Author: self_composed | Bella schedules an appointment at Stanford. She breezes through sixteen hours of motorcycle class, mostly by demonstrating that the instructor is redundant and wouldn't he rather teach her exotic motorcycle tricks and then just mark her as passing the course? She plays in a soccer game against a Port Angeles high school and wins. She starts driving her bike to school, and she names it Tegu after a lizard of similar coloring, because it needed a name.
On Friday evening she's due to fly out, crash in a Stanford grad student's house overnight, interview on Saturday, and fly home that evening. She bikes for the airport, black leather gold-studded saddlebags over Tegu's back wheel carrying her luggage. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice, having no demands on his time that he can't blow off for this, flies invisibly overhead. |
Author: self_composed | He's not invisible to Bella, though. [Tagging along?] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yup.]
Because that is what he would rather be doing. And also she looks really good on that thing. |
Author: self_composed | [I have good design sense,] Bella sends. [Going to stow invisibly onto the plane or just try to chase it the whole way?] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | The second option sounds way more fun!
[Might as well find out if I can do that, right?] |
Author: self_composed | [Don't get sucked into an engine; you'll crash my plane,] Bella says. [And you'll probably need to magic goggles and maybe some way to breathe up high, but I assume you're stocked up on coins of all kinds.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yup.]
His necklace is getting so long that 'necklace' is really no longer the word. |
Author: self_composed | [I'm wearing mine like a half-bandolier, half-belt,] Bella offers. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice envisions this.
[Yeah, that'd work,] he concludes. He just has his looped a ridiculous number of times around his neck, but Bella's configuration sounds much more stable. Of course. Because she's Bella. |
Author: self_composed | [It didn't come off when I got hit by the car,] Bella points out. [Although it's getting heavy. By the time it gets long enough to need another twist over the other shoulder I'll probably start stashing extras in Elias's old trunk.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Sounds like a plan. And when that gets full we can make more of 'em.]
Because Alice is not going to stop producing coins anytime soon, and he produces a lot of them, especially on days when he doesn't have much else to do. |
Author: self_composed | [Unless I find a good use for a lot of coins that's as fast or faster than your rate of making them,] Bella says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [What the fuck could you possibly need that much magic for?]
Not that he doesn't enjoy the thought of having to make even more. |
Author: self_composed | [Running the world,] Bella suggests. [How many hexes do you think it would take to render, say, malaria, extinct? I'm not sure I can even do it with hexes, not without investing a lot of time in travel and finding people who have it and mosquitoes that carry it. That kind of thing might take a star.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Betcha I could make a star.]
He's been trying, but he hasn't been trying very hard. Pain at the hex level is distractingly sexy. |
Author: self_composed | [I bet you could,] she says. [I don't want to use any stars, yet, until I know why they are dangerous, when the other wishes are so safe to use while paying a modicum of attention.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [That is because you are smart,] Alice says cheerfully. |
Author: self_composed | [Yep. Also, things on the scale of eradicating malaria will attract attention, and I bet you a clever wishcoiner could find me via some divinatory power as soon as they knew to look. I have to find out more, I have to be more secure and informed. Even though people are dying of malaria right now.] She does not like this. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [There's more where those came from,] Alice points out. Death doesn't bother him the way it bothers her. He thinks it would be pretty awesome if she did manage to get rid of it, but he's not going to complain if she doesn't, or if it takes a while. |
Author: self_composed | [People aren't replaceable like that. Everyone knows this about people they've actually met; you just have to extend it - I mean, there are more people where I came from. I would assume you don't want me to die, at least given that it doesn't appeal to me.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I'd be fucking wrecked if you died,] he says. His voice is calm, casual; the emotions behind it are anything but. [So?]
He would suffer a lot, but suffering is not exactly new and different for him. And there are seven billion more people on the planet, and odds are there's at least one or two more that he could love this much. If he stuck around long enough to find them. |
Author: self_composed | [But not if they die of malaria first,] Bella says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I don't think you're getting this,] Alice says dryly.
People, as individuals, aren't replaceable. Everyone is exactly themselves. The loss of a person is a loss. But except in a very few cases, it's not a loss that Alice personally cares about, and even for those—even for the one he knows would completely take him apart—he doesn't think they are irreplaceable in the sense that the world becomes a permanently worse place every time someone leaves it. It just keeps on being the world, with these people instead of those ones. |
Author: self_composed | [I lose you around the part where you don't think the world is worse when people are dying of malaria regularly, than it would be if people were not doing that,] Bella says. [I don't individually care about everyone personally - it's just shitty that they have to die, so I care about them impersonally and will see that they stop doing that.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Well, yeah,] says Alice. [And that's awesome. It just doesn't piss me off that a bunch of people are dying right now who wouldn't be if you'd fixed it already.] |
Author: self_composed | [Well, that's good, because if you were you might have to be pissed off at me.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yeah, that's not gonna happen.]
