bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
Bella's public facing email address (eor@eor.eor; many of the Bells are following similar protocols to Stella's, for web presence, and in Origin the relevant empire is called the Empire of Rings, after Saturn's feature) gets a lot of mail. Jane used to help with it; without Jane, there is still extremely smart filtering going on, and a program no one has noticed at work yet auto-responds to almost everything with canned but tweakable responses and links to the imperial website.

This still leaves a lot of emails every day she has to deal with herself, although some of them allow her to make gentle adjustments to Jane's program to handle future inquiries of the same kind. The number goes up over time. Slipstick's still on the lookout for a suitable secretary type person to help out. Until then, Bella leans on super-speed.

She has had to address the rumors about being able to raise the dead. It's a frustrating, narrow line to walk, between lying, explaining too much, and getting everyone's hopes up. Currently the FAQ has a section that looks like this:

Can you raise the dead?

Eventually, I'd like to be able to do that for everyone's departed loved ones. I'm working on it as fast as I can, but today all I can deploy are public health measures and, on a smaller scale, immortality, for people who are currently alive.

I heard you were dead and brought yourself back to life / I heard someone else was dead and you brought them back to life!

This is an exaggeration. I'm immortal; if I suffer lethal damage, the thing I do is called 'torching', not 'dying'. The same is true of other people who I've made able to torch.

I want to be able to torch.

There's a waiting list, but this is something I can do. Just fill out the form and my staff will process your application; if everything checks out the current wait time for getting into a torching batch is about four months.

I don't want to torch, but I want to stop aging.

This is also available, but the waiting list is longer; apply here.

Are you sure you can't raise the dead?

I really, really wish I could do that for everyone who asks. I maintain a waiting list of people whose resurrection has been particularly requested so that as soon as I have this capability I'll know who to use it for first.
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
One day, someone named Ethan Rayne sends her an email which goes like so:
Subject: What exactly is the holdup?

I want someone resurrected. Name of Randall White, died of a dream overdose six months ago in London. Assuming you're not some kind of elaborate hoax, it would be nice if you explained just what your technical difficulties are, because I'm not buying this 'exaggeration' crap for a second. You're lying or you're onto something: which is it?
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
This email never hits Bella's eyes. Ethan gets a reply from the vestiges of Jane.
Re: What exactly is the holdup?

I've added Randall to the waiting list for you, with you as a contact person for him, and I have every confidence that Her Majesty will be able to get him back for you eventually; I'm just not sure when 'eventually' is. None of her reported accomplishments are hoaxes, but between the distribution of torching and the general scope of her activities, it was inevitable that there would be rumors about resurrection, too. She's working on it.

Please feel free to email with any further questions.

- Imperial Staff
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
He shows Ripper the email and asks if he's bloody well satisfied yet. The answer is no. Well, the answer is 'fuck off, Rayne', but these things require a certain amount of interpretation.

The thing is, neither of them actually liked Randall, but for Ripper that seems to make it worse. If hauling that little shit out of the grave is what it takes to shut up all this pathetic moping, then that's what Ethan will do. Except that since he's now been blown off by Her fucking Majesty the Empress of Useless Bullshit, it doesn't look like he'll be getting that resurrection anytime soon.

Of course, maybe all they need is more pressure. A personal appeal from someone who actually gives a shit, for example. But for all his moping, Ripper is decidedly lacking in the action department. When asked how someone can be worth all this emotional turmoil but not worth a simple email to the imperial necromancy department, he just growls and throws food.

Maybe all he needs is more pressure.
tearingup: (⑮ break everything)
Author: tearingup




Two months after Ethan's email about Randall, there is an email about Ethan.
Subject: Look, can you do it or not?

My best friend got himself killed last night. His name was Ethan Rayne. And he was right, it doesn't make sense that you're so fucking sure you can raise the dead but you won't admit to ever doing it or say one word about how you plan to try.
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
Re: Look, can you do it or not?

I've put Ethan on the waiting list for you, with your email down for contact info. Some magic is more difficult than other magic, and all of it is complicated to explain, but we don't think any problems are permanently insoluble unless they'd require time travel to the past.

I recommend signing up for torching. You can find the form here.

- Imperial Staff
tearingup: (⑬ incline to impatience)
Author: tearingup
Re: Look, can you do it or not?

> Some magic is more difficult than other magic, and all of it is complicated to explain

Try me.
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
Jane would know what to do with that; her leavings don't. This one stays in Bella's inbox until she gets to it, and the response takes longer.
Re: Look, can you do it or not?

Fine. I have some spare time tomorrow morning, eight-thirty in your time zone. Say the word and I'll teleport in to have a chat about it then.

- Bella
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
That's... a lot more than he expected, really.
Re: Look, can you do it or not?

Be my guest.
bellfounding: (bored)
Author: bellfounding
At eight thirty, his time zone, the next morning, there's an Empress in his room.

She still defaults to jeans and t-shirts, but Queenie sews her presents sometimes, so they're nice, perfectly fitted, embroidered jeans and blousey ruched "t-shirts" dyed with artful gradients; this pair of jeans is in fact mostly blue and the blouse is eggshell. Her crown is a flat ring that floats like a halo over her head, and it's white, with a thin blue stripe towards the inside. (She enchanted it to match whatever she puts on, but she favors blue and white; may as well run with the coin color.)

Her aura is out, but toggled to "ninja", and she's only interested in being observed along any axis by the person who emailed her, not his roommates, neighbors, or recording devices. It hums magic magic magic in an understated sort of way.
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
Roommates, neighbours, and recording devices are thin on the ground. It's a messy little flat full of guitars and old laundry, and the only person present is a man in his early twenties with vivid green eyes, wearing artfully torn black jeans and an artlessly rumpled white T-shirt. He is drinking tea from a chipped brown mug when she appears, and immediately drops it in his lap with a startled yell.
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
A triangle leaves his lap devoid of tea.

"Good morning. I am inclined to tell you stuff, but I don't really want you running to the tabloids with it; would you be so kind as to consent to a geas enjoining you not to repeat anything I say to anyone else without my express permission?"
tearingup: (⑫ view with distaste)
Author: tearingup
"I - you - doors," he says, "people have doors, you knock on them, that's how this 'visiting' thing works in England - "

He reaches for a crumpled shirt on the floor, then frowns and sits up again, glancing into the now-pristine mug and then plonking it down on the table (actually a tidy stack of encyclopedia volumes topped by a plank) next to his chair.
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
"I said I was going to teleport," Bella points out. "I apologize for startling you, although I will point out I'm precisely on time."
tearingup: (⑬ incline to impatience)
Author: tearingup
He checks his watch. He frowns. He gets up and goes to the kitchen to check the oven clock, and comes back muttering and fiddling with the watch.

"You said you were going to teleport, sure," he says without looking up from this vital task, "you didn't specify it was going to be into my flat."
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
"It wouldn't have accomplished much if I had elected to teleport to the Andromeda Galaxy. If I find your company charming enough that I want to visit you again in the future I'll put you on the brainphone network and I can warn you when I'm incoming, how does that sound?"
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
"Are you telling me you honestly don't think anything of hopping into a stranger's living room without a word, and advance warning is reserved for people you actually like? For fuck's sake, the door's right there," he gestures, "is it somehow mystically impossible for you to land on the other side of it?"
bellfounding: (bored)
Author: bellfounding
Bella looks at him, debates the wisdom of having this argument, and then disappears to the other side of the door and knocks as sarcastically as it is possible to knock.
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
He opens the door and steps back to let her in.

"Thank you," he says. "I promise I'm much more charming when no one's died recently."
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
"Yes, about that, were you listening when I asked about the anti-tabloid precaution?"
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
"Not really," he admits frankly, and closes and locks the door behind her, and resumes his seat in the chair. There are two other chairs close by; he gestures invitingly to the one that has obviously seen less use.
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
She looks at it, then sits on it. "It's not really a problem if one bereaved individual gets some information one morning. My PR people will yell at me if it gets any farther. If you'll agree to it, I can magically enforce a nondisclosure agreement."
tearingup: (⑧ wait by the door)
Author: tearingup
He thinks it over. It doesn't take very long.

