Author: small_magics | Aianon has made a plant in the open airless space above the surface of Thilanushinyel. It is a very, very large plant - some dragons will be attending the party, after all, even if Ansharil in particular is going to be assorted small things and stay on Sarion's person the bulk of the time.
The locals will be Sarion, her beloveds, their other beloved, the five conjured dragons (and their Bondmates, where applicable: Virgivere and Lissa), and Liselen - Magania has, as usual, declined, and so far no Bell party has featured Bell parents.
Amariah is bringing her boyfriend and spontaneous daughter and two of the spontaneous daughter's friends, as well as an Alethian instance of the Rupert template.
Shell Bell is bringing Pearl and Screwdriver.
Golden is bringing her usual large contingent, as usual not including her husband but including her daughter and daughter's grown fosterling (the other remaining at home) and his wolf, both mothers-in-law and one father-in-law, adopted siblings, staff members including the Joker and Nathan, and the children of the aforementioned.
Glass is bringing both wives, all three daughters, Kanim, and her cat. She invited Icarin and Valeria, but their parents are not willing to let them gallivant into other worlds unsupervised and had a scheduling conflict.
Stella's bringing a smattering of people including Alice, Anna, Sandy, Libby, Bridget, her college roommate Janine, and Lazarus.
Tab is bringing Aelise (but not Kers) and Luhan.
Etty is bringing only Nona.
Aether, likewise, brings no one but Celo.
Pattern comes with Ripper, Slipstick, Queenie, and Ghosty.
Aegis is accompanied by her four-bodied boyfriend, Merryweather, Whitlock, and Howlett.
Aurora comes with Brilliance, Lexi with her Device Persica, Agent Honey with her Device Adularia, and Beth.
Rose brings her husband and three children and her former apprentice, Luc.
Angela brings her husband, her four children, several of her friends, and some of those friends' children and grandchildren with and without wings. Keziah also brings a friend.
Juliet shows up with Soph, Minus, Red, Giles, James, Virginia, Minnie, Ike, and Val.
Cam brings Jellybean and Tilly and stops there.
And from unBelled worlds hail additional Sherlocks and Tonies, Darcy, Matilda, Pepper, and Eights. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | Elspeth, uncommonly but not uncharacteristically, is dancing in the corner of the space plant currently supplied with the music of an angelic choir. Jacob is with her, dancing less beautifully but not badly. |
Author: yourheartstrings | A Joker-flavoured sense of presence close by becomes the rapidly assembling body of Ghosty, already dancing even before she has muscles to move her bones or skin to cover them. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Hi, Ghosty!" |
Author: yourheartstrings | "Hiiii," says Ghosty, twirling her way into a lovely black dress with a long swirly skirt. "How've you been?" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I'm doing fine. Felicity burned down the house, but it and he were both fixable." |
Author: yourheartstrings | "Ooh," she says sympathetically. "Any other casualties?" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Nope. He took his poof out beforehand, even." |
Author: yourheartstrings | "Awwwwwwwww. That's sweet," she declares. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Yes. And he didn't want to come to the party today, which is convenient since I hadn't decided whether it would be a good idea to bring him or not at all." |
Author: yourheartstrings | "Proooobably better not to," sighs Ghosty. "How's he doing in general?" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Not very talkative. He likes the computer games. He fixes food for himself, he'll eat what Jake conjures, he wanders around the island. He didn't register any opinions on colors or anything when I offered him a set of pajamas, so I made something up, but I did get him to pick out which bedroom he wanted. He seems to find it entertaining when I fail dismally at lying." |
Author: yourheartstrings | "Huh," says Ghosty. "Mm, one sec."
She dissipates; a short time passes, but longer than a literal second; she reappears— |
Author: pythbox | —accompanied by Corona, who declines to dance.
"What's it like when you fail dismally at lying?" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "My name is Kelly," asserts Elspeth. (Nope. It is not. It is very much not Kelly. At all.) |
Author: pythbox | ...Corona cracks up.