Or at least, he can't imagine how. |
Author: self_composed | [Anyway. I will learn things and meet people and design-and-acquire personal superpowers and find out what the hell is wrong with the stars, and then I will take over the world and I will fix it. Step next: interview at Stanford.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I love you,] Alice says happily. |
Author: self_composed | Bella switches to text mode, so she can send him: [:)]
She reaches the airport, and parks Tegu, and boards her plane. [Where are you at?] she asks; he wants to chase the plane, he'll be outside somewhere. [How're you planning to find my plane?] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Well, which one is it?] he asks reasonably, and indulges in idle speculation about a Bella-compass power. |
Author: self_composed | [I don't know, they all look the same from the inside. This is gate twelve, are the gates numbered on the outside?] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He circles.
[Yup! Got it!]
Just for fun, he hovers outside her window. |
Author: self_composed | Bella eyes him, amused.
[Hello to you too.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He giggles.
[Hi!] he says, waving.
[So, about the breathing thing. What if I want to make it so I don't need to breathe, but I can still feel like I need to breathe?] |
Author: self_composed | [You're into autoerotic asphyxiation too?] Bella sighs. [Well, you could always decouple the two things - attach the sense of needing to breathe only to how much breathing you've been doing lately, not to how much oxygen that's been getting you. And have oxygenation and de-carbonization handled magically.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Mmm,] he says, and contemplates this with the help of his pentagonal understanding of the human body. [Yeah, that sounds... well, not quite.]
He'd much rather have it work more like the healing power: make a change that always works, except while he is telling it not to. So he can safely enjoy, say, drowning, and as soon as he stops holding off the magical gas exchange, his lungs become irrelevant again; but for things like this flight, he won't be constantly distracted by the thinness of the air. |
Author: self_composed | [Handling a lungful of water is a different matter from just not breathing,] Bella muses. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Whaddya mean?] |
Author: self_composed | [Well, how are you planning to get the water out? Just coughing and coughing for a few minutes? And it can't be good for salinity either.] She's poking his medical skill now. [Whether it's freshwater or salt. If you just refrain from breathing, you don't have that problem. If you want to be able to inhale any random substance and suffer pleasantly and then cease at a moment of your choosing, you're looking at something more complicated.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Square,] he says succinctly. [It's not like I'm gonna take up drowning as a hobby.] |
Author: self_composed | [I couldn't reasonably have guessed that,] Bella points out. [Putting a swimming pool in your lair and drowning five times a day, six on Sundays, is exactly the sort of thing you would do. Anyway. I still think it makes the most sense to tie your subjective sensations to how much breathing you've been getting done - make that the state of affairs when you suppress the power, so normally it won't trouble you, normally you'll feel fine and oxygenated - and meanwhile render breathing biologically irrelevant.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yeah, but the effects of not having enough oxygen are actually a part of the experience,] he argues. [Why fake it when I don't have to?]
Also, there is no way on Earth he would keep to a routine anywhere near that regular. But that's kind of beside the point. |
Author: self_composed | [So you don't pass out by miscalibrating?] Bella says. [You can't make any wishes - such as taking the water out of your lungs and preventing it from doing whatever nasty stuff water will do in your lungs, preventing breathing aside - if you pass out.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [It's not actually gonna kill me, though.] Or at least the risk of it doing so is acceptably low. [So I can just fix it later.] |
Author: self_composed | [How about this: three states for the power,] Bella says. [By default, you don't need to breathe, but you will anyway if you're not paying attention, so you don't freak out observers. Change it on purpose, and you can inhale whatever you want, suffer the usual effects uninhibited, fun stuff. Fall unconscious, and you don't need to breathe anymore and your body will not automatically try to do it in case that would make things worse, but will expel whatever's in your lungs at the time.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Unconscious as distinct from sleeping, because that could get awkward fast.] |
Author: self_composed | [I'm not sure how distinct passing out due to oxygen deprivation and sleep actually are,] Bella says. Her plane is starting to taxi. [But I guess magic is pretty good at telling those kinds of things apart.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yeah, they are actually not that similar,] says Alice.
He double-checks the power, holding the whole thing in his head to see if it feels like he missed anything. Nope. Okay.