"Fine."
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
"All right." Geas goes; she can feel it settle. "So. I can raise the dead. I just can't do it a lot. The magic I can use to do it is a renewable but finite resource, unlike torching, which I can do as much as I want. Additionally, anyone who died prior to April 4, 2009, may be currently awake in the afterlife, and bringing that class of person back is more complicated - they'll have attachments there, stuff, friends, residences, and I don't have a way to talk to them before I resurrect them. People who died after that date are asleep, but I still can't meaningfully scale things. I used to have a way to handle all of this, but it broke, I can't fix it, and while I wait for it to get fixed from the outside, the passage of time in this universe is not correlated with the passage of time in said outside - it could happen next week or in a hundred years or never."
tearingup: (⑭ find no favour)
Author: tearingup
Somewhere between wry and pathetic, "And I can't convince you to put Rayne on the shortlist?"
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
"Maybe you can. He'd have to predictably agree to the non-disclosure, too, and so would anyone else who learned that he died and would subsequently learn that he's alive. I've done this a few times since the system broke, but largely as a favor to political entities who could notify me instantly on point of death before the news spread and already have the operational security to order the resurrected individuals to keep their mouths shut. Or, I'd have to think that having him back now, as opposed to when the waiting list gets long enough that I'm willing to try some extra big magic on handling it all in a batch, was very important - enough to be worth the risk of getting a hundred million emails from people just like you in a week because Ethan wants to tell the nice reporters about how he was dead and then he wasn't. Well, sort of. He'd be technically dead still, like me."
tearingup: (⑮ break everything)
Author: tearingup
"It's important to me," he mutters, rubbing his face with both hands. "Important to Rayne, too, for that matter. I can't imagine him running to the press about it; his only interest in your entire scheme as far as I could tell was getting me to shut up about Randall already."
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
"Randall? I don't read ninety-five percent of the emails that go to my public address, if Ethan wrote in about him before."
tearingup: (⑬ incline to impatience)
Author: tearingup
"My other dead friend," he says flatly.
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
"Another one? I've been kind of busy on the public health front and the prime minister let me put anti-car-crash magic on the U.K. last June, what happened?"
tearingup: (⑮ break everything)
Author: tearingup
"Randall ODed on dream seven—no, eight months ago," he says. "Ethan got shot - the, the night before last—"

His voice wavers. He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his clenched fist against his mouth.
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
Bella sighs.

"Okay. How many people know Ethan got shot? Did he turn up in the morgue with ID on him, has he got family...?"
tearingup: (⑭ find no favour)
Author: tearingup
He takes his hand away from his mouth after a few seconds, shaking his head.

"Just me, whoever - did it, and whoever helped him hide the body," he says.
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
"So - you, Ethan, and some people who'd have to confess to crimes to tell anyone?"
tearingup: (⑧ wait by the door)
Author: tearingup
He nods.
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
"Yeah, all right, I can spare it." She pulls an evil out of her coinsorter.

She wishes on it.

It doesn't go.

She frowns at it.

"...How sure are you he's dead?"
tearingup: (⑬ incline to impatience)
Author: tearingup
"As sure as it gets," he says. "I heard it - I was ten feet away - is your magic not working?"
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
"It's worked for bringing people back before, and that's not the kind of thing that would change for no reason. You heard it? You didn't, for example, see it."
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
Slowly, he shakes his head.

"Someone got shot, and I heard them arguing first, and Rayne... knew I was there..."

Realization dawns. "That rat bastard," he hisses.
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
"Well," says Bella, putting the evil away with a flick of her hand, "as long as I'm here, anything else need doing?"
tearingup: (⑬ incline to impatience)
Author: tearingup
"Yeah, could you drag Ethan back here for me?" he just about growls. "The absolute fucking shit - he did this because I wouldn't email you about Randall, you know, he actually went and faked his own death to get me talking to you."
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
"Why did he want you talking to me? Is it just about Randall, did he bounce off my filter a couple times and want you to give it a shot?"
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
"He bounced off your filter once," says Ripper, "two months ago, and apparently his backup plan was to murder his ex-dealer, because of course it was!" He throws up his hands. "Heaven forbid that Ethan Rayne ever do something sane and normal!"
bellfounding: (bored)
Author: bellfounding
"This is the guy you wanted me to resurrect?"
tearingup: (⑭ find no favour)
Author: tearingup
"He hasn't murdered anyone before," Ripper clarifies hastily, and then amends, "that I know of. It's just... not as much of a shock as I'd like it to be."
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
"Is the ex-dealer a great loss to society of any kind?"
tearingup: (⑫ view with distaste)
Author: tearingup
"Not remotely, no."
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
"All right, then he can wait for general admission. You just want Rayne yoinked here?"
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
"That," says Ripper, "would be lovely, thank you."
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
"You don't, for example, want him landed out in the hall and instructed to knock."
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
"He lives here," says Ripper, quirking a smile, "so no."
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
She can treat pentagons like they're cheap, with three and a half Jokers in Origin, but there's no reason to use one when she can do without. Still stealthed to everyone except Ripper, she flickers to Rayne and back, quicker than blinking.
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
Rayne stumbles slightly on the landing, surprised by the abrupt change of location.

Ripper stands up and calmly punches him in the jaw.
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
"Ow," he says, cradling it. "What kind of reaction is that when your best mate comes back from the dead?"
tearingup: (⑫ view with distaste)
Author: tearingup
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
"All right, all right," Rayne sighs. "It was a nasty trick, and I'm sorry. But it worked, didn't it?"
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
"Define 'worked'."
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
"You got your precious empress to conjure me up; don't tell me she didn't do the same for Randy," he snorts.
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
"He can't perceive me," Bella puts in. "Unless I decide to let him. We can discuss Randall separately if you'd like though."
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
He tries to say something, shoots Bella a brief exasperated look, and amends to, "I'm sure you can guess who I asked for first, and funny fucking thing, he wasn't dead!"
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
Rayne follows the aim of that look and squints curiously at the imperceptible Bella.
bellfounding: (bored)
Author: bellfounding
Bella slooooowly unstealths.
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
"Well would you look at that," says Rayne, impressed.
tearingup: (⑮ break everything)
Author: tearingup
Ripper sits back down in his chair and drops his head into his hands.
bellfounding: (bored)
Author: bellfounding
"You went to considerable and asinine trouble to get ahold of me," Bella says to Ethan. "I have an appointment in seventeen minutes, but if there's something you'd like to say before then, you may."
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
He shrugs. "Could you dig up Randall while you're here?"
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
"Assuming you mean that metaphorically, no."

Privately to Ripper, she adds, [We can discuss it if there's some way to cover it up, I just don't particularly want Rayne here to have the information.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Honestly, of the two of them, Randall's more likely to go to press with it,] he says without lifting his head.
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
"Ta ta, then," says Rayne unconcernedly.
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
[Then he can sit on the waiting list a bit, but I'm hoping to have a batch resurrection planned out inside the next year,] Bella tells Ripper.

"Before I go, do either of you need to be un-addicted from any mind-altering substances?"
pythbox: A book. (Default)
Author: pythbox
"What have you been telling her majesty?"
tearingup: (⑧ wait by the door)
Author: tearingup
"I can't speak for Rayne," says Ripper, ignoring him, "but I'm fine."
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
"All right. D'you want to be able to torch?" she inquires of Ripper. She does not include Ethan in this query.
tearingup: (⑭ find no favour)
Author: tearingup
He shrugs. "Why not."
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
"All right." She torchables him, and conjures and hands him the pamphlet on how it works and how to contact one of her emergency-recovery staff by brainphone if he gets into a repeated-torching sort of fix. And then out she pops.
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
Leaving Rayne and Ripper to argue it out.

It doesn't go well.



Two days later, Ripper brainphones her.