"That's beautiful," he says. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "What's so great about it?" |
Author: pythbox | "You mean apart from being hilarious?" He grins and shakes his head; the grin fades. "It means you can't lie. Sounding all trustworthy all the time is one thing, but there are people who can sound all trustworthy and still be lying. It happens. You can't." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I can actually lie to people who haven't ever heard me say anything true before, but obviously most people don't fall into that category." |
Author: pythbox | "Right, yeah. And he doesn't. That's the important part. He's not going to give a fuck if you can lie to anybody else." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "What would he be imagining I'd lie about?" |
Author: pythbox | "Anything. Everything. How safe he is. Whether or not somebody's going to hurt him if he fucks up." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Oh. Well, I can't, and he burned the house down anyway." |
Author: pythbox | "...I'm not following," says Corona. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "He was going to be testing boundaries and so on, right? He burned down the house, and when I asked him he said he didn't have fun, so he wasn't just doing it for kicks. So I guess my not being able to lie convincingly isn't completely closing the gap in his confidence." |
Author: pythbox | "I bet it didn't," says Corona, "but I also bet it helps. And that's not the only reason he might burn the house down, anyway." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "What reasons am I missing?" |
Author: pythbox | "...I'm not sure if 'reason' is even the word," says Corona. "Just. Sometimes he'll do things that don't make any sense. He'll hurt himself or hurt somebody else or cry for days or break things, not because he's trying to get anything out of it, not because he decides to, but just because he has to do something and that's what came up. It won't all necessarily be destructive, either. I used to clean things a lot. The kitchen, my room, other people's rooms, whatever I could get my hands on." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I see." |
Author: pythbox | Corona shrugs.
"If he's like me. We still don't know for sure. We're the same cluster, but we're the only two of it so far. I'm more - fragile, I guess, than other Jokers, and we're pretty sure my cluster has something to do with it, but we're not sure sure." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "How much is known about the clusters, apart from that they exist and Glass can see them? I mean, I've been informed that I'm 'green', but I don't know what to do with that, either." |
Author: pythbox | "We know some things about 'em," says Corona. "Not a lot. There's only the one big one with all those Jokers in it, and then the rest of us." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I might be able to provide more insight if I'd judgesighted you or Felicity, but I haven't." |
Author: pythbox | "Yeah," says Corona. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | She doesn't press that point, but: "Felicity mentioned his stepfather's name. It's not the usual unpleasant parental figure name." |
Author: pythbox | Corona nods. "It's stepfathers for us, fathers for the big cluster, mostly fathers for everybody else - all the ones with the 'usual unpleasant parental figure name' are in the big cluster." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Hmm." |
Author: pythbox | "Only me'n'Felicity and the big cluster have anybody with a Gotham attached," he adds. "We think that's probably important but we're not sure how." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "I don't know either." |
Author: pythbox | "Yeah," says Corona, "figures. None of us have much to go on." |
Author: alicornucopia | Jake puts in, "Is whatever you're avoiding saying something Elsie had better know to deal with Felicity?" |
Author: pythbox | Corona looks at Jake. "It's... part of it, the kind of big main crucial part, is something that I think it would be better for Felicity if he gets to tell her himself. And I don't know how much I can give you around the edges before you'll get the middle." Looking at Elsie again, "You know our best guess at what he'll be like; knowing our best guess at why is a lot less important." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Okay," says Elspeth. "I can wait." |
Author: pythbox | "Yeah." He smiles slightly. "I figured." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "As long as we're on the subject, do you have a general idea of how long it's okay to leave him by himself on the island, given that loneliness is known to be a problem? By himself except for his poof, I mean, which he'll have unless he throws it into the sea." |
Author: pythbox | He is quiet for a moment, perhaps consulting other Jokers.
Then he says, "A general idea - a few days is fine; a week might hurt; a month is probably bad." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Okay, then we shouldn't run into any problems there. I had been wondering if it would be a good idea to stop briefly at home mid-party." |
Author: pythbox | "It wouldn't hurt to. He'd probably like it. But it wouldn't hurt not to, either," says Corona. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Do you think I should offer him a Janegem?" |
Author: pythbox | "You could. He might not take it," he says. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Of course. It would mostly be useful in case he spontaneously learned to freecast. He can already talk to her at any time as long as he's at home, and he could turn it off if he didn't want her looking at him." |
Author: pythbox | "Well, he doesn't have Harley's reason to spontaneously freecast," says Corona. "But yeah, it could happen. Would you miss him if it did?" |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Not yet, really, I'm still quite prepared for him to ask for a ride to a randomly selected world's version of some large city and some of the local currency. If he stays long enough, of course." |
Author: pythbox | "I think maybe you better not offer him a Janegem until you would," he says. "If spontaneous freecasting is the reason. He won't take a way to come back unless he thinks he'll want to. And even if you tell him all about what happened to Harley, I don't think he'll expect to want to come back unless he expects you to miss him and cares that you would." |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Okay, I'll wait on that then." |
Author: pythbox | He nods. |
Author: her_imperial_radiance | "Thank you," Elspeth adds. |
Author: pythbox | Corona smiles. |