A hexagon disappears from his necklace, and he experimentally holds his breath. |
Author: self_composed | Good timing, too, the plane's starting to take off. [Well?] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice giggles over brainphone and gives her a thumbs-up. |
Author: self_composed | Bella smirks and starts trying to nap on the plane. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | It turns out that Alice has absolutely no problem keeping pace with Bella's window. He also feels absolutely no need to breathe, although he tries it once the plane levels off, just to see what happens. It feels kinda weird. No suffocation, though.
Whee! |
Author: self_composed | It's a medium-sized flight. Bella gets off at the San Francisco airport and meets the helpful grad student who's hosting her overnight. [Blue Camry,] she informs Alice, when said grad student has showed Bella to her car in the parking lot. [Parking lot A.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Oh, like I know what one of those looks like,] he says, and contemplates whether he would rather have encyclopedic knowledge of cars or a Bella-compass. Definitely the second one. |
Author: self_composed | [That seems awfully narrow. Why not just a general tracking power?] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Okay, a person-compass,] Alice amends. [But I don't wanna always know where everyone is. That would get old fast. So a person-compass that tells me where somebody is if I ask it.]
He burns the hex, focuses on Bella, and follows his shiny new directional sense to the car in question. |
Author: self_composed | The grad student, whose name is Myra, pulls out onto the road. Bella makes small talk, about what she's studying (programming), and shows off a little in case anyone is going to ask this girl what the prospective student she hosted was like. Or in case she'll go on to be useful in her own right.
[What are you going to do overnight?] Bella asks Alice. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Fucked if I know,] he says serenely. |
Author: self_composed | [Okay. It isn't going to involve breaking into Myra's apartment, because that would be creepy,] Bella informs him. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Wait, what exactly would be creepy?] |
Author: self_composed | [Breaking into Myra's apartment invisibly and crashing there overnight where I'm going to be, would be creepy.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Oh.]
Alice actually thinks it would be perfectly reasonable to sleep invisibly on the floor next to wherever Bella is sleeping, as long as Bella didn't mind. But she does, so that's out.
How about the roof? Is the roof creepy? |
Author: self_composed | [Not enough that I'd make a fuss about it.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [...That implies some, though,] he says. [How is the roof creepy?] |
Author: self_composed | [Well,] Bella says. [Would Myra and her roommates want you on the roof? If you did it visibly, would they tell you to come down, and call the cops if you wouldn't? You're thinking it's an apartment in an apartment building, but we don't know that; what if she has a shared house thing? If it's an apartment building it's probably against some rule but not creepy, I suppose.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I don't think it's creepy. Unless somebody in that house is really attached to their roof, anyway.] |
Author: self_composed | [They could have skylights,] Bella says. [Including into bedrooms or bathrooms.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Having a skylight into your bathroom is creepy,] says Alice. [Me sleeping near one isn't unless I look in it. Maybe I'll just break into a hotel, that won't creep anybody out.] |
Author: self_composed | [Most people are never on roofs to make skylights problematic,] Bella says. [Breaking into a hotel is... well, no, not creepy, but they can book those rooms at any time of night.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Huh, I guess I could just get a room,] he says. It's not the first way that occurred to him, but he doesn't actually object. |
Author: self_composed | [That'd work. You do have several million dollars.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yep! I keep forgetting.]
Not in the literal sense of not being able to call the information to mind, because he has a perfect memory and also it's kind of memorable, but he never thinks of the three million dollars first when considering solutions to problems. |
Author: self_composed | [Maybe you'll get used to it.] She's half-ignoring Myra now, who is droning on about her thesis. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Meh.] |
Author: self_composed | Myra finally pulls up to her place - which is indeed more houselike than apartment building like. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Damn. Guess he's not sleeping on the roof after all. |
Author: self_composed | Bella lets Myra show her the couch she'll be sleeping on. It's getting kind of late, and her interview is early. [I'm going to crash as soon as Myra's roomies over there finish their video game and get off my couch,] Bella says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Okay,] says Alice, and thinks wistfully of sleeping on the floor beside said couch, and starts hunting for a nearby hotel and somewhere convenient to de-invisible. |
Author: self_composed | [Someone would trip over you anyway,] Bella says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Are people actually going to be sneaking past your couch while you sleep? Because speaking of creepy...] |
Author: self_composed | [It would be impolite not to sneak, if they need a midnight snack or something,] Bella says. [It's a crampy little house.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Well, that would be hilarious.] |
Author: self_composed | [If they tripped on you? Slightly, I suppose. Mostly inconvenient.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yep.]