[That invisible lurking gig, do you do that a lot?]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[In public places, sometimes - often, really, I don't like paparazzi. I don't sidle imperceptibly into people's houses as a general rule. Although it is per person, so if I'm in stealth mode at all, anyone who I don't know to be present can't detect me.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[I don't like paparazzi either,] he snorts. [Good thing I'm not famous enough for them yet.]
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
[Yet?]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[Oh, I'm in a band,] he says. [I s'pose there's no reason for you to know that.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[I did not know it, no. Explains all the guitars.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[All? There's only - er, four. Okay,] he concedes, [all the guitars.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
She laughs. [How come you're curious about my lurking habits? Were you worried I was going to suddenly appear after you replaced your ill-fated tea?]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[I have actually had multiple cups of tea since you left,] he informs her, with a hint of a laugh. [No, it's just - Rayne stormed out in a huff yesterday and I've been feeling watched ever since, I'm trying to narrow it down between 'paranoia about magical empress with lapsed sense of personal boundaries' and 'paranoia about morally depraved ex-friend'.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[I have not been spying on you,] she says. [At the risk of doing nothing to improve the situation, I would not have to lurk anywhere nearby to do it if I wanted to.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
He laughs.
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[Do you think he's going to do something unfortunate? I can jump you through the queue to colonize Saturn or something.]
tearingup: (⑭ find no favour)
Author: tearingup
[For a broad definition of 'unfortunate', almost certainly. ...What's Saturn like?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Enchanted. Populated with a designer ecosystem, outside the habitats. People tend not to choose to move away from it, so far.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[Can it use a rapidly disintegrating punk band?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[I don't know about use, but it can accommodate one. It's not designed to require much from its occupants; Saturn is post-scarcity.]
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[Shit. Sign me up,] says Ripper.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Are you bringing the band or should I just issue you a passport?]
tearingup: (Default)
Author: tearingup
[I'll ask the band, but I think I know what they'll say.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Will you also drop your tea if I drop a passport in your lap?]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
A short pause, then, [I put it down.]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Of course you did.] And a passport appears in his lap.

Empire of Rings passports look about like normal ones, in blue-white with her ring symbol on the cover, but they're attached to their persons with magic, not by fallible photographic evidence; it doesn't even have his name in it, just pages for stamps. [Welcome to the Empire. If you can't get to a transit office by yourself, the torching pamphlet I gave you has a bit in the back about arranging a pickup. Or you might catch me at a free moment and I could give you a ride.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Is this not a free moment?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[In a meeting with the King of Sweden. I'm just good at multitasking.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
He cracks up.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[We are talking about whether it makes sense to give me a Nobel Prize given that I had all this magic that's not generally available.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[Doesn't everyone who gets a Nobel Prize have resources that aren't generally available?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Yes, but not magic, so I don't think it's very fair. Although, ironically, I could use the money.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[Not much I can do for you there, unless you want to bribe him with my autograph,] he says whimsically.
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[Nah, I'm arguing for not nominating me. There's other ways to get Earth currency.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[But if you need the money why are you making an effort not to get it that way...?]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Same reason I'm not cheating at a lottery. I'd take the Randi Prize in a heartbeat, but I didn't get on it quick enough; it folded up before I could try. The money's not urgent. I can magic up any things I need, and people are buying up some Imperial Rings. I just don't have enough to throw around casually in terrestrial markets for things that do need to be denominated in cash instead of magical favors, and I don't want to charge for most of the services I offer.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[I guess that's reassuring behaviour in a magical empress,] he concedes dubiously.
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[The other magical empresses I know mostly don't have this problem.]

She's not joking, although this might not be immediately evident.
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Which problem? Needing money, or caring how you get it?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Needing it,] laughs Bella.
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[And are there more magical empresses I should be worrying about?]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Not here,] Bella sighs.
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[Where else?]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[Other worlds. I can't get to them, just like I can't get to the afterlife, right now. Used to be we could bounce around wherever we liked.]
tearingup: (⑧ wait by the door)
Author: tearingup
[What changed?]
bellfounding: (chastened)
Author: bellfounding
[There used to be a person who lived in a faster-than-light computer network, and worked even when spread out between many worlds. She could pick people up and put them down, anywhere she could see, and she worked for us. She's broken.]
tearingup: (⑭ find no favour)
Author: tearingup
[Oh,] he says. [...Sorry.]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[It's happened before, and she came back. She's broken worse this time and I don't know what happened.]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[And I guess you can't just magic it better...?]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[No. The problem isn't here; it's probably with the person her personality sort of sits in, and she's in some other world, and she has all the power I do and then some; I have to wait for her or someone who's with her to fix it, but for all I know it could take a hundred years in this world for thirty seconds to pass there.]
tearingup: (⑧ wait by the door)
Author: tearingup
[Damn,] he concludes. [I'm sorry.]
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
[Yeah, it's frustrating and I'm worried about them, but at least I have most of what I need here.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Anything missing other than interdimensional travel?] he asks wryly.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Jane - the computer person - was also really, really good at handling email and other computer tasks. The programs she ran for it are mostly local, so I can still use them, but they're not quite as high quality without consciousness operating them. Everything else does boil down to interdimensional travel and communication.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[...So "Imperial Staff" is actually a robot? Some robot,] laughs Ripper.
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[My personnel officer is hunting up an actual secretary to help out, but yeah, any emails signed 'Imperial Staff' are from bits of Jane's code.]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[It takes you two months to find a secretary?]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Well, it has to be someone I can trust with most of my information, ideally without resorting to geases, and someone who gets along with me personally, etcetera. There have been candidates, I just haven't kept any of them so far.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[Hm,] he says. [I'd volunteer, but you don't want me answering your email.]
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[Why not, what awful things would you do?]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[I have - how did Rayne put it - 'an unforgivable combination of bad manners and soppiness'.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[I am having a failure of imagination in trying to figure out how those traits might combine.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Nice when I should be nasty and nasty when I should be nice. Although given that that's Rayne's assessment, maybe I should be rethinking it.]
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
[Possibly. Though I'm not the embodiment of tact myself.]
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
Innocently, [Aren't you then?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Nah. Not my strong suit. Personnel officer's better at that sort of thing.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[But she's too busy to answer your email...?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Yeah. I have, you know, personnel, though, and she vets them, she picks out ambassadors who are good at ambassadoring, that sort of thing.]
tearingup: (⑧ wait by the door)
Author: tearingup
[Aha.]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[The secretary in particular is proving difficult, but I imagine someone will turn up; I could always go back to one of the rejected candidates if my email starts piling up too badly. I don't want you thinking Slipstick - the personnel officer - isn't good at what she does; it's just she's an import from another world and hasn't had as long as she'd ideally need to build up her network.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[This whole 'other worlds' thing is a bit of a leap for me to begin with,] he says. [Although, oddly, not as much of a leap as Saturn.]
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[The other worlds are less of a leap than Saturn? Really?]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[Haven't you ever found that when something incredibly, fantastically impossible turns out to be true, it's much easier to take than something that was only just barely impossible?]
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[Nnnno, not really. I lived an unremarkable life, died at age seventeen, and then was woken up by seven alternate versions of myself, three of whom weren't even human, and they gave me lots of magic powers and we took over the afterlife together. I got dropped directly into 'fantastic', took it really well, and have not been much surprised since.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup




bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Oh, I forgot to mention, the other magical empresses I know all look exactly like me.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Er... why?]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[We're all of a template. Personalities - and faces and life narrative features - crop up over and over, and there are lots of me. They don't all look precisely like me,] she amends. [There is a boy one and an angel one and an elf one and a vampire one. And of the girls, two of them are shorter than the rest of us and one is taller due to childhood malnutrition and growing up in low gravity, respectively. And our thing is being magical empresses.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[And one magical emperor, apparently.]
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[Well, last time I saw him he hadn't progressed to emperor, he was doing motivated capitalism - there are some questionably acceptable deity-things in his world, at least one of which is evil, and he isn't sure he's ready to have their attention.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[You have the strangest problems.]
bellfounding: (sigh)
Author: bellfounding
[I don't. I'm the boring one. My nickname to distinguish me from all the others who are also named Bella is 'Pattern'. Because I do not deviate from the pattern.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[That seems... cruel,] says Ripper.
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[Oh, I picked the nickname myself. I didn't have a better idea. I might change it, later, when I see them again, something on the 'rings' theme, I did Saturn because no one else was doing Saturn.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[I can't believe that you're the only one with no distinguishing features. How do you know you don't deviate from the pattern if everyone else does?]
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[Because they all deviate from the same pattern - imagine you saw a sentence written a dozen times and each iteration had a different word changed to something random, you'd be able to work out what the sentence was. Also, because the one of me who is the princess of a fairytale forest and can magically see template properties says so.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[No,] he says, [I think you do have the strangest problems, actually.]
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
She laughs. [For a certain reading of 'strange', maybe I do. I'm not completely indiscernible - like, I'm the only single one, I am the only Bell from a world that has a Gotham in it - they're not usual; most worlds have no Gotham and a more significant New York City instead - and anything I do with the knowledge of what the others have done, like starting on Saturn instead of Mars, is a chance to be distinguished. I just didn't start out with anything much beyond the fact that all the worlds are a little different and this one's mine.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup


