Author: subtly_artistic | Emily has never had the pleasure of opening a door to Milliways, but she's willing - after Aether mediates for the wall-minded Aegis - to provide a long string of doors to try. Aether heads back to her room after Aegis is set up therewith. |
Author: pythbox | Someone just out of sight is walking down the hall, whistling.
Then she is not out of sight. |
Author: autokinetic | Aegis pauses in door-opening. She's invisible; the doors aren't. She sticks to the opposite side of the provided hall, floating weightlessly - using her custom flight ability, not her aura, having her aura out would defeat the purpose of invisibility. |
Author: pythbox | Callahan steps right up to her, looks directly at her, and smirks. |
Author: autokinetic | Aegis raises an eyebrow.
Experimentally, she waves. |
Author: pythbox | "Cute," says Callahan. |
Author: autokinetic | Aegis turns visible. "You must be Coach Callahan." |
Author: pythbox | "Got it in one," she says cheerfully. "What gave me away?" |
Author: autokinetic | "If there's a lotta people who look like you running around then Aether was seriously remiss in her description, she seems to think you ice universe-eating oomays for your morning constitutional." |
Author: pythbox | "You talk funny," Callahan observes. |
Author: autokinetic | "I can talk normal if I want," shrugs Aether. "Especially in a wished language. Just don't prefer to." |
Author: pythbox | "'Wished' language," snorts Callahan. "You people crack me up." |
Author: autokinetic | "We're super-entertaining. Wind us up, watch us go." |
Author: pythbox | "That's the idea," she says, grinning. |
Author: autokinetic | "Yeah, so I hear. You know the others didn't want me to talk to you because I have the civilian social skills of, like, a badly brought up possum, did you come looking for me or is this a wacky coincidence?" |
Author: pythbox | "No comment," snorts Callahan. |
Author: autokinetic | "I could swap in for Bell: Witch Pseudodeity Edition or Bell: The Boy One if you'd rather, is all," shrugs Aegis. |
Author: pythbox | "Oh, she's a pseudodeity, is she?" inquires Callahan, brightly. |
Author: autokinetic | "Kinda, I mean, I'm not sure what local definitions are like? She threw around some gigantic magic where she came from, picked up the entire afterlife, put it in a little subworld she made from scratch, she controls reality there," shrugs Aegis. "I'm not real clear on how you draw definition lines around 'deity', let alone 'pseudodeity'. She doesn't have much on me or Cam here. I mean, some, she's still a witch, but then Cam has his own stuff, I'm from a no-magic world so not me so much." |
Author: pythbox | "So what you're saying is, if I'm going to hang somebody's head on my wall, she'd be the place to start," says Callahan. "Good to know." |
Author: autokinetic | Aegis thinks about this. "She said you had, like, sharp objects on your walls. Is this different walls or metaphorical walls or what?" |
Author: pythbox | "Metaphorical walls," Callahan assures her. "When I kill gods, I don't keep trophies." |
Author: autokinetic | "There's a few of us who'd fight you for fun as long as we didn't have to do it here." |
Author: pythbox | "But if you didn't do it here, we couldn't use mockboxes," says Callahan, grinning again. |
Author: autokinetic | "I dunno what those are, but I bet outside of here we could rig something up that worked like 'em, easy," shrugs Aegis. |
Author: pythbox | "Ask the local," she says. "Actually, ask Celo, I'm not sure the local you would know a mockbox if it bit her on the ass." |
Author: autokinetic | "Will do." |
Author: pythbox | "So let me guess," she says, "you're on Milliways summoning duty?" |
Author: autokinetic | "Yeah." |
Author: pythbox | "Wanna see a neat trick?" |
Author: autokinetic | "Depends completely on the trick." |
Author: pythbox | Callahan beams innocently. |
Author: autokinetic | "Amariah said you wouldn't open a door for her even when she offered to trade you her spiffy knife she killed a god's right-hand angel with. So if that's it I must be way charminger than everyone thinks I am." |
Author: pythbox | "I might open a door," she says. "Or I might cut your head off. Only one way to find out. You guys like experiments, don't you?" |
Author: autokinetic | "Controlled ones. Also last time somebody tried to kill me it was way classier than decapitation." |
Author: pythbox | "No such thing," Callahan says promptly. |
Author: autokinetic | "No, it really was, they got hold of a superweapon that wasn't supposed to be anywhere in the solar system and launched it at my ship." |
Author: pythbox | "I mean," she says, "no such thing as a classy way to die." |
Author: autokinetic | "I didn't die," says Aegis. "Technically. Some of us have died, though. None of it was very classy but there was definitely an ordering, you've got your car crash and your misaimed magic and your assisted suicide to escape a magic bond and your nuclear explosion." She makes gestures, ranking these from least to most classy. |
Author: pythbox | "Hmm. I disagree," says Callahan. "Dead is dead. How you got there only matters to the people who write the ballads." |
Author: autokinetic | "Dead isn't very dead for those ones. We get to - well, actually none of 'em wrote ballads, but Juliet amuses herself telling the story sometimes." |
Author: pythbox | Callahan snorts derisively. |
Author: autokinetic | Aegis shrugs. |
Author: pythbox | She shakes her head. "You're not nearly as much fun as I was expecting." |
Author: autokinetic | "What were you expecting?" shrugs Aegis, swaying. "Like, I'm usually all kinds of interesting, but right now I'm kinda preoccupied, I miss my boyfriend and Jane and stuff and your world is kuso, I want to go home." |
Author: pythbox | "Nah," says Callahan, "I think you're just naturally boring." |
Author: autokinetic | "Okay, I'll just open some more doors I guess," shrugs Aegis, and she floats towards the next one. |
Author: pythbox | Callahan smirks. |
Author: autokinetic | Aegis gets a door.
She grins, stands in the way of its reclosing, and brainphones the other three Bells and two Jokers. |
Author: pythbox | Callahan snorts and walks away. |
Author: dark_light | The Bells who can teleport bring those who cannot to Aegis's side, and they all cram through the door eagerly. |