Ooh, hotel. Alice lands in a nice out-of-the-way corner. |
Author: self_composed | [I bet you're going to follow me to my interview, too,] Bella guesses. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Yep!] |
Author: self_composed | [Just don't be distracting or pull pranks on anyone I need to impress,] she sighs. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I won't!] |
Author: self_composed | [Good pet masochist,] she says approvingly. Myra's roommates have finished their game and cleared off the sofa. Bella ducks into a bathroom to change into her pajamas. [See you in the morning.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [See ya,] he echoes, and also loves her very much. |
Author: self_composed | Bella goes to couch.
She wakes up in plenty of time to get into her nice slacks and blouse and accept Myra's ride to campus, and she uses her little map of Stanford to find the building in which she is meant to have her interview. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | And Alice tags along like a guardian angel - invisible, unobtrusive, and airborne.
And watching you. |
Author: self_composed | [Behave,] is all Bella tells him as she holds the front door of the building open for an extra second to let him brush past.
She finds the room number, checks the time on her phone, and sits down to wait the remaining two minutes to spare. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Invisible Alice tucks himself quietly into an out-of-the-way corner. |
Author: self_composed | Bella's interviewer opens the door when Bella knocks, but says, "I'm running just a few minutes late, I'll be with you in a moment."
"That's fine," Bella says.
A few minutes later the interviewer reemerges. "Come in," he says. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Is there room for Alice in there? He is inclined to find out! |
Author: self_composed | The office is full of books, but it is not incapable of holding three people. [Don't sit in the extra chair,] Bella says, [you'll indent it funny.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Wasn't gonna,] he says cheerfully, and sits on the floor next to Bella's chair. |
Author: self_composed | The interviewer starts asking Bella about soccer (yes, she would be thrilled to join the Stanford team; she's currently playing forward but she would be content in any position where she seemed suited) and flute (yes, she would be thrilled to participate in orchestra; she has little performing experience but isn't generally prone to stage fright, and she's certainly good enough at flute, would he like to hear (he wouldn't)) and academics (she wants to keep her options open, but she is interested in the sciences, and maybe politics, and she can already program but would like to learn more languages and get more developing experience) and other semirandom questions presumably intended to determine her fit into the school culture.
Bella handles the interview very well.
She pentagoned interviewing skills first thing in the morning. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice sits very quietly the whole time, gazing adoringly up at Bella. She is just so great, okay? Okay. |
Author: self_composed | "So you want to start in the fall - without finishing high school?" the interviewer finally asks.
"If I can," Bella says earnestly. "I like Forks, but it's small - there's not a lot of resources there. I can only do so much without a lot of other people - world-class people - to learn from. Besides, I don't feel really challenged by high school work. I do it, but I'd rather be stretching myself more."
"Mm," says the interviewer. "All right, Bella, we'll get back to you in a few weeks."
"Thanks for your time," she says politely, and she gets up. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice, naturally, follows. |
Author: self_composed | [Now I have an hour to wander around looking at stuff and grab lunch,] Bella says, [and then I'm supposed to meet the soccer coach real quick because I don't have enough of a game record to substantiate my claims of fantastic talent, and then I audition for the orchestra conductor.] She hefts her bag, which contains her flute, and swings it onto her back. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Fun,] says Alice. [So, you think you'll get in?]
He thinks she'll get in. |
Author: self_composed | [Maybe. They're paying me lots of attention, so they at least think I'm in, but there could be bad luck, or a necessary recommender who takes a dislike to me, or a dozen more ridiculously qualified people who play basketball and violin and also spent two years working with tsunami victims or something.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | It's kind of a ridiculous system, when he thinks about it. |
Author: self_composed | [Hmm?] She's admiring buildings, and the nice weather. [Ridiculous how?] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I dunno, the whole getting-into-college process? Like, what does working with tsunami victims have to do with it?] |
Author: self_composed | [So if you were running a school and ten thousand people applied and you could only take two thousand, which ones would you take?] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I wouldn't run a fucking school,] says Alice. [And if I did, I'd pick people for terrible reasons. But we scrounge up enough high schools for everybody somehow; why not enough colleges? There's even less people!] |
Author: self_composed | [Well, yes,] Bella says. [I assure you that if I went to a tiny, terrible community college in Port Angeles, all I would have to demonstrate would be basic literacy. Maybe they'd want to make sure I could add. The good schools are good because they're selective - people want to go there so they can get the best teachers, and fraternize with the best classmates. There aren't enough bests to go around for everyone.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [I still think it's weird,] Alice maintains. He doesn't have a solution, but he doesn't see why that should stop him. |
Author: self_composed | Bella snorts quietly. [Well, that's the system, so I'm gaming it.] There's a dining hall over there; she decides to see if they'll feed her or if she has to be a student. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice tags along. When it occurs to him that any food he conjures will get a free ride on his invisibility as long as he doesn't drop it, he spends a square on a turkey sandwich. |
Author: self_composed | Bella pays for a one-meal pass to the dining hall and tastes small dollops of various offerings from the buffets. [Well. Nothing phenomenal here. The macaroni and the lemon pie is okay though.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Meh,] says Alice. [I'll stick with my invisible lunch.] |
Author: self_composed | [Enjoy,] Bella says lightly. [Man, the weather is nice here. It's like I've time-traveled to a land in which it is already spring.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [It's pretty great,] he agrees. [Snow's fun, too, though.] |
Author: self_composed | [Well, I imagine I'll visit Charlie some holidays, when I'm not going to see Renée instead.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [And if I do the magic doors thing, I can just bounce around until I find weather I'm in the mood for, anyway.]