[Is there a reason you're the only single one?]
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[The others mostly wind up with this one template - there are three and a half of them here, but one of them works for me, another one is basically her cuddle therapist, and the one and a half belong to the elf of me and got stranded here while they were helping me with the Saturn ecosystem, I'm not dating any of them. Although it is sort of tragically convenient that the one and a half are here because they're psychically bonded to Elf Bell and that means I can talk to her some. There was yet another one of this template who was born here, but by the time I un-died he'd already moved to Vampire Bell's world with his vampire boyfriend. And of the rest, most of them are dating or in one case married to one or both of this paired template which isn't here, and there are stray ones but I never wound up importing any or anything based on random party conversations, and then Vampire Me is the only one with a non-template significant other and they're Mystically Vampire Bonded.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
He puzzles through this, then says,

[I'm not hearing a reason you, personally, are single.]
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
[None of the things that cause Bells to have significant others have happened to me,] Pattern says. [None of them went out looking. They just sort of had these people fall in their laps and wound up being pleased about it.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[And you, being all template-y, aren't going to go out looking...?]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[It hasn't really been a priority. I sort of flirted with one of the stray Tonies at a Bell party one time.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
He laughs.
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
[- Does "stray" sound bad? It just means that he's from a world we're in contact with - when we're in contact with anywhere, although I bet Juliet can still talk to those worlds - but doesn't have a Bell of its own.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[...If that's what it means, then yes, it sounds bad.]
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[Well, an unBelled Tony, at any rate. Three of 'em appear with Bells, three of 'em appear only with their own template attachments, so far.]
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[And you flirted with one. Good to know.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[They're a flirty bunch, although not as much as the more common template I mentioned.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[But the other ones weren't flirting with you. Do any of these people have names?]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[They've flirted with me, I just don't really flirt back with them. The Tonies are all named Tony, although I think it's short for a variety of things. The others have no name consistency at all - the ones here are named Queenie, Ghosty, Aianon, and Ansharil.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[Which one's the 'and a half'?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Aianon and Ansharil. They're the same template, which landed in two bodies in that world - Template-Things Seer Bell says the template couldn't decide which species to land in - and are basically one person.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Do the templates have names? You're a Bell apparently, the Tonies are Tonies...]
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[Yeah, and Tonies come with Sherlocks most of the time, and the personnel officer is a Libby, etcetera.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[And Queenie and Ghosty and Aianon and I forget the last one...?]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[...Put your tea down.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[...So you were actually dodging that one? It's put.]
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[They call themselves Jokers.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup


[Is there an explanation for this that I can pick up my tea before hearing?]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[Probably not. I was busy being dead while the local, eponymous Joker was active, so I'm not completely up on how his activities were covered in the news, but he's a one of them. There are lots more, though.]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[And there are three and a half of them in the world right now, not making the news?]
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
[Queenie and Ghosty describe themselves as 'retired'. Aianon and Ansharil hang out on Saturn, filling in gaps in the ecosystem and wishing they were back with Elf Bell back in their world and thinking at her a lot via telepathic bond thing. Jokers are really useful if you know what to do with them; the problem was the Bat had one and a worse than useless idea of what to do with him.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[What are they useful for?] he asks, with a slightly desperate edge. [I mean, that man is fucking terrifying. I had nightmares about him. Sexy nightmares.] Half-laughing, [Fuck, did I say that out loud? I'm sorry, TMI.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[I'll survive,] says Bella, amused. [I could introduce you to one or more of the available three and a half, if you want, although fair warning, Aianon and Ansharil are not humans. Jokers're useful for magic generation.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Do you make your magic out of fear or something?]
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[No. They're not terrorizing the populace.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[And what do you mean you could introduce me? Is it safe? Would they flirt with me? Do people generally survive their flirting?]
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[I mean I could introduce you to them and they'd probably hit on you. They're not going around doing nefarious things! They're retired, they don't want Batlady's attention anymore - Aianon and Ansharil don't even come from a world that has one of her - and they wouldn't hurt you unless you're into that.]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[...Leaving aside the question of whether or not I'm into that, how did you ever manage to collect three and a half nice Jokers?]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[They're not unusually nice for Jokers. The Joker, from here, is living peacefully in a world called Aurum with his vampire boyfriend and their adorable hybrid children. Jokers aren't so much 'nice' or 'not nice'. It's a matter of what abilities and opportunities they're presented with. I hired Queenie, Ghosty followed her here, Aianon and Ansharil are stranded here because they were still around when Jane broke and they were doing Saturn's ecology.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[I'm not sure I buy it,] he says. [And, you know, sexy nightmares are still nightmares.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Okay, I won't introduce you if you don't want,] says Bella.
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[...well,] he says, wavering. [I'll think about it.]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
She laughs into the brainphone. [They're as immortal as me and you, so no rush.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[Oh, good. —Am I likely to run into one if I move to Saturn? How settled is Saturn?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[They don't really hang out in inhabited parts of Saturn. Aianon and Ansharil are out in the non-habitats making critters sometimes, but they don't like the ground rules, they like more chaotic settings than Bell-operated colonies ever shake out to be.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Ground rules like the ones that mean if Rayne follows me to Saturn I can't punch him again? Yes, I'm not a fan either,] he laughs.
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
[And yet you plan to move there?]
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[I think not being able to punch people but not having to pay rent is a great tradeoff.]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
She giggles. [Saturn does have that, among other, advantages.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[So I'll talk to the band and see what they say about moving, and they'll say no, and we'll play what was probably going to be our last concert anyway - do you want tickets?]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[Sure, why not. I'm not sure about plural, though, I don't know who to invite. What's the band's name? I can see if anyone I know is familiar, since probably you don't want me to bring a Joker.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
['Wretched'. Please don't bring a Joker.]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[I will not bring a Joker. Most especially not the dragon.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
He cracks up.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Or, for that matter, the one who is six and a half feet tall, bright red, horned, tailed, winged, and inclined to forgetting that pants exist.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
Well, Ripper is now giggling helplessly.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Might ask Slipstick. We should hang out more.]
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[I think I want to hear more about the other one's trouser problems. Does he forget that they exist or does he just not care?]
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
[You know, I'm actually not sure, he just doesn't default to wearing them. He'll put them on when reminded, sometimes he remembers by himself. Probably has to do with the part where him and the dragon lived on an island all by themselves for several thousand years.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[...Yeah, that'll do it. Wait, does he walk around naked all the time...? I am getting the most incredible mental images.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[I don't really hang out with him while he's being naked,] Bella says. [I'm sure he would be thrilled to demonstrate if you need something clarified.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
He sputters with laughter.
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
The King of Sweden gets up to go to the bathroom; Bella has the brainspace to start another side conversation. [Hey Slipstick.]
prima_sequentem: (ℂ enjoy your company)
Author: prima_sequentem
[Hi! What's up?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Going to go to this random person's concert. Want to come?]
prima_sequentem: (ℂ just wanna have fun)
Author: prima_sequentem
[Sure!]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Slipstick says she'll come. When is it?]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[A week Saturday, eight o'clock.]
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[Should I stealth or do you think I can manage not to be recognized?]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[Leave the halo at home and you'll be fine.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Will do.]
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[See you then. Trousers optional.]
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
[Is there something you wanna tell me about the kind of concert you put on?]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[No one's stopping you if you want to wear a skirt,] he says innocently.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Good to know. Nothing good comes of an overly restrictive dress code.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[It's punk rock. You're not going to fit in, but fitting in isn't the point. Wear a ballgown for all anyone will care.]
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[I am not up on the performing arts fandom, what do you mean about fitting in?]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[I mean - and this goes for my particular crowd, maybe not for the entire genre - you're not one of us, you don't dress like one of us, but no one cares that you're not one of us as long as you're not there to shit on anybody.]
bellfounding: (inhale)
Author: bellfounding
[All right.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[Right,] he says, satisfied.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[I suppose I'll see you then. You know, I have no idea if I like punk rock?]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[Then you have the perfect opportunity to find out!]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[So I shouldn't study up first?]
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[Well... "punk rock" might have been an oversimplification, come to that. I won't be offended if you leave in the middle of the show,] he says cheerfully.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[All right,] she laughs, [noted.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[See you then.]
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[See you!]

