells to assist in maintenance, a momentary gap she keeps sterile before she just as precisely seals it. When the promised amount has been taken out, she closes the channel in the flesh the same way, reactivating nerves and regenerating the minor damages. In a fit of generosity, she adds a pulse of thalergic life energy that will help replace this quantity, and more: Vi will feel a pleasant flush of good health in the next few days, as if always well-rested and nourished. ]
There. Not so bad, was it?
[ There's still no scorn, even if there is also no comfort. They are the tones of a clinician. Woe sinks her hand into her pocket and produces a tiny glass vial she scoops the floating blood into, capping it with a porous organic membrane before it disappears back into her cloak's shadow. ]