Magic is awesome!
[What's your mom like, anyway?] |
Author: self_composed | [Well, she looks a lot like me, but we're not that similar in personality] Bella says. [She has no long-term attention span. I think the only reason she can teach kindergarten is that she gets to forget she was doing it once a year. Hobbies and stuff she's intense about for a few months, then drops. In a lot of ways she's very childlike - she used to screw up things like depositing her paychecks, never bad enough that we went hungry or couldn't pay the mortgage if the bank called to yell at her, but bad enough to be scary, so I learned how to help her with that sort of thing as soon as I could. She's good at her job, she's never embarrassed not to know how to do something new, she's often very insightful about people and how they relate to each other while completely missing plenty of relevant implications of whatever she's spotted.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Huh,] says Alice. [I kinda like her already.]
That's not new, though. He likes a lot of people! |
Author: self_composed | [She might well like you too.]
Bella finishes lunch and departs the cafeteria. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | That is a pleasing notion to contemplate! He bounces happily after her. |
Author: self_composed | Bella explores Stanford, wending her way to where she's supposed to meet the soccer coach.
The soccer coach is in the soccer field with the soccer players.
Bella waits politely for her attention, and then introduces herself.
"So you're some kind of prodigy now that your ear's fixed, I hear," says the coach.
"I've only had a chance to play against high schoolers, but I think so," Bella says modestly.
"Great. You're a forward? Go shoot goals against Mackenzie."
Bella goes and shoots goals against Mackenzie. Bella has only excellent-human-level soccer skills and Mackenzie is pretty good, so Bella misses one of twenty goals. She does not miss the other nineteen.
"Damn," says the coach. "I had some other stuff for you to do but I think I'm done." |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice giggles over brainphone. |
Author: self_composed | Bella warmly expresses her enthusiasm for playing soccer at Stanford and bids the coach goodbye. [I wonder if I should feel bad about cheating,] she muses, heading for the orchestra conductor's office. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Nope,] says Alice, predictably. |
Author: self_composed | [I suppose I probably shouldn't feel any worse than people who really do have this level of genetic gift do. I mean, I'll actually show up to practices; I don't have the history of putting the effort in but I will in the future. Still. Seems vaguely like doping or something.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | [Well, I don't think you should feel bad that you're cheating, but I'm not gonna tell you you're not cheating.] |
Author: self_composed | Bella mentally laughs. She doesn't laugh aloud; she does not wish to look like a crazy person. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | He grins at her. |
Author: self_composed | Bella has a half-hour wait for the flute audition, since the soccer one didn't last long.
She makes sure no one is looking, and conjures herself a novel. Jane Austen. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Is there room for Alice to sit down and lean his head on her knee? He would like to do that. |
Author: self_composed | There is. Bella doesn't pet him - someone could come around the corner at any moment - but she does smile a bit. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Yay!
This is an excellent place to be and Bella is an excellent friend to have. |
Author: self_composed | Eventually the orchestra conductor shows up and leads Bella into his office. She plays pieces from memory - showoffy complicated ones - and reads music and transposes things in her head and plays a duet with him.
He seems suitably impressed, though he doesn't cut off the audition partway through like the soccer coach did. |
Author: edgeofyourseat | Alice sits where nobody will trip over him and... enjoys the music.
Enjoys it a lot, in fact. |
Author: self_composed | Bella cleans and puts away her flute, making concluding small talk with the conductor, and walks out. [I'm supposed to catch an airport shuttle next - I have all my stuff on me,] she says. [Flight's in four hours.] |
Author: edgeofyourseat | ['kay,] says Alice. [Think I'll head back early.]
Pretty much entirely because he already checked out of his hotel room and he wants to go enjoy that music some more in a place Bella will not consider creepy. |
Author: self_composed | Bella laughs silently, and heads for the place where the airport shuttle will appear.
A few hours later, she's riding Tegu home. |