Bella concludes her meeting with the King of Sweden, cures four obscure diseases, reads reports from her ambassadors to Japan and Uruguay, beams into existence and collects a batch of coins from Queenie, catches up with Sarion through Aianon, has dinner, clears out some email, unravels a budding hurricane, does an interview with the Associated Press, takes a thirty-minute break that involves a conjured candy apple and her lovely blue garden on Titan, tells her site administrator to update the FAQ in response to recent emails, makes a routine check-in with the people operating her emergency retrieval team and immigration handlers, checks out a new family of Saturnian animals, has a lunch meeting with her PR person, remembers to tell Slipstick when the concert actually is, accedes to six of twelve requests by the Audobon Society regarding various birds, pentagons a little-used Inuit language and reads a magazine in it, increments her progress in her economics curriculum, bakes muffins with Renée while holding a brainphone conversation with the operator of the imperial bank, drops in on Charlie and sits in companionable silence with cider during a background chat with the person NASA has appointed to deal with her and her abuse of astronomy, reads a series of science fiction novels, participates in composing a press release about her unwillingness to back the United States in achieving miscellaneous objectives by military means, has a recreational twenty-minute nap and a five-minute luxuriating snuggle under the covers, has an e-mail argument with some woman who is inexplicably a celebrity and wants her to eradicate autism like she did measles without consulting any of the people who have it, interviews with another press outlet and regrets it when she finds herself being unfortunately evasive about her beliefs regarding the afterlife, refuses a production company the rights to her likeness for a film about her (and appears to that meeting half-stealthed), looks in on the Ganymede prison colony -

And, when it is time for the concert, she puts on a pretty dress, doffs her floaty crown, picks up Slipstick, and goes to it.

Queenie made her this dress. She likes it, but doesn't wear it much; it's loose and drapes over itself in folds and folds and folds, around the neck and shoulders, but it gets itself under control at the point where it's belted and falls to her ankle in a slimmer sheath. It's green, with one bullseye of cheerful yellow tie-dye at her hip to match the gold belt.
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
Ripper spoke accurately: there is an aesthetic to this crowd, and she and Slipstick don't fit it, but no one seems to mind.

The venue is small, more like a bar than a concert hall, with scattered seating that at least does all face the stage. There are three people on said stage. Ripper is wearing the same black jeans from when she met him, and no shirt, either because of the temperature or for crowd-pleasing purposes; the crowd is definitely pleased either way. The drummer has her tight-curled brown hair pulled back away from her face with a bandanna; the bass player is bald, probably from aesthetic choice because he's in his mid-twenties. They are all very seriously engaged in their sound check. When Ripper spots Bella and Slipstick, he flashes a grin in their direction and a few heads turn, but there is no lingering interest from the audience.

The sound check concludes. The concert begins.

Wretched is a really good punk band, it turns out. The drummer is a genius, the bassist more than adequate, Ripper plays that guitar like he's making love to it, and his voice can flow like honey and scream like a hurricane in the same ten seconds if he needs it to.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding



Oooh.

Bella leans her elbows on her knees and listens and smiles.
prima_sequentem: (ℂ just wanna have fun)
Author: prima_sequentem
...Well, that's interesting.
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
The concert goes on for a while, and includes a few covers of songs by better-known bands, of which the most memorable is definitely Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now".

At the end, as the band starts packing up, about half the crowd yells for an encore. The bassist grabs Ripper's microphone and yells back, "You know what that means, don't you?", and there is a general shout of agreement, and the bassist hands Ripper back his microphone and brings him a bottle of water and an acoustic guitar.

Ripper sits down. He plays a few idle notes on this new instrument. The audience, which has been varyingly noisy, quiets down with a ripple of shushes.

And then he starts to sing.

The song is about the end of a long and rocky friendship. It's heart-wrenchingly melancholy and wickedly hilarious. The lyrics have a few rough spots, but the tune is beautiful and he plays it perfectly.

To most of the crowd, it won't be obvious that he wrote it this week about Rayne.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
It's obvious to Bella. All this and he also writes songs.

She smiles and bites her lip in all the right places, and applauds enthusiastically when it's over.
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
And now the band really does pack up and leave.

Ripper grins at her again on his way out.
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[Nicely done,] she says.
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[Thanks,] he laughs. [So what do you think of punk rock?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[I dunno about the rest of the genre, but I like your band. You can really sing. I'm right about what inspired that last song, aren't I?]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Yes, you are,] he sighs.
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[It was really good, I'm impressed you pulled it together in that time.] She's filtering out of the crowd on foot; as far as she know no one has recognized her yet.
tearingup: (⑩ see in the dark)
Author: tearingup
[It's not finished yet, but it's getting there. It was good enough for an encore, anyway.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[One of my alts and her Joker can sing, but I've never wished it up, let alone developed the skill naturally.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[You can wish up singing?]
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[Probably. I don't think any of us have tried singing - the one of me who can sing can do it because she's an angel and they're all about the singing where she's from - but one of me wished up flute skills and she's really good.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[One of you is an angel?]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Genetically engineered space angel, big speckly wings, grew up in a tech-relinquished culture that thinks she's an agent of their god and uses angels to control the weather via song, she later found out the god was a reasonably intelligent spaceship. Not a person, though. Jane ate it and cribbed the notes from the software so now I can still talk to my systems even though she's gone.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[You're just never going to stop casually mentioning more impossible things, are you.]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[I'll run out eventually.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[Like hell.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[Speaking of Hell, I didn't tell you very much about the afterlife.]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[...You now have my full attention!]
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
She laughs. [It's not Hell any more. It was just really, really awful for a long, long time, and we found out about it in the obvious way - not me, I was asleep the whole time, but Shell Bell had a nasty time of it - and we did not like it. It's not quite accurate to say we took it over, but we caused enough of a stir to get a meeting with the admin, and she doesn't really like... doing things, as far as we can tell... so she let us change a bunch of stuff and now it is not Hell.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[Hell - ex-Hell - has an 'admin'?]
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[Yeah, she set up the place's initial conditions, and changed them a few times in response to miscellaneous badgering, and she's locally omnipotent. She's not bad, just kind of apathetic; she was perfectly happy to replace her existing systems for sorting people with Jane and us Bells. The place is called Downside - there's also a section called Upside but it doesn't come up as frequently.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Well, that's... sort of existentially depressing,] he says.
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Is it? How so?]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[The omnipotent ruler of the afterlife is apathetic? That doesn't depress you at all?]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[No, not really. If she'd had a vested interest in things being how they were we would have had a devil of a time getting them changed. And they were bad. Lots of torture going around.]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[Well, right, that's depressing on a whole different level, but wouldn't it be nicer if someone cared?]
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[We care.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[Who's 'we'?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Bells. We do Belling. Belling involves ramping up everyone's quality of life.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[I don't think that's... exactly what I meant.]
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
[Why don't we count, then? Were you hoping for benevolent literal deities?]
tearingup: (⑩ see in the dark)
Author: tearingup
[Never mind,] he sighs. [I'm gonna go to sleep. No other takers for Saturn, by the way.]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Okay. Sleep well.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[G'night,] he yawns, and up goes his busy message.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
Bella pops back to her palace, puts on her crown, and continues about her business.

She also orders a copy of the band's album, paying real money and arranging for it to be sent to Renée's house for her to pick up.
tearingup: (⑩ see in the dark)
Author: tearingup
Several of the songs they played at the concert are on there, along with several they didn't, and they sound even better on the studio recording.

The lyric sheets also contain pictures of the band. Apparently Ripper going shirtless is some kind of theme. In fact, that might be him on the album cover, which shows a naked person lying facedown and apparently dead on a dimly lit wooden floor.
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding



Ah-huh.
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
A few weeks later, he brainphones her again.

[Managed to dodge that Nobel Prize yet?]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[Oh, the king agreed to recommend against nominating me to the committee, but it's anybody's guess whether they'll do it anyway. How are you doing?]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[Moved to Saturn. It's pretty up here. I think I'll write a song about it.]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[I'm glad you like it! A bunch of my alts and some Jokers swung by to enchant it with me, it was a fun group project and we got auras that way.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[I'm beginning to lose track of all this magic,] he half-complains.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[There is a lot of it. I only have the Bell-standard kinds, since there isn't any from around here and I never got around to asking the unicorn how to safely copy elf magic like I was planning. I should maybe ask Aianon to ask Sarion to ask him for me.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[There's a unicorn?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[There's an entire population of them - actually two worlds have unicorns, but Thilanushinyel is the one with elf magic I wanted to copy and also the one I can currently talk to.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[What's so great about elf magic?]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[I don't need it for any specific effects, but insofar as it does things, it does things without running down any finite resources.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[That does sound convenient.]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Yep. In Thilanushinyel, you get it by, one, being an elf, and two, being psychically bonded to a dragon, and the dragon serves as a power source; the unicorn showed up to warn us that if I just naively copied the magic I'd wind up stealing it from the elves, so I have to work out a design for the duplication with him, or possibly another unicorn but most likely the same one. Unicorns in that world go around reporting on what the Wild Magic has to say, and it knows stuff.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[What is the Wild Magic? It sounds exciting.]
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
[We're not totally clear on that; it won't talk to us directly, even Sarion, and it's kind of vague with the unicorns too. I think it's like a cross between an instantiation of magic in general in that world - although only one of several kinds of magic user is actually called "Wildmage" - and maybe a god, but not an omnipotent one or anything.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[How is it on caring?]
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[On a personal level, no idea. In terms of stuff it's motivated to do, not awful - it cared that I was about to accidentally steal elf magic, it told Sarion what she had to do to save the world. It has a history of telling people to do things to save the world.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[That's not bad,] says Ripper.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Yeah, Sarion doesn't look poised to take its job so much as render it obsolescent.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Render it what?]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[It mostly puts people where they need to be to save the world; she intends that the world cease to need saving. Although I suppose it will continue to supply Wildmages with their powers indefinitely.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[...If saving the world is a regular enough thing there that it's someone's job to arrange saviors, how's she going to do that?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Well, it needs saving from a specific set of things that no one has managed to completely eradicate. And this world-needs-saving thing only occurs about once every thousand years, so she has a while to figure it out.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[Specific set of things like...?]
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Demons. Aianon's the last regular one, and he in particular is fine, but there are demonic spirits of various sorts, spooky dark things.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[Ouch. Real actual demons, huh?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[I did tell you Aianon is bright red and has a tail and horns and wings, didn't I?]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[And naked, you also mentioned that he is often naked,] Ripper reminds her cheerfully.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Yes. I mean, so is Ansharil, but it matters less for scaly quadrupeds, yeah?]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[Definitely. I've been assuming this fellow is reasonably humanoid, correct me if I'm wrong. Or let me keep my pleasant illusions.]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Dragon isn't, demon is apart from the mentioned add-ons. Also claws, he has claws.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[I can see the sexy nightmares coming already,] he giggles.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Enjoy,] snorts Bella.
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[I will!]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[I bought your album,] adds Bella.
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[Speaking of nudity. What'd you think?] he laughs.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Of the nudity or the music?] she asks archly.
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[Take your pick.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[Wasn't expecting the former, was quite pleased with the latter. I didn't realize you wrote virtually all the songs; you're very talented and I look forward to seeing what Saturn inspires.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[Anything in the name of art,] Ripper says cheerfully. [I'll let you know when I come up with something good.]
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[I don't have an anthem yet,] she says impishly.
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[Ooooooooooh. Oooh, you temptress,] he giggles.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
She laughs. [No promises. I haven't seen you work in an anthem-y genre.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[Is that a challenge?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Yes. Yes it is.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[Oh my.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[I am sure the results will be interesting.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[You can bet on it.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[I need to pick something by the time the next Olympics roll around, even if I have to wish up some skills and write it myself, so it's good you can apparently write songs fast.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Do you need an anthem for the Olympics?]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Only if your athletes win something, but yeah, if you win your anthem plays.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[And is Saturn entering the Olympics?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[In a few events. Don't have the population to field contestants for everything, but I have two gymnasts, a sprinter, and an archer up here.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[I am devoid of patriotic feelings, but I'll write you an anthem anyway.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Awww, but I so hoped to inspire patriotism,] says Bella.
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[Eh, patriotism's fucked.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[I'm not particularly attached to my country of origin, but I really really like my magic space empire!] she protests.
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[I like your magic space empire fine, but I'm not cheering for it in sporting events.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[And I don't qualify to participate in Eurovision, what a pity.]
tearingup: (Default)
Author: tearingup
He snickers.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[Yeah, turns out Saturn is not even slightly in Europe.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[What a pity.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[I know, right? I could have just got on the Euro instead of inventing my own adorable currency.]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[On second thought, stay out of Europe. The adorable currency is very adorable.]
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[I'm glad you like it. I stole the origami birds idea from Stella - it was too cute, I couldn't think of anything I liked as much - but I picked different ones except the swan, and the coins are all mine.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[Stella being another of you, I'm assuming?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Yep. She's the one who brought the peal of Bells our most everyday-useful sort of magic, and her empire is called the Empire of the Stars and her adorable currency is called asters.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[...Peal. Peal of Bells.]

He giggles.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Yep. We are the peal of Bells. The Jokers form a deck,] she adds, [no one else has a collective noun.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[No? Not enough of them, or no convenient puns?]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[There are fewer of all the other templates - except attached templates, like, all of us Bells have parents - so probably a combination of the two.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[The way you say that makes me think there are templates for whom parents are optional.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[There are! One of the Jokers is a magical construct. Also there are some clones floating around.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
He just laughs.
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Siblings also vary; one of me has a fraternal twin sister, the rest of us are only children. Jokers occasionally have little brothers - those don't usually turn out well.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Meaning they turn out worse than the Joker? That I have to - never, ever see.]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[We call them Voices. They're - different, and not as easily adaptable as Jokers are. And if they're rescued early enough, they can turn out okay; Angela's Joker has one and he's - okay. But they can get very bad.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[How many cities do they terrorize?]
bellfounding: (chastened)
Author: bellfounding
[They do kill people, but they're less theatrical about it. Our primary exposures to them apart from Angela's okay one has been the one who found Shell Bell Downside and decided to take her home and torture her for twenty-five years. There was also the one who kidnapped Rose's husband and gave him brain damage; she killed him.]
tearingup: (⑫ view with distaste)
Author: tearingup
[Well, that's... charming,] says Ripper. [Twenty-five years? I suppose that's not long to a dead person.]
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
[Yeah. She was down there for way more than that total before she found a door out.]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[Sucks to be her,] he says sympathetically.
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[She's okay now. Although her girlfriend felt pretty awful about not having known she needed help. Because right after she got assassinated, said girlfriend resurrected her, only the problem was that back then if you did that it just forked the resurrected person, so there were two of her. They merged later.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[It is,] he says after a moment, [weird that you know someone who has been assassinated.]
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[We actually get assassinated a fair amount! I'm just an ordinary car crash victim, but Shell Bell got nuked by a political rival, people have tried and only just barely failed to kill Golden twice, somebody who didn't like Juliet got his hands on a wish and killed her, Aegis's spaceship got shredded by a local superweapon, Cam was nearly suffocated in his sleep by the evil deity-thing I mentioned. Also, if you want to count it, at one point we killed Sarion on purpose because we were trying to solve a problem she had that could conceivably have been solved by sending her through Downside. Didn't work, though.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[...What the hell kind of a problem is solved by dying?]
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
[The "till death do us part" kind. Her thing with Ansharil and Aianon involved involuntary mind-reading, and that tops the list of ways to break Bells into non-functional shells of our former selves - Shell Bell got broke too but it took way longer her way. We were trying to get Sarion out of the dragon bond thing. Eventually we hauled in Stella's magic-seeing guy and got him to design a patch for it, once it turned out that the dragonbond snapped back into place as soon as we woke up Technically Dead Sarion.]
tearingup: (⑪ make a change)
Author: tearingup
[Well, that's... I have no idea what to think about that,] he admits.
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
[Sarion is better now. Cam designed her an assistive version of our standard perfect recall, based on his magic notebook but without involving another personality, and she had some recovery time, and now she's doing the whole curing-diseases-setting-up-ground-rulesed-colonies-recovering-endangered-species Bell thing.]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Nothing like a happy ending,] says Ripper.
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[Well, except that now her beloveds are stranded here and can't get to her. But yeah.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[Her - beloveds?]
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
[That's what she calls them; it's a dragon bond thing. For a while they didn't have names at all and then they let Sarion's mom name them.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[...Okay then.]
bellfounding: (quizzical)
Author: bellfounding
[What?]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[Is there a reason they didn't have names...? I seem to remember something about ten thousand years wandering naked on an island, is that related?]
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
[Jokers never keep their birth names. The demon had one, I don't know what; the dragon didn't, he just hatched all alone and wandered around till he found the demon. And they didn't need names until later, when they were interacting with more people.]
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
[Okay then,] he says, in a slightly different tone. Ditching your birth name is nothing new to him.
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[Do you not like your birth name either?]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[I prefer 'Ripper'.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Where'd you get it? 'Cause I'm pretty sure it wasn't from Sarion's mom.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[Rayne, actually.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[Do I want to know what exactly you are inclined towards ripping?]
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[I don't know,] he says innocently, [do you?]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Yeah, I think so. Curiosity is a very strong impulse for us Bells, and as we know I am undeviating from template.]
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
[Well, you could ask Rayne, but he keeps changing his story.]
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
[Also I don't feel like engaging in social interaction with him.]
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[That too.]
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
[I assume he had some virtues that simply haven't been made apparent to me?]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Well... 'virtues' might not be the right word.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[What would be?]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
[Eh, maybe there isn't one. He's good to have on your side, most of the time. Nasty sense of humour, but funny nasty, not vicious nasty.]
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
[He seemed to care about Randall,] she ventures.
tearingup: (⑫ view with distaste)
Author: tearingup
Ripper sighs. [Not really. He just wanted me to shut up about him already.]
bellfounding: (bored)
Author: bellfounding
[Seriously?]
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
[Yeah. That's Rayne's idea of a nice gesture. I'm upset about our friend dying, but I'm not doing anything about it, so he fakes his own death to make me do something about it. In his mind, that makes sense.]
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
[Well, it nearly worked, I'll give him that. At any rate, my dead people waiting list cleared four hundred thousand this morning; I don't know how many at once a relevantly sized wish will do, but it's getting to the point where I'm willing to try one even at the risk of wasting some of its capacity.]
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
[Isn't four hundred thousand dead people at once going to, I don't know, mess things up somehow?]
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
[You begin to understand the kinds of problems I get to play with. Yeah. I'll be storing them asleep on Titan and waking them up a few at a time.]
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
He snorts.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
[Titan's where I keep my palace,] she adds.
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
[Ooh, palace.]
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
[You wanna see it?] she asks whimsically.
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
[Sure.]
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
[Put down your tea.]
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
[Yes, Your Majesty,] he giggles.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
In she pops.
tearingup: (⑩ see in the dark)
Author: tearingup
He is not actually drinking tea at all; he is tuning his guitars. Shirtless.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
She looks. A little. "Say when."
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
He shrugs and stands up. "When, unless your palace has a dress code."
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
"Nope." Pop! They are in the blue garden.
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
"Did you figure out who it was on the album cover, by the way? I couldn't tell."

Ooh, a garden. How blue.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
"Yeah. I have boosted eyes, I pick up on that kinda thing."
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
"Most people don't, or at any rate they're not sure. If you want to see an argument, all you have to do is find some Wretched fans on the internet and say, 'So was it Ripper, really?' Hilarious to watch."
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
"What, you guys never told?" she laughs.
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
"Of course not."
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
"Because the arguments are so entertaining?"
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
He grins and nods.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
"Well, now I know not to casually let it slip to the United Nations."
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
Ripper cracks up.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
"Not that they'd believe you. Or people would start wondering how you knew, and then there would be a whole different argument."
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
"Well, couldn't I just tell them?" she laughs. "'Ah yes, he told me himself, while admiring my magic blue plants; you see, I am the Empress of Rings and I can teleport so I don't really have a hard time introducing myself to miscellaneous musicians'?"
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
"And that will stop the rumours? I hope you have PR people," he laughs.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
"I do. They are often tactfully exasperated with me. Sometimes I almost wish I had an Elspeth."
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
"Elspeth?"
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"Golden's daughter. She has magical truth-telling powers and runs Golden's PR department; if she tells you something true you're going to believe it. I imagine she's very effective at shutting down unwanted rumors."
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
"Except when the rumours are true."
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
"Yeah, except then, and then I suppose Elspeth's silence would be fairly damning. So perhaps it's just as well I don't have one, especially since by all accounts her father's not such a prize. I haven't gotten to meet him because Bells who aren't his wife make him uncomfortable, except Cam, who doesn't count."
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
Ripper laughs and shakes his head.

"I could listen to you talk about your other universes all day."
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
"It's nice to have an audience who doesn't already know it all. The staff are mostly imports from other worlds already, or the multiverse doesn't fall under need-to-know and we don't hang out socially."
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
He grins. "Oh good, not bored then?"
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"Not a bit. I will, however, eventually run out of stories."
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
"Not anytime soon, I don't think."
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
"There are twelve others of me," she concedes, "all of whom are more interesting than I am and told me all the highlights."
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
"Lies," says Ripper. "None of them are as interesting as you."
bellfounding: (bored)
Author: bellfounding
"One of them," says Bella, "is a naturally immortal witch whose soul takes the form of a talking screech owl. She has assassinated a president, defeated an archangel in single combat, rescued all of the dead shades from her Downside-incompatible worldsheaf from an eternity of sleepless despair, and co-founded the Belltower that allowed us to all find each other."
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
"But," says Ripper, "she's not standing here telling me all this." He winks. "And she's not single."
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding


Bella blushes.
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
Ripper grins.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"And that's more interesting than the owl soul thing?" Pause. "I checked to see what my soul would be if I had an external one - they're a thing you can get, if you go to that world. I'm a firefly."
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
"To me, personally, right this second? Yes," he says. "Yes it is."
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
Blushing. Blushing blushing.
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
Grinning! Grinning grinning.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"Do you want to see what yours would be, if you went unprotected to Alethia?"
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
"Sure."
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
Bella expends the necessary square.
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
And receives an illusion of a bird.

"Not bad," says Ripper.
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
"I think that's some kind of kingfisher, but I don't know what kind," muses Bella. "I could conjure up one of the books of possible daemons to look it up and what it's supposed to mean, if you like."
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
"It means things?"
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
"Yeah, like horoscopes but more reliably - daemons settle into single forms around puberty for reasons having to do with personality. Unless they belong to a Joker and then they never settle at all. Witches like my alt from that world, Amariah, always have flying birds, but otherwise it can be anything."
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
"Let's hear it, then."
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
Bella conjures up the bird daemon books, flips through the key guide, and finally finds it. "Green kingfisher. Chloroceryle americana - I think you've got the mathewsii subspecies. There's nothing specific to the green kind, but kingfisher-people in general are supposed to be adaptable, supposedly adopting any of several nigh-contradictory personalities to suit varying circumstances at different points in their lives."
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
Ripper looks thoughtful.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"What?"
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
"Sounds like a horoscope, all right."
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
Pattern shrugs. "They vary in how much information they have. Some kinds of daemons are so common that it's hard to make any general statements because there will be exceptions whose relevant personality features shifted after puberty or something - some are so rare that it's hard to make any general statements because there are negligible data points. Fireflies are in the sweet spot where there's a good amount for information-gathering; they mean insight and - the book said 'intellectual sparkle', I'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to mean."
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
"It means your brain is sparkly," he suggests.
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
"Somehow I doubt it. And it didn't appear on my chart when I got hit by the van."
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
Ripper snorts.
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
"Interestingly, some of me produce glowy magic. I don't. It seems to match up with which of us have native forms of mental opacity."
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
"Glowy as opposed to what?"
bellfounding: (fretting)
Author: bellfounding
"Not-glowy. Mine looks like notebook paper; it's pretty painfully generic for a Bell."
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
"When does it look like notebook paper?"
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"Wishes have physical form. Little pointy coins. What color they are depends on who makes them," Bella explains. She makes a triangle, appears it in the palm of her hand. "This is one of mine."
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
He peers at it.

"That's a little pointy coin, all right," he agrees.
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
"I don't make most of my own wishcoins; that's what the Jokers are for. But it's nice to know what my coin color is. There haven't been any exact matches so far. If you made coins they'd look like -" She puts the triangle away, pulls a square, wishes on it. An illusion square appears next to the illusion kingfisher; it looks like gray suede. "That. Neat."
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
"Does that mean anything?" he wonders, looking at the illusory coin.
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"You'd know better than I would about your own coin color. Some of them are pretty clearly referring to particular things; if you don't recognize it, though, I don't know what it's likely to be." She banishes both illusions.
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
"What's so painfully generic about notebook paper, anyway?"
bellfounding: (Default)
Author: bellfounding
"Until Bells get perfect recall, most of us do this thing where we write down everything we think, so we can look at it from the outside. We're very introspective. My coin color is clearly a Bell thing, but it isn't a Pattern thing in particular. Angela's look like her feathers - Glass's look like little chips of colored glass melted together - Golden's glow gold which matches with her whole empire theme, Aegis's are copper like the assistive exoskeleton she used to wear, Amariah's look like the tree branch she flies around on, Aurora's look like her mana. I guess Sarion's coins aren't any better than mine - parchment, with inkspots."
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
"I'm going to have to start keeping notes on all these people, aren't I."
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
She giggles. "If you're having trouble keeping them straight, maybe, yeah. They might be more memorable in person - not that I know, I got my recall less than thirty seconds after I met any of them."
tearingup: (Default)
Author: tearingup
"People are always harder to keep track of when you haven't actually met them," he says. "Well - when I haven't actually met them. It might help if I had some idea where all these nicknames were coming from, though."
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
"Golden has gold eyes - on her world, if you are a vampire and you don't drink human blood, your eyes turn gold. Since she usurped a vampire government that did eat people, she themed her empire around the not-eating-people cosmetic feature.

"Shell Bell got the nickname when she was a kid, because she used to collect shells so she could buy food at Milliways with them because she didn't have any actual money and was scared Milliways would stop coming if she didn't pay her tab.

"Stella is because of stars - seven pointed coins - and also because she was the first one to go the 'space colonization' route.

"Amariah just goes by her second name - witches have two, and her second is similar to the standard middle name Marie, but not so close that she can't use it.

"Angela's kind of angel gets called 'angela', if they're women, to be polite, so she was used to getting called that and picked it up.

"Juliet is so called because her boyfriend once had a conversation with her through her bedroom window, and started calling her that, and she kept it when she pealed.

"Aegis has been calling herself that since she was little as a mythological reference - Athena's shield, referring to her mental opacity.

"Rose's mindscape is full of roses.

"Cam is just short for Campbell; he didn't have to change nicknames because we're otherwise all girls.

"Sarion is just Elvish for 'elfmage'.

"Aurora named herself after her mana color - mana is a thing with mages from her world.

"And Glass calls herself that because she uses glass a lot when working with her local magic."
tearingup: (⑦ try it your way)
Author: tearingup
He starts keeping count of some things after Amariah, then gives up again after Cam.

"So... species things, magic things, some plain old nicknames, one boy... what are you going to do if you find another boy? Cam the Second?"
bellfounding: (right)
Author: bellfounding
"If he's named Campbell and goes by Cam, I suppose they'll have to work something else out, yeah. He might not be named Campbell, though - the girls don't all match. It's usually Isabella, but there's a Bell and a Belle and an Isibel. The 'bel' part is the only guaranteed part."
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
"...The only other boy's name with a 'bel' in it that springs to mind is 'Cymbeline'," laughs Ripper.
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
"For all we know we'll find one of those," shrugs Bella. "But there's also 'Abel', and non-English names, and non-Earthly names for that matter."
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
"Belial," he suggests, now that he's thinking about it. "Belshazzar. Béla - or does the pronunciation matter? Sibelius? Not a first name, but half the time neither is Campbell."
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"Pronunciation has some wiggle room. Shell Bell and Aegis are native English speakers but have noticeable accents relative to standard because they're from the future; Rose and Glass and Sarion and Angela didn't originally speak English at all - although Rose's language is mutually intelligible with regular French and Angela's culture uses a lot of Biblical names - and the correct pronunciations of their full names are slightly affected by that."
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
"'Because they're from the future', right, I love how that's a sensible explanation now," he giggles.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
"Not the same future. Shell Bell grew up in a flooded dystopia where the totalitarian government had all the tech, Aegis grew up in space to learn to fight aliens," giggles Bella. "Angela's also from the future, but by a lot more, except her ancestors plunked down on this other planet, destroyed most of their technology and lied to their kids about the rest. She hasn't left the planet to check out the rest of civilization yet; she's trying to take it slow so she doesn't shock her population too badly, since the complete revelation involves telling them that God doesn't exist except in the form of a spaceship that addresses her as 'Captain'."
tearingup: (⑥ consider caution)
Author: tearingup
"...So Angela is from the future that tried to be the past," Ripper interprets. "And failed."
bellfounding: (reading)
Author: bellfounding
"Yeah, apparently they colonized the planet from someplace that had a lot of wars and thought it was technology's fault. There's supposed to be one person who knows about the god and the technology and stuff at any given time, so they can go up and fix the ship, if it needs it."
tearingup: (Default)
Author: tearingup
"Oh, that doesn't sound precarious at all," he snorts.
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
"It totally is, the chain was broken not long before Angela was born and the microphones that detect the weather-control songs weren't working," snorts Bella, "and another angel figured out what was wrong and fixed it. She's the one who told Angela, because - do you want this whole story or just the overview?"
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
"Let's have the story," he decides. "Does this palace have anywhere to sit down while I hear it?"
bellfounding: (talkative)
Author: bellfounding
"Yeah, sure," she says, and she leads him through the blue garden into the tower, where there is assorted seating upholstered in navy blue leather. She flops onto a couch. "So this other angel's name is Alleluia. The Archangel - the spaceship picks those, they serve twenty years, they are supposed to co-rule with a spouse the spaceship picks out for them - broke her wing, and Alleluia was picked to fill out the rest of her term; Archangels have to be able to fly so they can get near enough the microphones to sing prayers for weather and seeds and medicine to fall from the sky. The microphones were breaking, but the most important oracular site - read: ancient computer terminal - was standing unused, previous oracle died without picking a successor. So the spaceship was all, 'send help', but no one was reading the screen.

"Alleluia did some Archangeling, could not find her intended angelico because his tracking device all the babies on this world get implanted in their arms at birth was broken, and wound up teaching herself the oracular language and going to the empty oracle site and going up and replacing a circuit board. So then it worked again. Also her intended angelico found out what she was doing, went to the ship and got identified as such, and swiped some batteries from the ship, which he was able to use to fix the previous Archangel's broken wing well enough for her to fly. Alleluia became the oracle in the empty oracular site, all was well.

"Then, though, Angela finds us, and she takes some magic - she had misgivings about it, she was really religious, but she actually asked Alleluia to ask Jovah, that's the god's name, if magic was forbidden, and he said no. So she took it, and started doing covert miracles, and then there was this deformed baby born in her angel hold. So she swipes him and flies up where no one can see her, and asks Jovah to fix it, and of course he doesn't, because he's a spaceship, so she does it with magic and flies back down and tells everyone that Jovah did it - but Alleluia knew she was lying. So she confronted her and they swapped secrets, because Angela of course wanted to know how Alleluia could have figured out she was lying. Oh, and meanwhile, Angela had also asked who would be her angelico if she were ever named Archangel, and her Joker Micaiah who she'd already met was the answer, and so by the time she learned that Jovah was just a spaceship she was already married and knocked up. Bit of a rough day. They're okay though, they had four little cherubs last time I saw them."
tearingup: (② chew on things)
Author: tearingup
"Little cherubs meaning baby angels? The Joker with children, now there's a terrifying thought," laughs Ripper.
bellfounding: (beam)
Author: bellfounding
"Little angels, yeah, oldest one was ten last I saw her. Micaiah is definitely the sweetest Joker, though. Except literally in which case it's Jellybean. All the Joker kids I know about are doing fine - there's Angela's four, Rose's two who match Angela's eldest, and then the ones the Joker from here had with his vampire boyfriend."
tearingup: (③ sweeten the pot)
Author: tearingup
"There's a literal sweetest Joker?"
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
"Yeah, he's from Cam's world, and he used wizarding to make himself taste like candy, and now he has an enchanter's aura that does it much more effectively. I haven't sampled him, but it's easy to tell even from a distance even if it weren't for the other Jokers always mentioning it."
tearingup: (⑨ ask again)
Author: tearingup
Ripper contemplates the mental images invoked by this explanation.
bellfounding: (heh)
Author: bellfounding
Bella watches him contemplate this, amused.
tearingup: (④ welcome consequences)
Author: tearingup
"You know, I don't even know what the Joker looks like under all that makeup," he says musingly.
bellfounding: (pealing)
Author: bellfounding
"Want to see illusions of one or more of the deck? Since I'm assuming you'd let me know if you wanted an introduction to one of the ones here."
tearingup: (① laugh it off)
Author: tearingup
"Illusions! Bring on the illusions."
bellfounding: (lipbite)
Author: bellfounding
Since he didn't specify, she just conjures up all the known Jokers, including a miniature Ansharil with an equally illusory note stating that he is not to scale. She includes nametags in the conjuration. Also, Aianon appears wearing pants.
tearingup: (⑤ deny mercy)
Author: tearingup
"He doesn't look unusually sweet," says Ripper, examining Jellybean's illusion. "Cheerful, though."